Week One of Sculpture Elective

First day of sculpture was brain storming but this envolved moving around on the floor adding words to everyones A1 sheets (a novel way of doing it) but this way we got a lot more words to play around with. We each chose ten words which interested us and then narrowed it down to three Tutuor then discussed with each of us which of the words might take us the furthest with our project. My word was to layer or stack. 

Did another stack to add to the top

This was fine but it lacked colour so I continued on with the layering stacking idea in mind and something much bigger

I started with wallpaper because I like the way it falls in folds and layers and you can stick different things in between the gaps in the folds. I did not realize how much wallpaper it would take as the structure was five and a half feet high. I like to work with colour and I bought lots of coloured tissue and crepe paper but I thought I needed something else of a different shape and a solid structure to give it more interest. I got some water bottles and swished some paint around the bottom of the inside and stuck them here and there.

                                         Even at lunch time I found myself layering and stacking.

            I tried stacking it with different things to see what it would look like but it didn't look right

                                                            Close up of the layers

One senario, but not the best

                                                                         Try again

I liked this work above by Andrea Myers the sculpture explores the space inbetween 2-dimentional and 3-dimentional objects, using a mixture of methods that are influenced by painting and painterly effects. In this piece layering fabrics as a painter would layer colours of paint.

Next piece I made was out of perspex rods superglue and I draped some coloured wool around it

These perspex rods were very long and thin difficult to work with but had the desired effect I wanted

Hanging the coloured wool reminded me of one of Eva Hess's pieces

                                                                         A piece by Eva Hess

Next piece was done with wire coloured crepe paper and knitted pieces of wool, they reminded me of a totum pole or a couple of people having a chat

Rag Week & Sculpture Elective

It was great to get a bit of a break although you are never really away from it, always thinking about what you are going to do next and all those people you have to research. Went to dublin for a long week-end, went to a few galleries first Hugh Lane saw the usual paintings which are of interest for history of art and because they are the beautiful classics anyway. Beautiful mad skies by Nathaniel Hone (pity you are not allowed to photograph)

Also saw Francis Bacon video interview and his studio donated in its entirity to the gallery. It is behind glass lock stock and barrell, what an interesting mess!!

Also went to the Project Arts Centre where there was a sculpture exhibition by Mikala Dwyer said to be one of Australia's most important contemporary artists, just what I need for my next elective sculpture.

Add a coloured background for reflections

                                                                   Great use of coins

Ceramics

We have just finished our two week elective on ceramics and I must say I did enjoy it, possibly because you don't have to approach it backsideways to give it some meaning! We learned many things from Elaine and Kieran from coiling, slabbing, pinch potting, throwing and something I had never heard of before Raku.

We packed a lot into just two weeks from video's on ceramic artists such as John Ffrench with his beautiful brightly coloured works influenced by his studies in Florence and further afield to Annie Turner who's sensitive ceramic forms reflect on the tidal rhythms, natural meanderings and contrasting landscapes of the River to create very interesting pieces.

We had many demonstrations from our Tutors

We worked both indoors and outdoors doing Raku
                                                           Work by John Ffrench

Work by Annie Turner

The first day we had to do some markmaking black on white and white on black for possible designs

                                                                                
                                                                         

First pieces I made before firing using pinching

                                        

                          Made some pods at various stages of opening for my naked raku firing

Some of my offerings for the kiln

                                         Preparing pods for naked raku by first dipping in resist

Then it has to be dipped in a glaze, all this is done on an area where you do not want the smoke to stain it, but the smoke will still make a subtle pattern on the part which has been resist & glazed 

Items then brought to the outside raku kiln

                                                                            

After firing at a high temp.1200deg.

                                                             Into a bin of sawdust

                                                  Cover with the lid and leave to cool off

                                                        This is what they will look like

Some of mine before you remove the shell like surface

                        On with the eye protection and get cracking and see what design you have

These are my finished raku pieces

My glazed pieces

I enjoyed having an opportunity to paint

Few more paintings

Another attempt with a pallette knife and this tme in colour, nearly drove me mad the fact that it dries so quickly and I never seem to squirt out enough paint plus I can't use my small brushes to do a neat job

Another tonal painting of the bottom piece of my installation

Another tonal one, this time I decided to do another students installation for variety

A different tonal one again , this time we were allowed to put in a few more tones warm tones and cool tones, was feeling faint doing this thought I'd end up on the floor (a real piece of still life)
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After the disasterous still lifes and had to cheer myself up so when I went home I did another Lucian Freud painting I loved yer mans white shirt and I thought it would be a nice challenge, I mixed up a lot of different whites  and this I enjoyed.

This was my wall display certainly not my best work ever, I was disappointed as these were to be my most important two weeks