ArtCastle Workshop!

On Monday and Tuesday this week I attended a creative workshop at the Newcastle Region Art Gallery, which was called ArtCastle. It was freaking amazing!
Visit the Art Castle blog: http://artcastle.wordpress.com/

Basically, we created artworks through experimenting with different mediums and adapted the styles of artists on show in the gallery with the help, advice, critique and praise of our three tutors: Luke, Lucas and Michael. Luke and Lucas are professional artists, and Michael is training to be an art teacher.

On Monday we did charcoal and ink drawings of dried up plantlife (on the verge of death) which drew from elements of Brett Whiteley's works, and then moved on to do a street-art inspired piece on primed calico material, mainly influenced by David Griggs - which I wasn't able to complete but will finish at home.

Me & one of my charcoal drawing of a decaying Birds of Paradise, in our "exhibition" :)

On Tuesday we created a canvas piece influenced by Amanda Davies, in which we painted a 12" x 16" canvas a certain colour or a mix of colours, then on a sheet PVC plastic drew a design and decorated the design. We had to draw our design on backwards, as the PVC had to have the design side (with all the "raw" materials) placed on the canvas side so as the design was sealed and couldn't be erased when the PVC was stretched over the canvas. Oh yes, I actually learnt how to stretch my own materials for art purposes :)

Me and my Amanda Davies inspired work. After two days I was pretty tired, as you can see with my droopy eyes.

At the end of the two day workshop they held a mini "exhibition" of our work, while they played a slideshow of pictures to one wall of our artmaking processes. My Mum and cousin Hollie came to see the exhibition. Myself and two other girls - Rebecca and Charmaine - made a speech about what we so enjoyed about the ArtCastle experience. This year was the event's first time in Newcastle, there had been one event of this type in Sydney last year. It felt really special to be involved in the first Newcastle event. The Smith Family - the charity organising the event - invited a representative from their major sponsor, Clemenger's Group (a transnational media/advertising/marketing company based in Australia) to view the works we created.

I had an amazing, wonderful, glorious, fantastic time at Art Castle. I met some amazing people, got to create some shmick artworks, learnt some cool new techniques and tricks, and of course I feel alot more confident in my abilities now and want to develop more and more and more. The art gallery even gave us a kit with decent drawing materials and a new art diary - to keep! Also! I exchanged details with a girl named Rebecca (the same Rebecca that I made the speech with) and we're going to keep in touch and even do some collaborative work :)

It was just great. This first taste of non-school art has me craving more!

Old Spice

Old Spice - Mixed Media (watercolours, newspaper and pen & ink on paper)

This piece looks at people stuck in their particular little ways, and how this can ultimately impact on a person's perception of reality. The haystack and silo are drawn over newspaper which notes that this man is more worried about his crops and rural way of life than, say, politics and other current affairs. And of course he just spits any-bloody-where.

It's called "Old Spice", to keep in with the current IMT theme. I can just imagine him slapping on his deodrant every morning, but no shower, of course.

School Holidays! (+ Some Drawings)

Stuff from My School Bag :)

Japanese Girl

Renaissance Girl

Ribbon

Old Man

I'm quite glad it's the school holidays now. I'm one third through the Preliminary HSC course and it's going well... so far.

Some more drawings I have completed - although some aren't quite finished.

The top one was a study of 3 things we had in our school bags and it was done in the perhaps the second art class we had this year. Then there's an image of a Japanese girl - an appropriation of a photo by Sharon Lockhart - not really finished, but I just wanted to show it. Ha. The next is an appropriation of a painting by Renaissance painter Domenico Ghirlandaio (who shares my Dad's first name :D), in which I unintentionally gave the woman a receeding hairline. A ribbon. A mixed media featuring an old man - which is very much still a work in progress.

Good Old Visual Arts :)

"The Duchess", mixed media on cardboard

Ah, the first Visual Arts topic/project of the term. Basically we were instructed to collect items over a weekend, just like Andy Warhol, and thus create a mixed media work out of our garbage. I collected all sorts of goodies I found around our house and swapped little pieces from my own pile of crap with friends.

I didn't want to make the sort of pretty things most of the other students in the class were bound to create. Pretty isn't for me. I have a male teacher this year, and being the sort of "artiste" I am, it's a little troubling describing the meaning of my works to him. This is about the sex trade, how violated women go on to sell themselves just so they can survive day to day. The title, The Duchess, comes from finding a ticket to the film of the same name starring Kiera Knightley and Ralph Fiennes which was released in 2008.

I got 10/10, and the same score for a graphite drawing of it which I may post later.

A run through of the crap on this piece of cardboard:
Acrylic paint, a random doll I found at an op-shop (thrift store) I found about a month ago, a piece of foam from a box of soft pastels, an old tape I used to interview a veterinarian for an assignment last year, a holiday photograph, a poem from an old Moon Diary, a paper heart I peeled off the box of a Christmas present, a Joker card, an empty packet of pills, the wrapper for dissolvable paracetamol tablets, Band-Aid packaging, movie ticket, an magazine advertisement for the TV show True Blood, cut-out pictures of meat from Woolworths weekly special brochures, a brochure about customer privacy from FoneZone, and an old makeup sponge. And glue.

Sorry for the crappy photo as per usual. I think I need a better camera. I'm also studying 'Photography, Video and Digital Imaging' in addition to Visual Arts and so I think that'd be quite beneficial. Might post some of my new photos up too :)

Obsession

"Obsession" (mixed media on canvas, 12 x 16" )

Another one in the Tender Age series. The one on the left (Tattoo Face Girl, kitted out in blue this time) falsely idolises the seemingly perfect character on the right.

Scratched (finished)

Scratched (mixed media on canvas, 12 x 12 ")

Ta-Dah! The finished product and once again my camera just doesn't do it justice. I like to feel it's got a little bit of IMT inspiration, Peeling Paint was this week's prompt. So, this isn't peeling, but scratching.

Delusion

"Delusion" (mixed media, 14 x 18"), 2009

Today I dedicated all my waking hours - well virtually - to creating this artwork. Feeling inspired to create a series based on the character whom I affectionately - and blandly - nicknamed "Tattoo Face Girl" that I used in "Tender Age" (below), I did a sketch about a week ago of the image on this canvas. I'll explain everything...

"Tender Age" (mixed media on canvas, 50 x 60 cm), 2007

Tender Age (formerly called 'In Bloom') is about a girl on the cusp of womanhood, which is represented by the way she sniffs into the flower. The 'tattoo'/pattern on her face is a sort of symbol for all her negative thoughts and experiences, which are made to look like roots and seeds - as though she indeed has some sort of mental illness, and along with her emaciated figure it indicates that she had/has severe body image issues. The bee in the background flower warns that she'll soon be hurt. The swirly stuff in the background is just decoration, really :)

Delusion is a portrayal of the hurt hinted at in Tender Age. The large, solid-coloured face which dominates a large portion of the canvas denotes that her pain was inflicted by another person. She's been hurt by someone's words, as shown by the black swirls escaping the plain face's mouth, which wilt tattoo face girl's flower.

There are many more canvases to come of Tattoo Face Girl, and if anyone can suggest a better name to christen her, I'd really appreciate it. While there is quite a bit of difference between the two already made aesthetically, the subject matter is very much the same. The difference in the images comes from different supplies and brands of materials, in addition to 14 months of artistic development.

It's the first time I've completed an artwork in a day - well, one on canvas anyway, so I feel rather accomplished. Both works were made of artist's inks, black acrylic paint (just black), and graphite, but as I mentioned above, all different brands.

I can tell you I won't be using Jasart canvases again, which is what I used for Delusion today. It was a nightmare attempting to put the ink on, everything seemed to pool as it contracted - as though the canvas were like a sponge. It wouldn't let the liquid spread upon the canvas properly unless large amounts were put on. I was rather peeved because it made the process last a whole lot longer than it had to, and in addition to this, once it dried, there were little spots of white canvas poking through where I had doused the fabric with colour. I used a Jasart for 'Androgyny' as well, but because I didn't lay down the colour as I did in this work (Androgyny is just lines, lines and more lines), I barely noticed this horrid little phenomenon. Fine for acrylics though. Haha.

Scratched - Work In Progress

Scratched (Work In Progress): mixed media on canvas, 12" x 12"

This is an abstract I'm working on at the moment. As like many of my works, this is something spawned in serendipity after painting over the same canvas, which was also an abstract, but was not to my liking. I want this piece to look very metallic, as though someone has scratched into a piece of steel, perhaps a security door, in such agony as they realise that they could not escape, that in their last ounce of strength they left an ominous reminder of their existance for us to bare witness to. This is the sort of imagery that reminds me of fires, where people have been unable to vacate their homes by either doors or windows, though more so of the former.

I need to buy some silver paint, along with some other metallic hues like copper and gold, of course. So just one week after purchasing some much needed supplies (as in paint) for home and school - and thinking I wouldn't return for atleast a minimum of six months - because I've experimented with another artwork, I now recognise the need for these supplies. I do have metallic oil pastels in silver, which I'd thought would work as an inexpensive alternative, but alas it's off to Eckersley's, as the pastels barely show any metallic quality as I'd hoped.

How awesome is impasto? Though I've used it in art class at school, this is the second work that I've used impasto on at home. In the past, I used to think that I could achieve the same effects with paint, slapping it on courageously. But it all shrank, dried only to be discovered as slightly raised, not having the same 3D quality as it did wet and as I'd envisioned. I realise you'd have to apply layer upon layer of thickening paint, so in my own mind impasto is far easier to handle. I now adore impasto.

Collection of Works

These are a collection of drawings and paintings I have done over the past 2 years (2007 - 2009). I've done quite a few more, but these are some I would like to show on my blog. I'm improving as I go along. I use a variety of mediums and often create a variety of mixed media works, but I haven't settled on just one yet, but I'm finding myself starting to develop a soft spot for artist's inks. I use a variety of different techniques too. I've began experimenting with palette knives as opposed to paint brushes, in fact, I've even got a substitute for a palette knife - I use a plastic cake spatula! Trust me, I'm not trained in anyway.

Visit my deviantArt page:

illy93.deviantart.com

Vase Series: "In Bloom", "Withering" (both: mixed media on canvas)

"Tender Age" (mixed media on canvas)

"Krist Novoselic" (graphite on paper)

"Kurt Cobain" (graphite on paper)

"Moonlight, Suicide" (graphite on paper)

"Sassy" (oil pastels and soft pastels on paper)

"Head Over Heels" (oil pastels and soft pastels on paper)

"Pollution" (mixed media on canvas)

"Them Bones" (acrylic on canvas)

"Androgyny" (artist's ink on canvas)