I shuffled my timetable a round a bit this week. Instead of working on my graded unit this morning I was putting up my display of photographic portraits as part of the Fun a Day project in Dundee. I was a great fun way to kick-start my creativity after Christmas, taking photos of friends and other 'significant others' over the course of January 2018. I produced a series of 8x10 black and white images, mounted them on foam board, and I've displayed them like a giant calendar on the wall of the studio in WASPS at Meadow Mill. The exhibition is on over the weekend from Friday to Sunday. I'm pleased with my display, but can't wait to see what everyone has produced. In the afternoon I did more experimenting for my graded unit. I mentioned I want to produced a Louise Nevelson style assemblage representing a bus engine - as you do! It will be made of recycled rubbish and I started pulling it together. When I was at WASPS this morning I called into Scrapantics, the wonderful social enterprise selling waste and used items for art projects. It's a real Aladin's Cave, and I picked up some bits and pieces to add the the recycling I've held onto at home for the project.
I also wanted to start my 'oil on aluminium' experiments. I've got the first layer down. I'm hoping the oil paint adheres to the aluminium okay. Only one way to find out!
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I finished off this drawing I started at the weekend. It's mainly charcoal, but with a touch of colour added using pastel, and is a close up of a tool box in the bus garage.
Yesterday, and overnight last night, loads of ideas have been filling my head around my theme and ideas for an final artwork. I wanted to explore some of my own experiences of work, and create a piece reflective of how I feel about work and people in the workplace. The job I am currently doing is based in a bus depot. I work with a great bunch of people. I am enjoying comparing my current work with experiences elsewhere, and have been exploring in my head, the concept of 'dirty work'. It would make sense to assume there would be more 'dirty work' done by the mechanics in a bus depot, but I have experienced more 'dirt' working previously in a professional position in a reputable firm. I'm going to focus my graded unit theme on different definitions of 'dirty work', exploring my feelings about my experiences, and translating concepts into my final piece. I'm still at the development stage of my graded unit, and need to do more experimenting, but I'm starting to get a much clearer idea of what my final piece might look like. It's getting exciting!
Meantime, this drawing of Davy is in charcoal and pastel. At the same time as experimenting with different dry media, I wanted to show that work in the garage can be very colourful! I took my camera to work today to collect some more photographs, as primary research for my graded unit. These included shots of bus engines, and a few more of the engineers working away. I had been looking at some of my previous shots including photos from the inspection pits, up towards the underside of a bus. It made me think of Louise Nevelson's work, and has inspired me to create a relief or assemblage representing the workings of a bus! I'll start collecting recycling and other items which might be suitable.
These photos of Nevelson's work were taken in the Tate Modern last year. I can't believe I'm getting excited at the sight of the underside of buses!! Last week I started building up experimental pieces on different surfaces, using mainly acrylic, soft pastel, ink, and image transfer. This week I developed these a bit further. I worked on the image transfers a bit more to clarify the images, then coated them with a variety of substances; gel medium, acrylic medium and PVA in particular. Some came out better than others.
I then started printing using the lino sheet I cut out last week. I printed some on plain paper, and experimented on other surfaces, including a sheet of wood I picked up from the Dundee and Angus Wood Recycling Centre last week and coated with watered down PVA. I printed some in black and then added some yellow and red ink to create a brown, rusty effect. Considering the image cut into the lino was drawn from a selection of rusty tools, I think this was quite appropriate, as well as effective. Once I was finished with the ink for lino printing, I drew a monoprint based on one of my Xplore photos, of bus tyres, which came out quite well. Finally, because I don't like waste, I used up the last of the ink with a negative monoprint. I made a great discovery today; the Dundee and Angus Wood Recycling Centre. It's a social enterprise, operating from a warehouse Dunsinane Avenue in Dundee. The building is full of pallets, some old furniture and various off-cuts of wood. In exchange for any bits of wood they have lying around, they ask for a donation, which goes towards buying tools for the Trainees who attend the centre to learn skills etc. I picked up kindling for the wood-burning stove, and they cut a strip of veneered plywood into boards approx A4 size, which will make great surfaces to paint on.
Having researched artists I like, and who produced work similar to my theme, the next stage of the plan for my graded unit is 'experimentation with supports'. I will need to decide at some point what surface to use to create my final piece, so I wanted to try out a selection first. It was great fun, slapping on different media, including acrylic paint, soft pastels, pencils and inks, on surfaces ranging from aluminium, to cardboard; waxed cotton to a pink plastic bag. I also transferred images onto most of my sample surfaces – partly to compare using gesso/gesso, and gesso/acrylic copolymer solution as a transfer medium.
Overall, some of the supports were more successful than others. For example it wasn’t possible to make most media adhere to the aluminium. As I intend to produce a mixed media piece, I will need to choose a support which can retain a range of mediums. I’ll add some finishing touches to my experiments, before deciding what support I might use. I spend the final part of my day preparing a lino cut, as I expect printing will feature in some form within my final piece. I chose to cut a pair of pliers and a spanner, just for experimentation, but in conjunction with my theme. We had a visit from Bradley whose business is called Kilty Pleasure, and which has the strap-line "We put the tart in tartan". I recognised Brad when he came into the classroom, as he had featured on Kirsty Allsop's Christmas programme, when he took part in a tree decoration competition.
Brad had been a student at D&A College (possibly at that time, just Angus College), but has gone on to build up a business, working mainly in, you guessed it, tartan fabric. His main area of work is textile design and manufacturing, with kilt-making his speciality. It was interesting hearing from him about how he started out, mainly selling his creations through craft fairs, and how he has develop his business to the stage that he is about to open a retail outlet (shop!) in Arbroath shortly. It was very good of Brad to give his time to us and to talk openly about his challenges and progress in developing his business. I had the most amazing morning today, taking photographs in and around the Xplore Dundee bus depot. I work there part time in the office, between art classes, so have been adopted as their unofficial ‘artist in residence’. I suggested I might want to take some photographs around the engineering workshops and elsewhere across the depot. Frank the Depute Managing Director, responsible for the facility, was enthusiastic about granting me full permission to move around the depot, and seemed excited to hear what my plans were.
Almost everyone I approached was interested in my project and all but a few colleagues were willing to get their photograph taken. I got some fabulous shots of people, going about their work, in the garage, the Operations areas where the Drivers work from, and in the admin offices. My experience this morning not only confirmed what great people they are to work with, but also how photogenic they are! I got lots of brilliant shots of buses, tyres, machinery etc and people going about their work. A few people preferred to ‘pose’, which was great, but I’d have to say, some of my more candid shots seem to have captured people’s personality. In the evening I went to DCA to see The Post. It was a great film, and resonates with current political activities, showing a comparison between Nixon’s Presidency and the current US Presidency in the approach to freedom of the Press. Apart from that though, I enjoyed the scenes in the printroom where the typesetters created the text, and the newspapers were printed. Interesting to see the traditional processes, and the magnificence and scale of the operations. It was very inspiring seeing the printers at work alongside their printing machines. I had a great mentoring session with Sarah (MacLean) today. We get at least three meetings with our mentor/s, and this was the first one, to discuss our Planning and Project Plan. We discussed my initial thoughts for a theme and what type of artwork I intend (at this stage) to produce.
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