Experiments

This piece I felt was successful because I have used a wide range of mediums and it has a creative use of composition. I have also added both aspects of my artists own work as well as my own in this piece. It relates to Debbie Smyth by the use of thread and Guy Denning by the use of rough and rushed lines. It could be improved by thinking more creatively on how I have used the thread in this piece and adding darker tones of brown into it. To do this, I will perhaps look into rusting or use watercolour for different tones. I may also look into the artist Debbie Smyth differently by choosing a different technique of hers to look at, for example her contrast. I feel this has helped me in my final piece because I think I may use a dripping effect and coffee in my own work as an idea. I am proud of this experiment and it has given me new ideas which I will look into.

This piece I feel was less successful than the first because the mediums I have used together do not work as well as I had hoped as they smudged each other. I tried to add a new technique of masking tape into the work to see if it added any effects but it seems very subtle and not very noticeable in this. I have not used any techniques of Debbie Smyth but I have focused on using Guy Denning's use of lines into it to see how it turned out. I feel I could improve this by being more accurate with the lines and not using pastel and coffee together. This has helped me for ideas of a final piece because it has gave me ideas of what to use and what not to use in terms of mediums in this. I am unhappy with this piece, but it has helped me learn from my mistakes and create better pieces in my future experiments.

This piece I feel is somewhat successful because I have created a blended, smooth texture with pastels that contrast with the black, rough texture of a thread at the bottom. I have created a broken effect using graphite which I feel is effective and meaningful in my theme. I used Debbie Smyth's technique of thread in this piece which I think is a good choice because it creates rough, inaccurate lines which are effective in this piece. This could be improved by making the clock more circular and making the pastel section more in relation to the piece. This has helped me think of ideas of what sort of lines I want to create in my final piece, for example, the broken graphite effect. I think I am happy with this experiment due to it giving me ideas of what I can potentially use in my work.

This piece I find is more successful than the last. This is because I added the masking tape effect again but with a black pastel background. This for me created a bigger contrast that I found more effective. However I could improve it by making the masking tape effect smaller so more of the picture is seen. I could do this by folding the tape and increasing the scale. I can relate this work to my theme of time, where there is a clock in the background and the masking tape represents lost memories that have been wiped. I intend to stick with this theme. This has made me want to study more into fragmentation, and perhaps look for an artist who does so. I want to keep the technique of fragmentation into my work for my final piece. I am particularly proud of this piece, because it has given me ideas for my final piece.

In this experiment I used mixed media, as well as coffee, thread and ink. I feel like this was successful but it could be easily improved by using less black so you can see the image. I feel it is successful because it has use of different mediums and contrast from the different textures with the mixed media. I can relate my work to Guy Denning with the use of rushed lines and Debbie Smyth with the use of thread. However it is different by me using mixed media and different abstract shapes to complete it. I may use mixed media in some parts of my final piece due to this experiment. However I feel I will not use it all over the piece because I am not happy with how it has turned out.

Artist analysis - Guy Denning

Guy Denning is an artist who frequently uses powerful brushstrokes with oils and the scratching of paint to create effective figurative paintings. He was self-taught and always interested by art, despite being refused entry for several art colleges. The refusal he got from art college is one of the reasons he is who he is today in terms of art style, as he had to teach himself rather than learn from others and maybe get told how to do certain things. He was inspired by Franz Kline and his powerful brushstrokes in his abstract drawings as well as Kathe Kollwitz, but now paints figurative portraiture to convey power emotions and meaning which he says changes throughout the process of creating his work, but is mainly focused on politics, society and war. War became a huge meaning to his work when he went to France with his family and they took him to the war cemetery in Verdun. War is affiliated with loss, which is the meaning I wish to convey in my works.

One of his works, titled ‘El Dopa’ is a close-up portrait of a woman, which he had used oil paint on canvas to make this piece. The portrait itself is very heavily coloured in black around the nose, eyes and face, which takes away a few details in most of the face, for example the nostrils, the pupils and the majority of her lips. He also uses Shades of brown and white, as if he had tea-stained the canvas beforehand. There are few white highlights, to perhaps give less contrast so we focus on the whole piece instead of one area. The background looks like a map, with lines protruding anywhere to give a ‘broken’ vibe to the woman’s face, as they resemble cracks on her face. The woman herself looks emotionless, but with the dark colours and lack of contrast it is assumed the woman’s emotions and thoughts from the inside has been shown from the colour scheme, resembling unhappy feelings, with the ‘cracks’ being a metaphor for her mind, as her mind and emotions are broken, which really puts a deeper meaning into the artwork.  With the colour scheme, it bears the thought that the artwork has a much more serious meaning. The word ‘dopa’ in the title is a compound that is used to treat Parkinson’s disease, which could be related to the serious nature of this painting, where the woman is broken due to someone she lost. The colour black also has a negative connotation, like fear and death, which also links into the theme of loss in this piece. The brown could be a contrast to the meaning of the piece as it symbolises family and health.

Guy Denning frequently uses canvas from sizes as small as 30cm to as big as 100cm, usually creating a 3D effect by scratching the paint on the canvas itself, creating different layers. Guy Denning’s use of line is very controlled in his works, often not being precise, but in fact very free and chaotic. His mark-making are also usually very sharp and jagged, as it is like they have been scratched. They also look like they have been drawn very quick. His tone is also quite simple but varied, making most of his works heavily contrast with the black areas compared to the lack of white highlights, it creates a more realistic and 3D effect with the tone. His colours are primarily the primary colour of black and white and different variations of the tertiary colour brown to create a dark and meaningful piece, avoiding bright colours to convey a more serious meaning, however he has occasionally used bright primary colours such as red as a form of contrast. Because most of his work is based around war, it is fitting that he uses colours that symbolises negative feelings rather than bright colours which are usually affiliated with happy feelings. However, the red could be seen as negative in terms of war, as it could symbolise blood. He uses a rough texture in his work which is accomplished by his scratching of the oil paint. Oil paint itself is a very smooth texture, which contrasts with the scratched areas and the canvas, which are both quite rough textures to work with.

Guy Denning usually works into his piece by first creating a background of simply brown shades, then proceeds to draw whatever he wants. His work is very spontaneous, where the meaning often changes in his work and he has no clear plan on what the finished product will be. Most of his works usually end up with a meaning of seriousness in terms of violence, war, loss and politics, which he finds important to him due to him visiting the war cemetery back when he was child. This is usually conveyed using plain colours with most negative connotations, as well as the portraits being controlled and their subjects being emotionless.

 I find Guy Denning very inspiring by the way he uses colours and lines to convey the meaning he does, as a meaning of loss is one of the deeper interpretations I want to get out of my work. His use of lines is what inspires me the most, as the lines giving the impression of ‘broken’ is another meaning I find inspiring as it is very loose and free. He relates to my work due to the meanings he portrays and the use of lines I wish to incorporate into my drawings due to them being effective.

Artist Analysis - Debbie Smyth

Debbie Smyth is a contemporary textile artist specialising in nail and thread drawings. She creates her works by accurately plotting nails into walls and stretching various amounts of threads between them to create an image that range from towns to people. Most of her work is installed directly onto walls, installations, exhibitions and public areas giving her work a 3D effect. The effect she gives at first looks like a mass of thread everywhere yet it is actually directed and controlled, which is what I would like to accomplish in my own piece of work.

She had been interested in thread since she had learned to sew at a very early age.  She had studied in the West Wales School of the Arts and Colaiste Stiofain Naofa, Cork, doing both textiles and art, craft and design, which influenced her style of working with threads and nails to create what she does today. She was also influenced by the work of Michael Raedecker, Thomas Raschke, Anne Wilson, and Laura Thomas and found them inspiring by their work of textiles. Debbie Smyth tries to convey a meaning of great feeling and energy and spontaneity, as well as occasionally humour.  

The work titled ‘It’s a small world’ installed as part of The Map is not the Territory exhibition at 44AD Bath, is a thread and nail drawing of our world. At a first glance, it looks like lines connected to each side of the wall in the corner with the shape of the part of the world on either side, seemingly being connected by the lines. She only uses black thread against a pure white wall, emphasising contrast in this 3D structure. There are also white blocks on the black floor, further fitting with the black and white colour scheme as well as contrasting with the floor. The blocks in the piece do not touch the white wall to keep with the contrast. The blocks could be seen as buildings, particularly from a city, and a close up of the back thread artwork of our world behind the blocks. The lines connecting the worlds are with very thin thread, so the worlds that have been layered repeatedly with thread stand out even behind the thread lines. The lines can be seen as connections, meaning that all of the world is somehow connected one way or the other, maybe by technology, politics or even similarities. Therefore, despite the long distance there is from one another, there are still ways of connecting every one of us together. The meaning is quite a serious one, because it makes you think deeper into the piece and how technological advances have actually helped communication in our time now than how it was in the past.

Debbie Smyth is usually a very flexible artist when it comes to scale, frequently using walls from a museum or even interior walls from homes as a form of surface which are all different shapes and sizes. All of her work has a 3D element as she uses nails and thread so it sticks out the wall. The extent of how much she uses the thread is quite large, as she has pure black areas which would use a huge amount of thread in her work. The thread makes it so the lines are usually straight, but with a large amount of thread in the corner. This is so not all the lines are the same thickness because she sometimes uses a different amount of thread in certain areas to emphasise the lines and detail in the piece. Debbie Smyth doesn’t include much variety of mark making, but it is very loose but controlled in the way she handles the thread to create the accurate representations of objects and people. She does not include any tone, as the only medium she uses is black thread. However, the shade from the thread onto the wall can be counted as tone as it is 3D. Because she doesn’t use any primary colours (only uses black thread on white walls) her colours are very limited also, as her work is very monochrome and does not include any form of shading. The lack of a variety of colours gives the viewer the chance to be more focused on the actual image, rather than the colours. This may have been what the artist had intended, as it allows the viewer to understand he deeper meaning quicker than if they were just focused on the colour. She has a 3D texture, because she uses primarily black thread in the piece of work that sticks out from the smooth texture of the wall it is used on.

She works into her piece by first using a completely white wall as her background. She then proceeds to nail into the wall the basic shape of what she intends to make with her thread. Finally, she arranges the thread around the nails, creating an image made of thread. The meaning behind her works are very varied, some have a serious meaning relating to the world or society while others are quite comedic. The meanings are usually inferred by the subjects themselves, due to only using black and white in her artworks.

Debbie Smyth is a very unique artist and I find her inspiring due to the way she uses thread to create that 3D effect. I do not find her meanings behind her work as inspiring as her technique, which I would like to be able to use in my theme of ‘time’ and ‘broken’, because her thread works can be interpreted into a more dark and meaningful meaning when used in a certain way.