Lucian Freud

 Over the weekend we were supposed to reproduce a portrait by Lucian Freud. I chose this one 'Susie' (1988, Oil on canvas)

Installation

 So on Thursday morning we had to create an installation using materials inspired by an image we had chosen. We had to focus on the contrast between textures, tones and materials in general. I began to work with materials such as black bin bags, brown paper, clothes hangers, black string and masking tape. 

When I started the installation it was a bit too much of a relief piece on the wall so I tried to give it more structure. There was also a lack of colour in the installation, so I ended up teaming up with someone and we added scrunched magazine pages and different pieces of fabric.
 

After doing some more blind painting looking at both positive and negative space, we began to work on thumbnails of sections of our installation. We started to focus on the composition on the page. 

I mixed three different tones of paint, a dark tone, a medium tone and a light tone and started by mapping out the painting (using paint, not a pencil!) according to the thumbnail I'd made. Then I started painting using a palette knife and working from the background, to the middle ground then lastly we were to build up the foreground focusing on applying each tone next to eachother. I really enjoyed using the palette knife as it was so different from using a brush and gave a nice thick build up of paint.

Blind Painting and Negative Space

 Yesterday we did the first part of painting which was blind painting and negative space. We were looking closely at a cluster of desks and easels,and weren't supposed to look at the page or lift the brush. It was very tempting to look, and it was hard not to be concerned with what the outcome looked like, but eventually I began to get used to it and thought it was a good exercise in training my eye. I decided to continue some of this in my sketchbook...

We also started to work with plastic cards (like credit cards, supermarket  loyalty cards etc.) to learn about how to push the paint around the page in a different way than just using brushes. I really liked the effect the card could give, creating thin lines with the side of the card and dragging the paint to create an interesting surface.
 I experimented with this in my sketchbook as well and also decided to try using a plastic palette knife to explore different tools used for painting...

Elective 2: Painting

 

 To start off the painting elective, we were told to gather images which excited and appealed to us to discuss on Monday. Here are some I'm considering:

Morgan Doyle

I started to look at the work of Morgan Doyle, a printmaker from cork. I really liked his work. I thought the use of colour (which is subtle and used pretty sparingly) is really effective and I like the block application.
The artist seems to capture the essence of the places he's depicting in an almost abstract way as if he is recreating the places from memory, only recalling the general shapes, colour, tones and atmosphere.

More print

I decided to build up the soft and subtle greys of the abandonded wall with colour. I thought of the colour as almost a symbol for the life and personality of my space- and how it could bring warmth to the place. At the same time I didn't want to lose the soft quality of the monoprints so far...

I then decided to explore the idea of adding more of a structure to the prints by doing a quite geometric line drawing in drypoint. I printed this over a few of the prints, but I think the dark and quite structured quality of the drypoint was a bit too strong for the prints and took away from them a bit.