Tuesday 10 January 2012

Term 3 2010


Monday – Dan Wilkinson – Figurative Expressions

Use geometric shapes outside the figure. Even in the warm up exercises think about body position in relation to each other. Create a story in the picture. Loosen up! Use similar colour palette.
Like anything else, the more you do life studies the better you get at it. 

It doesn’t get any less stressful though, It’s not every where that you can get a model to pose for you naked for an entire day so to honour their effort I felt I had to get as much of ‘them’ down on paper as I could (the warm ups start with 30 second poses and slowly go to 20 minutes before morning tea, after which half hour and 2 hour poses are the norm). However I learnt from one of the most talented figure drawers in our class, Doug, to focus on small sections on the body and really get some detail down.










Tuesday - Gary Feemantle – Un conventional painting

A Labourer works with his hands, A Craftsman works with his hands and head, An Artist works with his hands, head and heart.

In today’s permissive society what is unconventional? Some artists use shock tactics to provoke a response or create a feeling, normally negative, calling it progress.  Pushing the boundaries, art can make political statements, religious statements, discriminatory statements and environmental, but really,  you only have to push your own boundaries for it to be unconventional.















Tuesday - Marc Hill –

Morning – exploring the art world both past and present. For example we watched u-tube clips of Arthur Boyd, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Berthe Morisot, John Ruskin.

Looking at arrangement on the canvas, storytelling of the components within a canvas,(is something about to happen or just happened?) sub texting – decoding art of what’s not said within the painting, know where your light source is coming from, and keep it constant.

Marc is very knowledgeable in art history and paint techniques, he knows everything about paint and it’s properties , he is a very encouraging tutor who seems to know what you can do to improve your work, but he does like you to come up with the solutions  yourself,  so not a quick fix then.




Friday -Jonathan Milne – Creative brain Workshop

After a number of warm up exercises we were asked to complete a personality profile questionnaire to find out if we were left brained or right brained.

Of the 22 people present 1 was dominant in the As, 2 dominant in Bs and the rest in Cs and Ds. Where was I? Predominantly A ‘s and B’s?! Was I supposed to be artistic or what, according to the profile I was logical, rational, analytical, factual orderly, consistent, stable, organised, practical, firm, meticulous and keeping to the rules---very left brained. The right brained – big picture synthesis, intuition, problem solving, pattern seeing, empathy, enthusiasm, anticipates feelings, conciliate.  We were assured that with practice we could be ‘Whole brained’. Hopefully this school would help me there?

This term the message was to go and see ‘good’ art at Te Papa,( Te Papa had The Master’s exhibit on!) in books and at galleries, copy and learn how the artist did it. This will train the eye to appreciate and identify good art, of course this process is an on-going one, never finished.

I decided to have a look at philosophy (in the hope it would help my whole brainess)  on u-tube BBC productions of the life of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, St Thomas Aquinas, Bourdlair, Zolar and Voltaire! 

Heavy going! 

‘Nothing can harm a good man except injustice’ ‘No real harm can come to you, lose all your money, be stricken with disease etc except when you lose your virtue’ ‘No one does wrong willingly’  ’ God is something you can’t conceive anything greater than’,  ‘Wisest is she who knows she does not know’.

Probably easier to look at the life of the great artists really, now that was interesting  and easier to understand. 

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