Diploma with Honours - Term 5 Start Block Week

John Cornish/Peter Adsett – Materiality

An interesting week, One where we were asked to explore a material that we were interested in. 

As I am mainly a painter, this was an issue because what paint does is represent something else when we manipulate it on a ‘ground’, this was something the class was not exploring. “The action of how you form the work is paramount “ “Use your affinity, your history, what is within you, to choose a material and what to do with it, repeat until you understand that material and it takes you on a journey. 

I did two things, first I looked for a substance that I could recycle and came across some omaru stone dust thrown out the back, I wondered if I could reconstitute (make it stone again to then carve or create a shape from) Second I bought in three stretchers and some material to cover them with. I stripped the material to wrap the stretchers in creating a double sided canvas. 

Peter Adsett  thought that my ‘playing’ with the material and wood should stop there but a canvas, no matter what it’s made of demands to be painted on. So I took some photos of one of the members of the class (both right and left profiles), and some front side and backside of some sparrows and used them to paint on both sides of the canvas, this demands that the canvas is no longer 2 dimensional, to be hung on a wall, these three canvasses had to be hung in the middle of the room so they become something to walk around, a three dimensional piece. I named the triptych ‘Birds of a feather flock together. 

The Omaru stone dust best ‘stayed together as balls and I created  a snooker set although the cue was extremely hard to finish, trying PVA, builders bond and just plain water, didn’t seem to make much difference to the final ball, they were all equally hard, crumbly. Something to explore in the future when I’ve got time.

Diploma with Honours Term 4 End Block week

Marci Tackett –Screenprinting on fabric

The course outline was to take three patterns, create screens of them, and combine them using transparent and opaque ink, fun and messy! Then put the results into a bound book.

I decided to not only follow the course requirements but also use the opportunity to produce something that was unique for my husband's first grandchild. A fabric book, tailor-made and using the child's fathers passion of racing cars as well as incorporating my doodles, oh and my daughter wanted a screen printed t-shirt! We had four days, Friday being Easter. I had a load of fun, wore out one of the screens!

Diploma with Honours Term 4 – Main

Monday – Dan Wilkinson – Life Drawing
Dan's class is always different, because the energy comes from the models he happens to get from week to week and on the students who are working on the day. Boy do we work! If you have never tried a life class it's worth it, but be prepared to sweat!

What paper? brown, white, cartridge, canvas, size A4, A3, A2 or A1?, on an easel or on your lap?, what drawing materials charcoal, pastel, lead, ink or paint? What to focus on, full body, face, feet, hands? depicted in line or light and shade, colour or black and white? Some weeks go well, some are disasters, lots of material for future work and lots of practice drawing the human body.

Wednesday – Marc Hill – Understanding Paint
I was asked by the exhibit manager of Odlins gallery to participate in a nude exhibition (paint and photography) in July and have been working towards offering her 6 or 7 pieces. So Although I have been in Marc's classes before and enjoyed his course content my focus was to complete 2-3 more nudes and utilise his great eye and suggestions of my progress.

Friday – Sarah Brock Underpainting techniques
Sarah loves doing portraits so I decided tap into that and use some photos I took of my cousins grandchildren in Australia over the holidays. Six under 5years and one on the way gave me more than enough material to use. I love the working out of composition and the tonal map using the underpainting technique, so when you start adding colour most of the hard stuff has already been done.

Diploma with Honours Term 4 - Block Week -

Sarah Brock - Painting

I enjoyed Sarah's 'make your own pastels' class so much that I tried to get into her painting block this term. The course was over subscribed so when one of the students couldn't be there Thursday and Friday I dived straight in.

I enjoyed the technique and got some good results very quickly, Thursday I followed the course and dabbled in still life. On Friday, knowing I was in Sarah's mains class, I started to set up my first portrait. Sarah is so approachable and enthusiastic, she tailors her teaching to her students requirements, we are all at different stages of our art walk and want to focus on different things and Sarah has the ability to cater to her students, but there were issues with classroom size (not big enough!) and time getting around everyone.

Diploma with Honours - Term 3 2012

Monday – Christina Earl -3D

This class allowed me to explore different mediums and experiment with an idea that I’ve had at the back of my mind for awhile. Christina supplied some materials to the class and I had fun with some High build, crackle glaze and sand but what I enjoyed the most was the shellac! What beautiful colour! It worked well in building up a figure by slowly laying down more of it to create differences in tone but not in colour, what I had hoped was to take it into glass or mirror painting because of it’s transparency but the coldness of the glass affect the carrier, meths, and I got clouding, the other challenge was the bottoms layers of shellac never really set and softened and lifted with subsequent layers, although the few canvases I tried  looked ok my best results were on paper.

I did start painting on mirrors with oils in this class and have produced some nice effects, we all at times of our lifes compare ourselves with others both physically and emotionally, we compare ourselves to an ideal of what we should look like when we look in the mirror, so what would it be like to have someone else look out at us as we look at ourselves? I have a few more mirrors to paint but am happy with the outcomes so far. If any one has a full length mirror their not using?

Wednesday- Christina Earl – Chercisco out of the dark

Every week a new model every week a struggle to get the room dark enough. I used this class to practice modelling the body and getting poses for my mirror work, the focus was the play of light over the contours of the body, the contrast of light and dark. Hard work and highlighted my need to practice more the capturing of the whole figure quickly, I’m a bit slow!

Thursday – Jude Robertson -Beginners Photography

A lesson in patience! How spoiled we are to walk in and have prints out of the camera within minutes, even to be able to see the shot you’ve just taken on the back of your digital!

This class demanded you to slow down, I did not want to waste the processing time on horrible shots, using black and white film how do you get your eyes to picture something that you see in full colour and know its going to look good in B/W? It takes 2 hours to process the film and another 2 hours to dry before you do a test strip to do a contact print to see if any of what you’ve taken might be worth the trouble of enlarging, a test strip, and getting a final copy of acceptable quality to standup to B/W.

Diploma with Honours Term 2 2012 - End Block Week

Sarah Brock - Make your own pastels.

Sarah is a wonderfully enthusiastic and caring tutor. To her credit she tailored the class to a variety of abilities and needs, but it did mean that some got more of her time than others, but those of us left to our own devices were very well occupied because making your own pastels is a time consuming process.

 First to narrow it down a bit, we had to explore our 'favourite' colours, most of us decided to do 'skin tones', to finish off the week with a portrait. Grinding down existing pastel colours, adding talc and chalk, and mixing to get the colour you want and then lighten for various shades. Yellow ochre, orange, peach for the warm skin tones. Purple and mauve for shadows. It took most of the week just to get the pastels dry enough to use, a coffee grinder on Monday would have been a bonus, I felt like the old apprentices in the art houses of Europe hand grinding colour for the master!

I had a crack at Sarah's method of skin tone mixing with oils and painted a quick under painting and even though it doesn't look much like Samantha now, it will. Still getting my head round the warm lights, cool shadows way of painting?
The portrait on sandpaper with the pastels was great and I think the whole class did some really good work.



                                    

Diploma with Honours - Term 2 2012

Monday – Thomas Robson  - Pathways to abstraction

What a challenge! Thomas’s art is beautiful, he seems to be able to see colour where I can’t, see beautiful form where I don’t. His suggestions to improve your work is invaluable, but I might have to repeat the class to understand or work through the ideas he’s given me. I did do a few pieces in his class but not as many as I am used to.

Wednesday –Karla Vink and Christina Earl – Foundation painting day

I really enjoyed Karla last term and wanted to experience what the foundation students got from her and Christina, a smattering of various of painting styles and exercises, it was fun, the class was large and very enthusiastic, the energy was great.

Thursday – Sam Harris – Digital art and design

Sheila recommended this class as a way to use photoshop  to quickly see if your art is on the right track. I did not use the time that way, rather I used the computer to explore my idea of ‘abstract ’for Thomas’s class. I learned alot about photoshop but missed the feel of a paintbrush in my hands.

This term was not a high production term but I have taken the  opportunity to present in three galleries my work. Farsite, Petone, Matchbox, Cuba street, Wellington and The Pinehaven  Arts and Crafts Pinehaven School Upper Hutt. (I also presented three at the end of term exhibit at The Learning Connexion.

 All of these exhibits taught me different things, namely working with a group of artist allows the work load to be shared, and a wider group of people to see your work,  (being like minded people does not guarantee they have the same work ethic however and clear guidelines about what each person should be doing is essential and a responsible way of working in a joint effort to avoid resentment ) Cost (of hiring the gallery)Time, distance and effort can play a large part on who will see your work and whether it’s worth it. Other people who hang your work do not give it the same care or have the same sense of what’s best for it, if you are concerned about treatment or where it’s best hung you should write guidelines, they may not be followed exactly but exhibit organisers are not psychic, they’ll do their best.