Recapping three individual tutorials for my project.

S saw my mindmap and suggested I do mould making,  so I booked in for a 3 morning induction that included slipcasting.  S.H saw my final oil painting and research and suggested I do oil painting/s and writing, so I booked to make 5 mini stretchers to try this out and did some writing about my project. C.S.  listened to my project progress and suggested I do a video for noise and sound effects, so I booked an audio-visual induction and made a video. I am learning a lot about doing art but I don’t want to lose my own way!

My own mindmap keeps me focused, and these quotes keep me open, teachable!

3.COLOUR THEORY workshop!

I learnt in this session that pure colours have no complimentary colours in them, so pure orange has no blue in it and pure red has no green in it and so on. The painter’s colour wheel organises named colour hues (3 primaries, 3 secondaries and 6-12 tertiary colours) in a circle.

This helps me to compare existing  colours. In 1810 Goethe observed their effect on each other on the wheel. The high contrast between opposite colours makes them vibrate.

     

I find different colour wheels helpful in understanding different things about colour:

Primary and secondary colour wheel

Tertiary colours added…

Every colour is described using something in nature so easier to picture or remember the colour

I see colour when light bounces off an object and either reflects it or absorbs it. Light is a wave, and it’s frequency is colour.

I had to experiment with mixing complimentary colours and painting them on paper and messing about with them to see how they interact.

Complimentary colours I mixed

Experimenting with colour

 

 

 

Inkspot in Cardiff

At Inkspot I found a well-supplied art shop, though not cheap, and upstairs was Gallery Black that reminded me of a disorganised second-hand bookshop.  The location – an old church disturbed me too because it had been a place of worship that now sold things.  It didn’t seem right!  I enjoyed looking at the art work of Andrew Lanning and local artists but one artist stood out because of his 3 dimensional touch to his oil paintings involving wood cut-outs.  It has inspired me to paint similarly,  experimenting with my inside outside project.  These are some of his pieces:

Art Academy : WJEC exhibition

I saw various pieces of work by other foundation students.  I was especially amazed by the paper cut out pattern clothes which were intricate and done to a high quality. My own two pieces were there and they brought back happy memories of visiting beaches and watching surf films and painting.  They are both up for sale :

Wave form 2 : 100 x 70 cm

g39 gallery : native exhibition

This is a big indoor space that Cardiff-based artist Kelly Best was sharing with Georgie Grace.  The atmosphere was eerie and the music, video, pots, installation and dream record book created an almost frightening experience.  The pieces I liked best were rooted in drawing. They looked like strings of a harp and were a refreshing break from the heavy atmosphere in the rest of the art space.  I plan to use visual thinking strategies when I go to another exhibition and ask the three big questions our lecturer uses to help us discuss the pieces we see.

Kelly Best produces line drawings on wood

Line drawing on huge scale

Platos cave in the context of education.

In the cave analogy, the freed prisoner is not passive – he turns around and looks for a way to escape. Similarly education is about my passion and interests, not about filling my mind with knowledge. I have to proactively get my education at university : study, read, attend class, do art.  If I discover the topics that hold me and make those my priority then I will know where I stand and what my viewpoints are and I will be stronger and better able to argue, discuss and talk about it when challenged.

Painting

Finished 5 week oil painting workshop today. I had only used acrylics before so this was a steep learning curve for me.  I learnt to respect oils and go humbly. I can see the difference between my first oil which was a failure because I painted too confidently and quickly, and my last oil where I went slowly and carefully.

First oil painting I did.

Oil painting I did last

I was able to buy this painters handbook which will be a resource when I use oils for the outside/inside project

I am looking forward to reading this!

 

Truth and Illusion!

Platos Theory of Form is helpful in figuring out whether my beliefs are true or false. Plato says that experience through my senses is fake. When I am ruled by what I see, hear, taste, touch and smell I see illusions. Plato says that thinking apart from my senses, with my intelligible mind only, is reality because ideas are untouchable.  My idea of an apple exists even if every apple tree in the world dies. CAN I SEE TRUTH FROM SHADOW? Can I see the perfect form, reality, the light FROM the copy, the illusion,  the cave?

These are all copies of apples: drawing, painting, screenprint, photo.

Appleness : the essence of an apple!

The essence of an apple means: what it is fundamentally – it’s colour, shape, smell, texture, taste, how it grows, how it cooks. The truth is revealed by the perfect idea of an apple that exists in my mind.  When I see an apple I know it is an apple. There are 7500 varieties in the world but it is always the same. I can recognise an apple whether it is an imperfect line drawing (and doesn’t really exist) or decayed (a shadow of the real thing) or hanging from a branch in an orchard.

Essence : properties that determine what it is!

An image in my mind of its basic qualities

 

A mature Red Delicious apple hanging from a commercial orchard tree.

Truth is the idea of apple in my mind which I can recognise in a drawing or rotten apple or apple on a tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Understanding the Gingerbread Theory

This Theory is also called Platos Philosophy where he defines a concept by saying that there is a perfect template for everything: an orange,  an apple, a person, a chair. The story of the gingerbread man could be an analogy where the oven is education; the parents are the educators; the gingerbread an individual; the animals technology; the river life and the fox is a controller.  The catch phrase : “you cant catch me” refers to a person who knows the truth and is free when he thinks (runs), but is deceived when he stops thinking (running) to trust another’s judgement!

The gingerbread thinker (GT)

Stop thinking and I am deceived, controlled – I don’t know truth and am not free!