Similarities and Differences:Final Piece

 

My final piece, I now realise was rather disjointed to all of my previous work. I stuck with my developing theme of windows, and found one of this design in Cambridge, on one of the Churches as you walk into town from the train station. I did not include any references, really from what I had developed previously, and that probably was what put me down to an A rather than an A*.

 

The piece it self is showing the similarities and differences of various media and techniques - coloured pencil, watercolour, acrylics and oil paints. The window design itself was far more complicated, so I simplified it. Even so, it still found me crawling all over the floor with an improvised compass comprising of a piece of string, a drawing pin and a pencil.

 

On reflection, there are some other ideas which probably would have been better, but this has an almost abstract quality, and I'm quite proud of it. It hangs on my wall above my bed.

 

This is one of the pencil sketches I did originally of the window. This page was later filled with various artist research and secondary developments, in order to make it look like I'd thought about it more than just panicked and did the first thing that came into my mind.

 

Oh and it's enormous. It's a metre square.



Similarities and Differences: Ely Cathedral

I took a visit to Ely Cathedral for my Art. It's a beautiful old building, with towering spires and intricate details, and if you ever get a chance to visit it, I would recommend it. However, what caught my eye were the windows. Beautiful stained glass windows.

I first did two stylised pencil studies of a section of one of the windows, one in colour and one tonally. I very much liked them indeed. The colour one also was a chance to experiment with tone and flat colour and seemed to be able to stand as a piece on its own.

I also did a coloured ink study of a section,but I wasn't best pleased with it. I hate the streaky and uneven colours that occur. However,it did capture the translucence and vibrancy of the glass in a way that other media wouldn't have.

Up next, my final piece!



Similarities and Differences: The Library

Another one of the places I used for my studies was the Library where I volunteer. The building dates from the early 1900s, as one of the first Carnegie Libraries. I found it to be a fascinating study, and extrapolated it into both stylised, modernistic studies, and my own traditional ways of working.

 

 

 One of the original studies I did was the painting above. I initially did it in flat colour and detested every inch of it. So, to rectify, I added stylised cross-hatching and lines This brought out the colour and definition of the brickwork and the window, the latter of which I had already begun to become fascinated by.

Below are a few of the prints I did as an experiment, which I also added stylised lines to.

 

 

 

I then did a highly intricate pencil drawing, which took me hours and hours to complete. Yes, those are tiny little circles filling all of the brickwork. Then, taking that as a base, I photocopied it and reproduced it in several different media.
 

 

My favourite, watercolour

 

 

Oil pastel.

 

 

Oil pastel in the style of Monet.

 

 

And Chalk Pastel.

Exploring all of these with one picture shows experimentation again, and with photocopies,it makes it much easier to do so.

 

 

My final test was a bit of monoprinting the design of the library. I am not entirely pleased with it, but it was the best one I could find. In actual fact, this was the negative print I got after doing one of the monoprints, and in actual fact,it is more effective than the actual prints were.



Similarities and Differences : Sport Now and Then

 

My first page in my new sketch book was an artist study Here I chose to study the Architect Zaha Hadid, and her design for the London 2012 Aquatics centre.

 

I did a Watercolour study and a pen study of two of the pieces of concept art. My favourite is the watercolour, as it gives a nice smooth texture,one of the reasons I like working in that media.

I also then compared the effects of each design,and the use of each media,crossing off of the list one part of the similarities and differences brief for one subject.

 

I then compared this with an ancient Roman amphitheatre, the third most complete one in the world, in Tunisia, in a town called El Jem. I used tonal pencils and photography to document this one, and then used these to compare with the previous studies. Then, I wrote a huge, A3 Page on this, and the comparison of the two structures. It was from this that I got the reputation of writing too much.

 

 

I did this a long time ago- last year, October-ish. I didn't know then that I would be visiting the Olympic park. But,now, in hindsight, I can add a photo of what the aquatics centre actually looks like.

 

 

It's pretty amazing.



Similarities and Differences: Introduction

My Second Coursework Project revolved around the theme of Similarities and Differences. It sounds confusing, but it's very open. You could compare mediums, textures, styles, designs, subjects, anything really! We had a very broad spectrum of work across our class.

But, we all started with the same still life.

 

 

A Sustained Drawing can make or break an entire grade sometimes. The more, and better quality drawings you have, the more marks you get. Hence why at the beginning of every project, our teacher set up a still life, and we had to draw it (apologies for bad photography).

This one she set up involved lots of contrasting textures, heights, metallic and varying states of organic and synthetic; a collection of weird, wacky and wonderful items to which nearly none of them match. Differences.

 

My favourite part was the bowl of wool (three guesses why...) but mainly because of the challenge it posed. This was solved by drawing in the strands themselves with long, sweeping pencil marks.

 

This drawing I did in half coloured pencils, and half tonal, so that in my annotation, I could compare them. Throughout the entire project, I tried to make everything as blatantly clear as possible. Which, I'm told, is a very good thing.

 

This project is shorter than the other one, as we had less time, and I myself went through a very bad patch, so was unable to work to my fullest potential. However, everything you do contributes to the final mark, so never give up.