Some Sketchbook Pages For My Pathway Project, ‘A Distance Forms Around Our Bodies’

Observational drawings of a pig’s heart.......

A marionette of the Moon which I've recently finished. I made her with salt dough and sewed her dress. I have never made a puppet before, so this project was very interesting and enjoyable :)

I started off with planning her out. She is inspired by The Spanish play ‘Bodas de Sangre’ by Federico Garcia Lorca’. In this play, the moon is a character inspired by Spanish magical realism and represents wisdom and fate.

I made the body out of wire and salt dough To link all of the separate joints together I put wire hooks into the pieces, hooked them all together and then out them in the oven to cook. The dough cooked for a few hours. However, some parts were still uncooked when I took it out of the oven so some hooks slipped out. I put these back in with a glue gun and left the whole body on a radiator for about a week to allow everything to dry through. After it was all dry, I painted the face and hands and created the dress which I painted with water colours. The colour surprisingly came out quite well on the fabric. Some came off onto my hands when handling the puppet but apart from that, the paint overall stayed on well. I also embroidered stars onto the dress with white thread and added dots of silver paint, to represent the night sky.

To attach the strings to my marionette puppet I glued hooks onto her hands and head and attached the strings onto two sticks. This worked fine and you can move her head up and down and her arms and hands. I planned to put strings onto her feet too however it was difficult to string the marionette up under her dress and it was also unnecessary as the feet aren’t really visible. 

I loved this project a lot, I’m happy with the final outcome. :)

As my resist dyeing didn’t work, I decided to use the fabric and print my designs on top with white acrylic paint. This is to mimic a traditional blue print. I think that all of the shapes turned out well and I am quite happy with the outcome as the design looks quite illustrative.

An oil painting which was part of my A-level coursework, inspired by Caravaggio. (Oil on Paper)

painting work in progress.......

Landscape art, Jeanne Claude and Christo.

Wrapped Trees, 1988

‘Wrapped trees’ by Jeanne Claude and Christo, is a unique piece of land art. The two artists worked together and were an art duo which focused on large scale artwork throughout their careers. Claude was from Morocco and Christo from Bulgaria, they were both born on the exact same day in the same year on the 13th of June 1935 and got married in 1960. Their artwork focused on wrapping up huge man made structures or huge natural structures. One of their most famous works was wrapping up the Reichstag in Berlin in 1995 which took 90 climbers and 180 installation workers to complete. This was done with polypropylene fabric and rope. Another piece that they are particularly well known for is wrapping up the West Coast of Australia in 1968. The fabric covered one million square feet, its size shows the sheer scale in the work of Claude and Christo. 

The piece of land art ‘wrapped trees’ was created in 1988 and took 9 days to complete. 178 trees in a park in Riehen in Switzerland were covered by transparent fabric, and this artwork was left up for 3 weeks. The original plan was to wrap 330 trees in the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, however their plan was denied. The trees were wrapped with 592,015 square feet polyester fabric which is the same fabric used in Japan to protect trees from frost, snow and general winter weather. The fabric was all tied on just by using rope. The finished piece is very effective and the trees look ghost- like, mysterious and out of the ordinary. The fabric changed shape slightly and blew in the wind, at different times of the day, different colours light and different intensities of light would shine through the polyester fabric. This created a diaphanous effect which allowed all of the individual branches to be seen. The piece of land art was up in November, so the start of winter once all the leaves had fallen off of the trees. This allowed the branches and main structure of the tree to be seen clearly. The fabric also shrouded the trees in a way that gave the impression of the shape that all of the leaves would take if they were there. This use of negative space almost highlighted the absence of the leaves which gave a ghost-like quality to the work.

Christo once said “Jeanne-Claude and I borrow space and create a gentle disturbance in it for just a few days. When they appear for a few days, they carry this tremendous freedom of irresponsibility.” This quote reveals a lot about the intention behind the work of the artist duo. After all of their work, Claude and Christo made sure that the ropes and fabric that they used were never thrown away but recycled. It is possible that their work overall reflects the alteration of the natural world for our human needs; it could be a message about climate change and the environment. On the other hand, the work ‘wrapped trees’ could be about the fact that nothing lasts forever and everything is fleeting. The artists have to take their work down eventually, if they don’t then they would be intercepting with nature. In the quote, Christo talks about the ‘freedom of irresponsibly’. The artists had the freedom to put their work over the trees but then it is their responsibility to take it back down. This may reflect the importance for everything in nature to return to its natural state.

References

https://christojeanneclaude.net/mobile/projects?p=wrapped-reichstag

https://coveringchristo.wordpress.com/rationale/

http://www.artnet.com/artists/christo-and-jeanne-claude/

https://christojeanneclaude.net/mobile/projects?p=wrapped-trees

https://coveringchristo.wordpress.com/rationale/

My sculpture workshop. We are studying character design and designing our own characters. Here are my characters in process. I have finished sculpting them in clay and in the next session I coated them both in latex to create a mold. My next step is to cover them both in modroc and fill them with plaster, which I am looking forward to.

Kathe Kollwitz and her presentation of conflict.

Kathe Kollwitz, ‘Das Volk’ (The People) Woodcut on paper - 1921-22

Kathe Kollwitz is renowned for her dark and expressive woodcuts influenced by the Second and First World War. The figures in her woodcuts have intense emotional expressions which show the pain and suffering of the German people during the times of conflict. 

Kollwitz’s woodcut ‘Das Volk’ (The people) is part of her ‘Krieg’ series, (War). This series of seven woodcuts present the sorrows of those left behind - mothers, widows, and children in a vivid and powerful way. It was likely that Kollwitz was influenced by her own experience of loss during the war. She lost her son Peter in World War 1 which deeply affected her. Kollwitz’s childhood also influenced her dramatic work. She was the 5th of seven children and prior to her birth, three of her siblings had already died which exposed her to the grief of her parents while growing up. Kollwitz was particularly awed by the emotional strength in her mother's face which influenced the distressing expressions in her woodcuts. 

In Kollwitz’s woodcut ‘The People’, crying figures can be seen in the foreground as well as a mother in the centre hiding a scared child in her cloak. There is an overwhelming darkness which envelops the figures. The lines in the woodcuts are sharp and angular, these angles make the faces look expressive and as if there was a harsh light shining down upon them. All of the figures seem to be in very close proximity with each other which gives a sense of community. Although all of the faces are visibly distressed, they are all leaning on each other. The mother figure in the centre of the woodcut, seems solemn and mournful. Her eyes are closed and she is clad in black, her hand comes down to shield and hide a child enveloped in her cloak. The child’s eyes look wide open and full of fear. It is interesting that many faces surround the mother however due to the child’s small size it is surrounded by the darkness only protected by a single hand of its mother. This could reveal the vulnerability of children during the war and Kollwitz may have intended to highlight the importance of the role of mothers as protectors.

Kollwitz’s work was not only influenced by her tragic past but also by the working class people of Germany during the war. Their starvation, suffering and loss gave her a hunger for change, many German expressionist woodcuts were all about highlighting problems in society and aiming to bring about change. Kathe created many posters, one of which was ‘Brot!’ demanding change and creating awareness of the poverty of working class Berlin. This activism was spotted by the Nazis who threatened to take her to a concentration camp. Luckily her fame saved her and stopped this from happening.

Woodcuts highlight the stark contrast between light and dark. Kollwitz effectively uses woodcuts in her work to reflect the dramatic nature of war which lacks colour, it feels dark and cold and never ending. The black ink and white reserved areas of her woodcuts mirror Kollwitz’s feelings toward these hard times where she experienced loss like many other people. Not only was there physical conflict during the first and second world war, but also emotional conflict inside of people. German expressionist woodcuts sought to convey messages through raw and simplified designs. An example of this stark simplicity can be seen in Kollwitz’s woodcut ‘The widow’ which is also part of her ‘war series’. This print presents a simple femenine figure with her arms on her chest on a plain background. This emptiness gives a sense of loneliness and allows the viewer to connect with the figure in a raw and personal way. Instead of complicating the surroundings and settings in her prints, Kollwitz focused on creating distinct emotions in the figures.

Kollwitz presents war as a dark place full of grief and mourning. She shows the effect of war and loss on people through her use of expressions which are exaggerated and full of emotion. These expressions show the emotional pain and inner conflict of the people of Germany and the whole of Europe during world war one and two, a time of suffering and desperation.

References:

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/kollwitz-the-people-p82465

https://www.moma.org/collection/works/69688

https://www.moma.org/s/ge/collection_ge/artist/artist_id-3201_role-1_sov_page-22.html

https://www.moma.org/s/ge/curated_ge/techniques/woodcut.html

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/kollwitz-kathe/life-and-legacy/

https://lib.guides.umd.edu/c.php?g=326833&p=2194181

Finished heart embroidery for my animation. A heart surrounded by embroidery folk patterns from around the world

Ceramics workshop. We are making tea pots, mine is inspired by a poppy seed head and I’ve really been enjoying making it. Its been great to learn about ceramics and the rules that apply like not leaving air bubbles in the clay and making sure to score and slip. I added texture to the teapot’s surface with my nails to give it a more natural feel like a poppy seed head. My clay was a bit too thick in some areas which I had to smooth down but overall, it has gone well so far and I like how it looks.