drawing 1

"To know what you're going to draw, you have to begin drawing."  

Picasso on Intuition, How Creativity Works, and Where Ideas Come From via Brain Pickings by Maria Popova 


 The core or reason for making a drawing is to know what you are trying to communicate.

FSD153 Introduction to Drawing                                                                                              

Teacher:  Sue Lovegrove
Represented by:  Bett Gallery, Hobart
                              Gallerysmith, Melbourne
                              Beaver Gallery, Canberra


Week One
Introduction to materials and processes
July 14 2014
Drawing is not only about making marks, it is about taking them off again.

The first class was devoted to exploring the possibilities of mark-making with the materials at hand - charcoal, graphite pencils, conte crayon (black, white, ochre) and a rubber, to discover the expressive nature of line when used in different ways using thick, thin, fast, heavy light, twisted, smudged, scratched....explore what the materials do when they are overlayed.

Generally: 

  • big things come forward
  • little thing recede
  • dark areas come to the foreground
  • light areas (particularly paper) go the the background......but these rules can be broken.
  • erasing black makes the lines come forward, white marks over black come forward.
  • shiny black graphite comes forward on black charcoal



    


Charcoal is an immediate drawing tool and very responsive to the subtleties of your hand...it is haptic. Haptic relates to a sense of touch.  Charcoal has a feel that has a soft silky grittiness and responds to being easily manipulated.  It is very satisfying to use charcoal.

In the past drawing for me was to control the medium to create realist three dimensional renditions of an inanimate subject.  The spontaneous mark making of artists like Fred Williams, Cy Twombly, Jim Dine seemed totally out of reach to my psychology of needing to feel in control.  I have long admired expressive marks and have an attraction to the beauty of spontaneous line...some decades later it is beautiful mark making that I want to learn to capture and experience.



Found marks - Spring Bay, Triabunna:


exquisite rusted metal scrapings and weathering -  reminiscent of abstract expressionist painters


beautiful delicate rusted pattern/texture - this texture reminds me of an upcoming Tasmanian artist that I have recently discovered, Sarah Maher, whose textured surfaces are manipulations of different materials. 


rusted welded cross - industrial mark making from spontaneous fabric repair. 
masonite stitch - This torn piece of masonite was torn from a wall during a renovation. Being a sewer, the raised stitch to repair a hard material was a curiosity and a material contradiction...it was a beautiful mark and I have keep it for the last 20 years








Week Two 
mark-making, line,pictorial space and composition
July 21 2014

We were asked to bring an interesting 3D object to class to continue the exploration of mark making and extend our learning to the representation of an object.  

I have a collection of stale life objects that have accumulated over the years that have leathery preserved skin dried naturally from neglect. Once edible now too hard to puncture with teeth or cut with a knife, their textures are too beautiful to throw away.  Dried bones too are natural objects that have textures, form and catch light and cast shadows that are eminently attractive to artists.  I have a few and some have been given to me.  They often resemble flight...  


I like this object, but for some reasonI found it difficult to draw.  An object with a simpler shape may have been easier to impose my mark making learning.  I did not feel that I had successfully completed this exercise.

I did however enjoy the experience of blind contour drawing.  The exercise required looking at the object but not at the paper while drawing the contour of the object without removing the pencil from the paper.  Contrivance and control was removed and the rendition of the familiar form was made abstract and almost like a child's drawing. 

  


blind drawing
Hold the object behind your back in your non-drawing hand.  Feel its weight, texture, sharpness, fragility/hardness.  Follow the contours and lines as you turn it in your hand.  Find the subtle shifts in the surface.  Develop a language of expressive marks and lines that reflect the specific qualities of the object.  Focus entirely on what it feels like.  Try not to take your eyes off the object.  Some lines will be continuous as they continue around the 3d form of the object.


blind contour drawing
Look at the object, but not at the paper.  Use a continuous line that weaves along the edges of the object into the centre following structures, patterns, shadows.  Try not to take your eyes off the object.  Keep the drawing tool in constant contact wit the paper.





The result of this exercise was refreshing. It trains your eye to see more detail as well as your eye hand coordination.  It also helps you to become accustomed to spending more time observing closely rather than looking scantily and then making it up on your drawing without paying attention to what you are actually seeing of your subject.



Drawing of simulated textures - Do an expressive line drawing based on the textures and patterns on the surface, in my journal.  Photocopy the original textured surface drawing and photocopy it.  Do another expressive line drawing from the photocopy.  Compare the two - which is the more expressive and interesting? 

                                                                                      cloud drawing
                          
                             photocopy of cloud drawing

                                                                 drawing of photocopy

I felt that the original drawing of clouds had more delicate tones.  While photocopies are very good, the second drawing was slightly simplified and had more contrast, perhaps reflecting a slight loss in the nuances of the photocopy.




Library research:
Find at least 3 different drawings in books that demonstrate expressive mark-making.
  • Fred Williams (1927-1982) Australian
Fred Williams has always been a favourite artist of mine.  His calligraphic and minimal marks have spontaneity and lightness that capture the essence of wide open Australian spaces.

You Yangs drawing 1964, brown and black chalk on paper
Fred Williams, Patrick McCaughey, Bay Books 1980 p.164



  • David Hockney (1937- ) British
I have been an admirer of David Hockney for years.  His mark-making with coloured pencils is sketchy and loose, and although part of the subject often has minimal line to indicate the form, there is always enough in the drawing to indicate the whole.  He too can evoke the essence of his subject with minimal line.


Henry in Candlelight 1975
David Hockney by David Hockney, Thames & Hudson, 1997 p.278



  • Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) German
TI have long admired the strong and very emotional tonal work of Kathe Kollwitz.  Tonal calligraphy...

Self portrait 1927
Prints and Drawings of Kath Kollwitz, introduced by Carl Zigrosser, Dover 1969 p.65
  • Sengai (1750-1837) Japanese
That so much can be said with the sweep of a single line is a skill to behold!  


Frog and Snail, ink on paper
Birds, Beasts, Blossoms and Bugs The Nature of japan, Harold Stern, Abrams 1976 p.126








Week Three
pictorial space, tone and form
July 28 2014

  
Generally, light as it falls over a form can be reduced to six categories:






highlight - the area of the object closest to the light source and the lightest area of the object
light - the next area of lightness still in the path of the light source
shadow - the first area to move away from the light source that is starting to get darker
core of shadow - darkest area on the object because it is blocked from the light source.
reflected light - small amount of light that reflects off the table surface and back into the core of     shadow.  


cast shadow - area of the table surface blocked by the object, which is very dark because is the           light source cannot reach it.

Within a single form or volume we may see parts of it as light against dark and other areas as dark against light.  some areas may seem to disappear into the background, that , if a light-valued object is set against a light background, the edge of the object will disappear.  Values can cross over both objects and negative space, causing the edge of the object to seem to disappear.

TONAL DRAWING







Exercises were done to create 3 grey scales using three different mediums...

  • willow charcoal
  • compressed charcoal
  • lead pencils

The result wasthat the greatest tonal range is achievable using a range of lead pencils from 4H to 6B, and the least with the softest material, willow charcoal







Week Four
Bringing tone and form together
August 2 2014

3 photos of interior spaces that address the concept of absence.  Think about how films use light and shadow to create evocative spaces, where something is about to happen or has happened.














Week Five
Life Drawing:  introduction:  line
August 11 2014


The Golden Section or Golden Ratio is used to describe aesthetically pleasing proportion and is an actual ratio - 1:1.168....recurring (phi). This is a rectangle with a width of 1 and a length of 1.618 recurring...  Divided up so that a square and a rectangle results, this can be infinitely repeated.  this proportion was used by the Ancient Greeks in art and architecture and embodied perfect proportion. It has been used throughout history since by other artists, architects and designers in their search for perfection.



Renaissance artists frequently employed it as divine logic.  Piet Mondrain (1872-1944) began to base his abstract painting on the ratio.  

Le Corbusier (1887-1965) developed a scale of proportions, which he called Le Modulor, based on a human body whose height is divided in golden section commencing at the navel.




Along with the Egyptian Pyramids, the CN Tower in Toronto, Canada used the Golden ration in its design.  The CN tower is the world's sixth tallest free standing structure  The ratio of its total height of 553.33 meters to the height of the observation deck of 543 meters is 1.618!



 LIFE DRAWING-LINE:  FEMALE NUDE





Self portrait in charcoal using the sense of touch, without a mirror and with your eyes closed.  Interpret and describe all the textures and surfaces as different kinds of mark making.

Examples of different styles of life drawing:

Henry Moore (1909 - 1996) British
Henry Moore is an English sculptor best known for his monumental sculptures.  His life drawings show his search for solidity of form!

taken from Henry Moore Drawings by Kenneth Clarke
http://bobsfiguredrawingworkshop.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/5-minutes-and-few-seconds-in-world-of_23.html

Seated Figure, line drawing 1974



David Hockney (1937 - ) British
David Hockney is considered a playboy artist but has had a dedicated career intertwined with a public lifestyle.  Since I discovered his work many decades ago I have always admired his confident and loose use of coloured pencils!  My love of his work never wanes. 

 Celia 1975 coloured pencil on paper
Week Six
Life Drawing: figure in space:  tone
August 18 2014

While I feel I am getting a better sense of proportion, and feel that I have a reasonable sense and understanding of tone and form, I struggled to find the form through the fall of shade and highlights from the light source when drawing the male model today.



ASSESSMENT TASK 1 due
August 18 2014 




Week Seven
Observational drawing (an object with some personal attachment)
August 25 2014


During Week 7-9 the task is to create a series of 3 drawings, progressing from observational drawing through to abstraction.  The series is based on an object of my choice, and needs to be visually interesting or significant in some way in order to maintain an engagement with it over several weeks.

SUBJECT/OBJECT:   HAMMER




HAMMER DRAWING 1
The first drawing should use observational skills to represent the object using both tone and line to create form and space.  the focus on this first drawing is attention to detail and understanding the object through the process of drawing.  It is also important to make connections between the choice of medium and the choice of strategy to create expression and meaning in the image.


Why is the hammer important as an object to draw and what associations do you have with it?
My hammer is important because it is a tool that I use often for the ongoing renovations of my house.  I am good with my hands and am better at carpentry than my partner.   I have strong attachment to it as I have had it for many years and it has been used a lot, which can be seen from the worn patina and marks of home improvement.

 My Stanley hammer has a well balanced weight and grip that makes it more pleasurable to use than some other hammers.  It is one of the most useful tools I own.  It is my renovating and repairing companion. 
Whenever I use my hammer I often think of my carpenter father and some of the building tips he taught me.  I think of how the deft handling of the tool that enables a nail to be driven straight into a material without bending it. 

Timber is used to make structures to be lived in or constructed into furniture or objects to use.  A hammer is the specific tool for banging nails into timber to join one piece of wood to another, and is capable of removing a bent or damaged nail with the claw when mistakes are made.  The claw can also be used to prise pieces of wood apart.  

 The hammer is made from very hard grey metal (steel) showing some rust marks and pitted patina. Joined to the hammer head is a smooth shiny metal stem, which is enclosed with a thickness of dull blue synthetic material creating a handle to give a non-slippery ergonomic grip when used.


THE TASK
Through tone, line etc. create the space for the object using composition and scale and give it some meaning.  Make a decision  on the emotive pictorial space and what you want to communicate about the object.  You can use symbolic colour, repeat the object or take the drawing into your own imaginative space or create a narrative.

MY OBJECTIVE 
A hammer is a powerful tool that is used to secure pieces of timber with nails.  The there is a strong repetitive action associated with driving nails into wood.  The sound of  hammering sharp and loud.  I wanted to give the impression of movement and repeated action, and used a vigorous drawing technique to convey this feeling.  I restricted the drawing materials to compressed charcoal, conte and a rubber because the weathered and slightly rusted surface of the metal hammer head has a grainy texture like the drawing materials.

 The angle of view of the observational drawing was looking down the handle into the hammer head. The strong light and shade was used to develop the form and give drama and strength to the drawing. The background texture was used to suggest the scuffed environment of a building site.


        




                                                       
                                                                                            detail 1
                                                                                                                detail 2
                                          
Compressed charcoal and black conte were used to build up the form with tone and line, while a rubber was used to take areas back to bring light and highlighted areas forward.  White conte was also used to highlight the shiny metallic surface. I really enjoyed being loose with the drawing materials and using line expressively.  While drawing the hammer I was conscious of the techniques employed by both Peter Neilson and Jim Dine.  Neilson's drawings are controlled and correctly proportioned, but have beautiful tone, capturing the texture of the materials in a vey tactile way. Jim Dine's technique is very spontaneous and loose, but he captures the essence of the tools and the textured patina of a workshop wonderfully. While I did not try to emulate his style and range of materials, it was the action of his mark making that I like.  




Peter Neilson (b. 1944 ) Australian
I particularly like Peter Neilson's drawings of ordinary household objects, particularly tools.  His realistic renditions capture the texture of the objects, whether it is the hair of a broom or paintbrush, the patina of wooden handles or the dull metal of worn tools and the shine of not so worn metal .....and simply with charcoal and chalk.  I like the way the objects are framed with slight off-centred symmetry with a hint of anthropomorphic poses.  The dark backgrounds express the texture of the drawing materials.  If I could capture my hammer as well I would be very happy.

 The long handled broom 2009-charcoal and chalk


The long handled pliers and two brushes 2009-charcoal and chalk

Secateurs 2009-charcoal and chalk

Paint scrapers and pliers 2009-charcoal and chalk



untitled from 'Ten Winter Tools', 1973 lithograph 


With Aldo Behind Me, 2008 aquatint, drypoint, etching 


Artist's work presented in class:
  • William Delafield-Cook 
  • Kevin Lincoln
  • Jeorg Schmeiser
  • Helen Wright
  • Thornton Walker (Christine Abrahams Gallery 4 Sept 1995)
  • Andy Warhol
  • Simon Cooper (Interludes - Australian Galleries 2 September 2010)
  • Lee Lozano (p184/185 Twice Drawn)

Twice Drawn, Modern and Contemporary drawings in context, Frances Young Tang, Del Monico Books/Pressed Publishing 2011 





Week Eight
Moving from Observation to Abstraction
September 8 2014

Abstraction definition:  refers to art which lacks  representational qualities, and instead stressing formal qualities creating works expressively with forms, line, colour for their own sake. Abstraction is an idea rather than an object.



A technique would be to use a sequence of shapes to suggest the notion of hammering and the line to imply the strength and power of the tool.
Marcel Duchamp Nude Descending a Staircase No 2, 1912
http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/51449.html


 I wanted to capture the action and power of the tool driving nails.   I aimed to align the lines used with the repeated sound of banging and abstract the hammer in a rhythmical way to give the impression of implied movement.  The marks were made quickly to give energy to the drawing, while retaining a hint of the original drawing. I used the circular shape of the hammer head because it is the surface that directly hits the nail in the action of banging, and attempted to capture the time sequence of the process....a bit like Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase No 2.

 I chose to use compressed charcoal because it is a very responsive, soft material that is easy to manipulate by rubbing as well as working over with white conte.  The marks can be layered and mixed giving a sense of space to the action.


HAMMER DRAWING 2

 I used active mark making to suggest the movement of the hammer in action.





                        detail 1


                          detail 2

I tried to use the energy and spontaneity of Cy Twombly's expressionistic mark making. 


ARTISTS WHOSE ABSTRACT DRAWINGS YOU ADMIRE..... describe their process:

1.   Cy Twombly (1928 - 2011) American
Cy Twombly emerged as a prominent American artist during the Abstract Expressionist era of the 1950s. He moved to Rome in 1959 in order to grow independently as an artist.

One technique he developed was of gestural drawing that was characterised by thin white lines on a dark canvas that appear to be scratched onto the surface. 

Twombly credits Dada and Surrealist artists such as Kurt Schwitters, Hans Arp, and Alberto Giacometti as having the greatest influence on him, especially with regards to the intuitive manner with which he works.

“My line is childlike but not childish. It is very difficult to fake....to get that quality you need to project yourself into the child’s line. It has to be felt”

"Graffiti is linear and it's done with a pencil, and it's like writing on walls. But in my paintings it's more lyrical."

"When I work, I work very fast, but preparing to work can take any length of time."

“Paint is something that I use with my hands and do all those tactile things. I really don’t like oil because you can’t get back into it, or you make a mess. It is not my favourite thing...pencil is more my medium than wet paint”. 

Much of Twombly's work is a direct reflection of, response to, and re-working of the ancient Greco-Roman past that surrounded him in his chosen home in Rome. Inspirations came from Greek and Roman mythology, history, and places, French Neo-classicism, and contemporary graffiti on ancient local walls. Twombly was able to balance the seemingly static history of the past with his own sensual and emotional responses to it.

In both the content and process of his art, Twombly was interested in the layering of time and history, of painting and drawing, and of various meanings and associations. His art situates itself in the context of the history of Western civilization as well as the process-oriented aspects of Abstract Expressionism.

Writing and language also served as major conceptual foundations for Twombly's mostly abstract art. In addition to the written word - in the form of poems, myths, and histories - he also focused on the process of writing, both by sketching unidentifiable doodles and splotches or words directly onto the canvas and by creating line-based compositions, often inspired by handwriting. Through these methods, he was often able to suggest subtle narratives that lay beneath the surfaces of his paintings.

Twombly served in the U.S. army as a cryptologist, an activity that left a distinct mark on his artistic style.

Describe Cy Twombly's drawing process
“I sit for two or three hours and then in 15 minutes I can do a painting......you have to get ready and decide to jump up and do it;  you build yourself up psychologically, and so painting has no time for brush.  Brush is boring, you give it and all of a sudden it’s dry, and you have to go”.  

 Between 1967 and 1971 he produced a number of works on grey grounds. This series features terse, colorless scrawls, reminiscent of chalk on a blackboard, that form no actual words and appear to be scratched on the surface. Twombly made some of these works by using an unusual technique: he sat on the shoulders of a friend, who shuttled back and forth along the length of the canvas, thus allowing the artist to create his fluid, continuous lines.
                                                                                     Untitled 1971
                                                   School of Athens 1961
2.   John Wolsley (b.1938 ) British
Born in England, John relocated to Australia in 1976, where he travelled extensively through the outback.

Describe John Wolsley's drawing process:
John Wolseley is primarily a landscape painter, but he likes to immerse himself in nature and uses it directly....he plunges into water, buries his paper in the earth, rubs paper against burnt trees and throws his paper to the wind only to collect it months later to review the way nature has inscribed its marks on it!  This is quite a different approach to traditional landscape painters, who set up an easel at a distance from their subject to paint.

Wolseley characteristically keeps detailed notebooks, which serve almost like a primary laboratory where he records his thoughts and observations and often, in the form of sketches, presents brilliant excursions into attempts to understand the inner workings of nature from small topographical details to the geography, biology, horticulture and history of an area.
Ventifact 21 2006-watercolour and carbonised wood on paper

Whitakee wattle and grey-crowned babbler 2004-watercolour and carbonised wood on paper

Isopogon frot Royal National Park 2002-watercolour and carbonised wood on paper

http://www.australiangalleries.com.au/artists/9-artists/330-johnwolseley






Week Nine
Abstraction: Drawing with non-conventional media/materials
September 15 2014
HAMMER DRAWING 3
The third drawing in this series zooms in on an area of mark-making from the second drawing and gets inside the vortex of the hammering action using more light and shade to emphasise the layers of contained energy.  The charcoal was pushed with rubbing to blur to give the idea of speed and streaks of white conte were used to give the impression of sparks of energy.   I added some brown conte to add  rust colour to the mix of lines.


                           detail1

                                                                                                   detail 2
STATEMENT
A short statement that outlines the ideas for the sequence of 3 transitional drawings and how the materials used relate to the development of the ideas:
My much used Stanley hammer shows the signs of wear and age in the scratched, pitted and rusted surface of the hammer head.  The chromed stem retains its shine. I wanted to show these qualities in the surface of the drawing as well as imply the power and action of the tool when used to drive in nails. I chose to use compressed charcoal and conte because the gritty nature of the drawing material reflected the surface of the weathered and worn tool.

The sequence of the hammering action became the subject of the second abstracted drawing by using  fast and loosely drawn lines to imply speed.  I added to this by using a rubber to meld and blur some of the lines, while using white conte as small highlights suggesting small areas catching light.

This viewpoint was emphasised in the third drawing by zooming in on an area of the abstracted drawing by using energetic line to give the impression of energetic movement.  A rubber was used again to blur, and flicks and dashes of line were used over and through the layers of suggested action to denote speed and flying sparks. 





Week Ten
Group critique
September 22, 2014

The idea or concept for these drawings should be derived from a particular site or context that you can link to the object used for the abstract drawings from weeks 7-9.
THE TASK
The task for the following 4 weeks is to make a series of experimental drawing works that investigate the potential of what contemporary drawing can be.  the interpretation of what constitutes an experimental drawing process is open to your interpretation and can be a range of materials from ephemeral to digital and of any material, but the choices must be informed by your concept.

The idea or concept for these drawings should be derived from a particular site or context that you can link to the object used in weeks 7-9.  This can be literal or an association with the object.


 SITE associated with the HAMMER
Since the hammer is used for renovation and repair of my house, this is the central location used for the next series of drawings.  A hammer would have been a key tool in the construction of the original house and over fifty years later it is still the tool that is used to repair the existing house.   It became indispensable when we undertook a major home renovation project about four years ago.  

 The idea to renovate came with a restlessness and dissatisfaction with how the spaces worked to live in and some less than perfect levels and lines that had been constructed by a previous owner.

 With a need to improve and make the house more functional and comfortable for future living, we made the mistake of coming up with improvement ideas...and once you do that there is no going back.  There is an ideal to strive for.  Like all projects of this nature, the process can get out of control financially and organisationally. Renovation is a huge disruption in your daily routine.   Ordered life became disrupted and progressed to a state of chaos when parts of the house were pulled down or torn apart. The process took much longer than expected and is still ongoing.  Order is finally returning. and the end is in sight.   What will I do then? 
 
Hammer = construction/order
Renovation = destruction/chaos






MY HOUSE
My house was built in 1958 from thick rough-sawn green timber because it was cheaper than dressed boards.  These have the visible impression of the cutting marks from the circular saw marks from both single and double passes of the log over saw bench.  The boards have vertical, horizontal and diagonal cutting marks from the sawmill where they were cut over fifty years ago.

 

The planks are secured to the framework of the house vertically  on the outside, and horizontally on some walls inside the house.  The texture and pattern of the boards is a coincidental texture of the random placement of the boards.




MEMORY
My mother's father and my dad were both sawmillers.   I have strong memory of the sight and smell of sawdust piles and the high pitched stressed sounds of the large circular saws as the logs passed through the blades to be cut and dressed.
My father was also a carpenter.   I grew up spending time in sawmills watching logs being split, pushed through large circular saws, trimmed, racked, stacked and transported on trucks. The high-pitched sound of the saw and the smell of sawdust pervade memories of my childhood. I watched my father built and repair things around the house. The sound of a hammer echoes there too.



                                                                                                          my grandfather's sawmill, East Tamar 1939




THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE IDEA
My maternal great grandmother was an excellent seamstress.  I think I inherited the gene and l earned to sew at an early age.  I like making things.
I have always had an affinity with timber and textiles.  By nature these two materials are diametrically opposed.  Wood is hard and is used for rigid construction and remains firm.  Rigid metal nails, screws and staples secure pieces of wood together to construct and repair.  Fabric is soft and drapes around a form. Flexible thread is used to attach fabric together and repair damage and wear.


I am a handy woman.  I can sew with a needle and thread and I can use power and hand tools to undertake basic carpentry construction and repair.  One skill would be considered feminine and the other masculine.  The relationship of opposites is how we exist in the world, whether masculine or feminine, positive or negative, large or small.  Binary notions are at the core of our being to varying degrees.

Textile patterns are contrived and designed marks that give order to a surface to create beauty.   Incidental found textures that may show imperfections, damage or age are just as beautiful.  

 visual and descriptive words

  • texture
  • grain
  • fibre
  • wood
  • splinter
  • contrast
  • scar
  • weathering
  • patina
  • rough
  • earthy
  • rustic
  • construction
  • joining
  • matching

COLLECT A RANGE OF MARKS FROM THE SITE:
  • frottage 

                                 rubbings of rough-sawn house boards
Textile patterns are made as a result of creative human expression.   The texture and grain of wood is nature’s own pattern and the marks of a tree’s life and history.  The secondary marks of the saw tell another story.

Through the random frottage impressions of the rough-sawn timber boards of my house I wanted to reconstruct a new sample section of wall giving a new order and rhythm to the panel.  While the juxtaposition of boards on the house would have occurred purely by chance in the original build, I discovered common saw marks when deliberately putting boards together. In my abstract exploration Timber Stack I discovered new patterns and connections between the boards

  • masonite

  • masonite stitich
Masonite is a man-made composite material produced to be an economical building material.  The sheets are mass-produced to be consistently the same…smooth on one side with the inherited mesh impression of the mould on the other.  The “masonite stitch” I found 20 years ago when pulling a sheet down in a former renovation.  The mark was a contradiction in terms of the material.  A stitch is used with flexible thread of soft material, this “stitch” is a repair on hard material during the manufacturing process when the composite substance was liquid, and a thread was used to bind an imperfection in the material.
  • peeled plywood
These pieces of discarded strips were used as packing.  I used them to create random patterns for the Grid works.


WHAT DO YOU WANT TO COMMUNICATE?

 Objects and surfaces are embedded with history and memory. Marks and patina make patterns and can be used to discover and tell stories about a thing or place.


We have been living in our house for about 16 years and there has always been a renovating project underway...it never seems to end....so a deep seated association with my house is the constant lack of order....things stored while we wait for the ideal space to be finished.  As a DIY woman who likes to make things it takes  time than a skilled tradesman, while working around time and money.  

The idea of renovating is to finish the process....but it takes a long time to get there.  The central theme of the final works is the search for order, and the experience of chaos while woking towards a calm state of organised space.  Renovation = both deconstruction and construction/ chaos and order 



Work 1 
  • Fold out=reconstruction
  • Board book=timber with imagined hammer action
  • Panel=reconstruction with imagined hammer action


Work 2 

  • a series of five drawings that progress from the idea of being restless with the space you live in and the progression from deconstruction to construction and the ensuing chaos that follows to finally get the reward of order.   Building material textures are used to create pattern and surface to tell the story.


 THE MATERIALS USED
graphite - metalic/shiny
charcoal - black matt/dull
white compressed charcoal
tea stained paper
Japanese paper

Week Eleven
Expanded form development (continued)
September 29, 2014



PATTERN
This was a rubbing experiment with charcoal to create a grid from found materials inspired by Ingor Kleinert's work with assembled patterned surfaces, and was the starting point for the major work  for Task 2 Renovation: Chaos and Order


                                                                  grid of peeled plywood rubbings - charcoal

This is another experiment using the masonite stitch to create a linear pattern.  By shading between the repeated rubbing marks, I was able to create the suggestion of form, giving the impression that the rubbings were wounds or cuts.  This was more difficult to emulate with the graphite I chose to use for the major work.

                                                                        multiple masonite stitch rubbings - charcoal







Week Twelve
Expanded Form development (continued)
October 6, 2014 


COINCIDENTAL PATTERN

 Timber Stack: - 20 pages
fold-out strip of joined graphite timber board rubbings - attached to a plywood cover & back
The rubbings were taken from random board around the outside of my house. When consciously put together side by side in a different order common circular saw marks can be seen, revealing the marks of a timber that had been cut in the same place at the same time.  The boards would have been randomly racked, stacked and transported before they were acquired for this construction.  The builders would have used the closest at hand when fastening the boards side by side. A new rhythmical coincidental pattern is made by the conscious ordering of the separate rubbings.



 Hammering Nails 
Graphite drawing over timber board rubbings glued to a  plywood strip 

This work represents a section of wall being built overlayed with lines representing the action of hammering.   Most of these rubbings have the impressions of nails lined up along the boards.

                                     thumbnail sketch for the idea


detail 1

 detail 2

detail 3

detail 4
Hammering Timber - Board Book - 26 pages
Graphite timber board rubbings on tea stained paper (front face)with graphite line drawing on the back
bound with linen thread enclosing a stick from a eucalyptus tree.  (Gum trees are a common source of hardwood for the timber used in building and construction).

The tea stain was used to emulate the colour of timber as well as the age, marks and wear of weather and time on external boards.  Securing the pages with a straight twig from a gum tree symbolises the gap of time between a young tree and a tree big enough to be felled for timber.  It is also about the lapse of time between when the house was constructed by the original owner of the house and the present.

The vigorous line drawing represents the energy and action of hammering the boards during construction.






REFERENCED ARTISTS:

Richard Long (b.   UK)

This series of images are based on pencil rubbings on textured surfaces and are a unique reference to the material and site of these works.  In the same way the rubbings of the boards of my house are a direct reference to my house and are embedded with a knowledge and familiarity with the place where I live.  Like Richard Long's work, the rubbings create a new narrative of a particular site. 
                                                                               Limestone Drawing One 2002 screenprint
                                                                                 Limestone Drawing Two 2002  screenprint
                                                                                Slate Drawing One 2002 screenprint
                                                                                                 Slate Drawing Two 2002 screenprint


The work of this artist always has a connection to the natural landscape.   He has made the act of walking in remote and extraordinary landscapes into an art form, and has created a language of simple geometric forms, marked on the surface of the earth with stones, water, dust or snow.  He photographs the ephemeral arrangements he makes.  

The relationship with place is vital his work.
"One thing I like about my work is all the different ways it can be in the world," he says. "A local could walk by and not notice it, or notice it and not know anything about me. Or someone could come upon a circle and know it was a circle of mine. I really like the notion of the visibility or invisibility of the work as well as the permanence and transience."


 "The idea of ephemerality was never my main interest, though. It's important to say that. Always my interest was to realise a particular idea. Obviously, some of my stone lines just disappear. They get overgrown or moved by sheep, or whatever. That's great. That's the natural way of the world. But the reason I made the work has really nothing to do with that. It is simply about making a line of stone in a particular place at a particular time."



http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/may/10/art-richard-long

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/63.2013/
http://kaldorartprojects.org.au/project-archive/richard-long-1977


Ingo Kleinert (b. 1941  ) German, lives Australia

Discovering Ingo Kleinert's work was an exciting find, as I enjoy the poetry of patina in found surfaces. His works are like textile surfaces, and being a sewer who loves pattern his pieces resonate with me and his work inspired me to use the remnant masonite stitch that I had kept for many years as a repeated motif in the final work Reconstruction:  Chaos and Order.  
In 1992 Kleinert wrote: 

"As humans our sense of ‘place’ and preoccupation with sites is fundamental to our order and existence as producers and makers. The emphasis we give to ‘place’ controls and directs in no small way our priorities and aims, and the choices we make in directing the paths and destiny of out lives."



                                                                              Film Noir 2007, corrugated iron
                                                                              Earth Song 2009, corrugated iron
                                                                                  Threadbare 2007, corrugated iron


Kleinert's materials are bleached and rusted tin and corrugated iron, faded paint and burnt fragments that he finds. He recreates new landscapes from these elements that convey harmony within diversity animating the relationship between order and chaos.

The weathered marks of age and experience are a metaphor for life.  As much as the iron is highly sophisticated technologically – with great strength inherent in its simple curve – the appeal for Kleinert lies also with what he calls its ‘unpretentious and democratic’ possibilities as a material everyone can respond to, yet in quite poetic terms is also capable of expressing the emotions evoked by a historical account of the passage of time. 
Sara Maher (b. 1974 Sydney) lives in Tasmania
Sara is an emerging Tasmanian artist, who is inspired by the landscape and who creates beautiful imagined spaces and textures using earthy materials.  Her vision oscillates between intimate detail and expansive scale or can be both.  There is a lightness and ethereal quality about this work that I find very beautiful.

 The textures of Sara's earthy surfaces are very poetic and feminine and I see some similarities in see similarities in my own love of landscape, texture and pattern.
                                                                               Cumulus 2014

                                                                                           detail To Go Inside a Stone 2014




Lucienne Rickard  (b. 1981 Lithgow NSW) lives Hobart (see Influential Artists page)
Lucienne is also an emerging Tasmania artist, who works with deep layers of solid graphite, giving a seemingly low relief form to a flat surface.  Her work inspired me to use much more solid layers of graphite and not be afraid of layering the drawing material. 




 Week Thirteen
Final Group critique.  Writing a reflective statement
October 13, 2014
This series Reconstruction:  Chaos and Order arose from the experiment with the peeled plywood grid rubbings and experiments with graphite rubbings of the "masonite stitch" as a basis for creating a textured surface with a narrative.

                      masonite stitch study

                                   masonite stitch close-up

By moving the paper over the surface of masonite, and turning it at different angles and making rubbings, the effect was of a textured surface of overlapping grids of dots, which gave the impression of form.                                    

Timber and masonite are are different building materials.  The stitch signifies repair and reconstruction, while the timber and fragments reconstructed into a grid pattern signify construction and order.  The underlying theme of the final abstracted series of works uses the process of building renovation to express the concept of finding order from chaos. The series of drawings also tries to show the inherent beauty in imperfect building materials. By accepting their anomalies and unique properties rather than expecting machined perfection and perfect matching, a new story can be told.  

The five drawings are a symbolic narrative using the textures taken from scarred and damaged construction materials and are an appreciation of the anomalies and unique properties of material...and not to expect machined perfection and perfect matching.  

 The idea was to visually convey the process of being restless and wanting to renovate and improve on the existing building design to create something more perfect.  Restlessness is associated with unease, being off centre, while order is seen as centred, right-angled and level.  The drawings in between represent the damage, dust and chaos that ensued in the pursuit of a comfortable, workable living environment.
Reconstruction:  Chao and Order 

     Drawing 1 - Restless
It seems that we are never satisfied, but always want to improve on what we have.  Big ideas push us to make improvements.

     Drawing 2 - Deconstruction Haze
The destruction of pulling down existing walls in preparation for reconstruction comes as a great disruption to normal routines and is like a haze of pain as you put up with the scars of discomfort in the pursuit of improvement. 

     Drawing 3 - Dust and Chaos
Dust, dirt and chaos are tolerated while the process of rebuilding and repair go on around you.  It is oppressing and feels as though it will never end.

     Drawing 4 - Settling
Like different particles settling in a jar of liquid ,  the chaos of renovation construction settles back to normal routines as projects are completed and the building process comes to a close.

     Drawing 5 -  Settled
In the search to match and make perfect, does a house lose it's soul?  Does the building become boring? A house should keep the marks of time and its patina should maintained and appreciated. The temptation to perfect should be given a nudge and scars and marks need to be kept as part of the new design and order of things.
                                         Restless graphite on Japanese paper

                                         Deconstruction Haze graphite on Japanese paper

                                         Dust and Chaos graphite on Japanese paper

                                         Settling graphite on Japanese paper

                                         Settled graphite on Japanese paper


  
                                  details


                                   


                

FINAL ASSESSMENT TASK 2 due
October 20 2014 
















No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)