Week 6 – Artist Research: Andy Goldworthy
- Where were they born? Where did they grow up? Where do they live now
Andy was born in Cheshire, United Kingdom and grew up on the Harrogate side of leeds. Currently , Andy lives in Dumfriesshire, Scholand.
- Where did they study art? Or are they self-taught?
Andy studied at Bradford School fo Art and also Preston Polytechnic and has been making art in the environment, both rural and urban since mid-1970’s
- What kind of art do they make?
Andy makes time-based art. Almost everything he does will wither away overtime and the only way to show what hes done is to document it. I personally couldn’t do this style of art because I like to see what I make, but I do have an appreciation for his work. It’s very eye catching and mesmerizing.
- Looking at the selected assemblage artwork:
- What are the formal aspects of her work (size, colour, materials, texture, value, composition, genre, style, etc)?
The main aspects are whatever he finds in nature. I noticed going through a lot of it that he likes to use leaves and sticks the most. He also has used things like rocks, snow, ice moss
- How do these formal aspects affect how you “read” the artwork?
Andy uses a lot of patterns and shapes, nature doesn’t have these eye catching properties so that is the first thing that will draw a passerby. He has such a good way of making his art look effortless, like he has been thinking of his pieces for a long time and a soon as he sees a material to use, he puts it together beautifully.
- What materials and methods might she be using to make these works?
Andy has used anything he can find in nature. Some main elements he enjoys using are leaves, sticks, and rocks. He has also used flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow and thorns.
- What is the context for this work (when this work was produced, what is going on politically, theoretically/philosophically, in the art world, in their personal life)?
He likes to show the inevitable death and decay of the life cycle in his work. He has a very big respect for the natural world and the environment which Is why he only uses natural mediums that he can find outside in nature.
- What emotions does the work elicit for you?
Personally it brings me back to being younger and playing outside. I wasn’t as in tuned with my creative side as I am now, but I used to have the biggest fantasy imagination when I would play in the forest. If I saw one of his pieces as a teenager, I would of definitely tried to do the same kind of art he does.
- What ideas does the work cultivate, or questions does the work ask you to consider?
My main want from this is for him to help create a movie. He is able to produce the most wonderful work with everyday materials that anyone can use and find. You don’t see work like this everywhere and I bet he could create some good sets.
The main question his work has me thinking is about climate change and sustainability. He produces this work with natural materials and spends no money at all. It begs the question that we should try to produce art in the same sense.
- What does the artist say about their own work?
Andy views “the enevitable death and decay in his work as part of the life cycle” – He has nothing but respect to the natural world and loves the idea of his work to gradually fade back into the earth.
- …… What other questions about this artist or their work do you have?
How would an art exhibit look of his?. I wonder if he would ever have a live one outside with 3-4 of his art pieces he made at the same time, or if he’s only tethered to taking pictures and displaying them that way.
- Is there anything about this artist’s work that interests you? What and why? If not, can you articulate why that is? What is missing for you?
When I looked at his pictures, it reminded me of Scotland because I lived there for a couple years. Scotland has a very magical feel to it, especially when you’re outside exploring the fields of stone fences and run down castles. I wish I could stumble across one of his pieces in real life. That would really be magical
- Is there anything about this artist’s work that you can carry over into your own art practice? What in particular?
The nature part of his work. I am hoping to use oil pastels for my next project and I want to paint flowers, trees, valleys, everyting to do with outside.
- Include the links to the websites you attained your research from.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=andy+goldswoethy&form=HDRSC3&first=1&tsc=ImageHoverTitle
Project 2
Re-state project parameters.
For our second project in FIN 140, we are asked to create something from a temporal art, or time based media perspective.
Time based media art is the process of recording digitally with many forms: sound, video and sequential imagery. Artwork that has a durational element.
Temporal art is the process of creating something with the intent of it fading away over time. An example of this would be making sculptures with beach wood, or placing leaves in a certain way to make a shape, after a while these objects will disintegrate or become undone.
We are asked to pick one of those two parameters and complete the project by NOV 01 by 5:30
3 Brainstorm Tasks
Task 1 – Subject Matter
Making a dress out of materials found outside using flowers as the main attribute. I want to find materials like moss, sticks, flowers, grass, rocks ect. and put them together to make a full body dress in the forest.
I would find a tree to build the dress around it, which means it wouldn’t be wearable. It is made to be looked at and to disappear over time.I would build the base out of moss and greens, and then add flowers as decoration so it really hold the theme of flowers.
Task 2 – Art medium
For my project, I want to paint an oil pastel painting everyday for 12-14 days. I will do the ideation, setup, and painting all in one hour, and I will paint whatever comes to mind first when thinking listening to a certain genre of music.
Parameters:
- Paint a oil pastel painting to a new genre of music.
- Do this for 12-14 days in a row.
- ideate, setup, and painting in one hour.
- After all 12-14 days are done create a video of revealing each painting.
- Put all Paintings on the wall and take a photo of it for documentation.
The premise of this project is to get more efficient and faster at oil painting. I thought using different music genres would be a good way to give each painting a different mood. I am open to different and new ideas with how my project would go
Some music genres i’m thinking:
- Pop
- Rock
- Indie
- J-pop
- Country
- Rap
- Metal
- Halloween playlist
- House
- Folk music
- Musical
- Soul music
- Classical music
- Jazz,
- Instrumental
Please let me know some other ones that would be fun to listen to while I paint.
Here are some snippets of my art style. I would make them with the same border and push myself (try to) further than just painting flowers.
Brainstorm
Task 3 – No limits
For my no limits section, I want to be create a massive sculpture of a woman laying down on the grass, and let the grass and earth takeover her over decades so you can see the outline of her under years of growth.
I got the idea from Moana. This goddess sleeps and she is the island, with the times of sand covering her body and morphing her as one into the earth.
I wouldn’t want it to be the scale of an Island, but I would make the marble sculpture as big as a street lamp, laying down in the forest somewhere.
Project Process Update 1
Set up
I took over the dining room table with my art supplies. You can’t see it, but I put some tape behind the green board so I can re-align it for when it’s time to take my videos. It’s going to be a messy process but I am very happy that I chose this project because I have always wanted to get better with my oil pastels.
Painting 1
I am already feeling annoyed by the fact i’m not better at doing these (haha). I was happy with my first painting but the the tape on the border ripped off the paper and ruined my picture. I am going to attempt to re-tape it and pack on the oil pastel where it was ripped and see if I can at get a proper video out of it.
Painting 2
My second painting turned out mediocre. I’m starting to be a little hard on myself because I want them to be more perfect. A positive thing from this is that I notice what I can do better for future paintings. I have to keep reminding myself that this is part of the process of getting better and that I need to exercise patience with myself and the work.
Project Process Update 2
Set-up
As you can see from my set-up, i’ve been getting very busy. I have lost the care to clean it because i’ve been having to push out new paintings so much. I kind of like it in a sense because I feel like i’m getting somewhere with it. I would call it organized chaos.
Painting 3
I am happy with how this one turned out. I wanted to paint a scene from a skiing trip and capture the early morning sunrise. I’ve learned that I have to use a thinner black sharpie when I draw detailed things because it starts to look bulky. I also studied other paintings and noticed that I needed to add a bit more color to the white snow to add some texture to it.
Painting 4
Ah yes, this painting. I wanted to try something new and not just rely on texture. I looked at a couple tutorials and tried something out myself. I thoroughly enjoyed trying to do this one and learning about how warm and cold colours can help add depth to a painting. I know this isn’t a masterpiece but with just an hour’s time I think I did a good job with it. I am going to explore more paintings like this in the future so I can understand more about colour.
Painting 5
For this one, I wanted to explore a wallpaper art. I have been using a lot of greens and blues so far that I wanted to paint with different colors. I created this by painting the whole background magenta, then a layer of black on-top of that so I could easily etch off the black layer with a pencil to reveal thin lines underneath. I picked these colours because I thought they were warm and cozy in contrast to the black. I am very happy with how this turned out.
Painting 6
I wanted to give the feeling of a crisp early morning with this painting. I was happy with how it turned out however, I bought a new black thin marker and it didn’t work properly with the oil pastels. I had to resort to a thicker black sharpie that didn’t give the effect I wanted, but still happy with it. I drew the branches with sharpie and placed a lot of white pastel dots with my painting knife. I didn’t have the time to finesse it with only an hour to do so, but i’m proud.
Painting 7
This one is my most favourite one yet. It’s very simple, but I feel like I captured a sorta calming mood with it, I wanted to try and stray away from flowers and overhead landscape. This has almost exhausted all of my white oil pastels. After looking back at it hours later, I would of added some more colors and texture to the sand. I’m learning that you can’t get a lot produced in an hour. You have to leave it and come back to see how your art looks like with fresh eyes. Regardless of the plain sand, I love this one.
Painting 8
I thought it was time to do a painting set in the night time. Instead of doing an all black canvas, I decided to to go for an almost night time sunset. I added the sailboat by cutting it out from some cardboard and dabbing black pastel on-top of it, I drew the thin lines with my destroyed sharpie. This one was fun, but difficult to do with oil pastels. I really want to try to do it again with a different type of medium like gouache, or acrylic.
Reflection (so far)
Overall, I am happy with what i’m producing. I’m already learning so much from doing these quick one hour paintings. The main thing i’ve noticed is that I need more time to step away and come back to see the flaws. I am trying my best to notice the things I haven’t done in my previous paintings like adding more shadows or colour to a large blank area of colour and I feel like I am applying them (for the most parts) to my newer paintings in my collection. I knew this would be hard work but it is truly a challenge to think of new paintings to do everyday. It is starting to open up my mind to the creative process under pressure and really helping me to come up with more ideas faster.
I will continue to push myself to try new things for the next 4 more paintings.
Project Process Update 3
Painting 9
I had the urge to draw more flowers for this next painting. I have been using a lot of blues and greens recently so I wanted to go towards more warm colors. Here is a pink/orange sunset with some red flowers on a building. I used pencil to draw the power lines (because I have learned that sharpie doesn’t work). Of course I have a lot of inspiration from Japanese culture and cities and this is reminiscence of that.
Painting 10
This one grew on me. I almost scrapped this one when I completed it because I didn’t like how the white/blue turned out. When I wen’t out for a de-stress walk and came back to it I started to study it and noticed the good things. The grey.white make it look like it’s in the first hours of morning and I did learn a bit from my last painting with water to make the strokes a little thinner. I didn’t add strokes around the middle part to add some more depth, but I am taking baby steps with fine-tuning this craft.
Painting 11
Here is another one I almost scrapped in the beginning, i’m glad I didn’t. The clouds weren’t doing what I wanted to start, and then I ran out of white so I was spiralling. I started to get rough with the cloud and really push my paint knife into the paper and it started to create a texture effect that I was pleased with. I am learning with this project is that you can’t give up so quick. If something isn’t working out you have to push through and trust the process. This photo is one of my favourites now because I stuck with it and pushed through.
Painting 12
In respect for halloween, I present my final painting. Most of my dark and night time settings were of landscapes, so I wanted to make one with flowers. I tried my best to illuminate the flowers with the moonlight in the night sky. I did a lot of packing of greys and yellows so I could get some depth with the middle of the paintings and gave the borders a deep black so show a great contrast in the flowers. This piece made me learn more in depth about how to use different colors to make certain aspects pop out. This one is one of my favourites because I wouldn’t typically try something like it.
Reflection
What a journey this has been. I have no regrets with this project and choosing to do this many paintings in such short amount of time. I’ve learned more than I ever have with using a physical medium.
Time Limit
I want to start by talking about the time limit I set on myself. This has caused me to push my self to push past being indecisive and to make snap decisions quickly so I could move on . At the beginning of this project I mentioned that I would include ideating into the hour time limit, but I wanted my paintings to look somewhat good so I did a bit of inspo searching before each one so I had a rough Idea with what I wanted to do. The setup with the tape borders and painting were all within the time limit.
Subject matter
I stuck to what we discussed of me painting 6 landscape pictures and 6 flower pictures. I created each painting with different sized paint knifes and soft oil pastels. I’m a novice at oil pastels so I really had to grind and learn by trial and error to try to translate what I was thinking onto paper. I tried some new things with a couple of my paintings, but for the most part I stuck to what I knew so I could do it within the time limit. Soft oil pastels are fun but can be a tedious medium to work with because they you have to warm them up and be careful with how you place the pigment because they are vivid. Overall, I am happy with all my little creations. I learned that thin black sharpies and oil pastels don’t mix, thicker tip sharpies and markers won’t get as ruined and they show up better on top of the oil pastels.
Filming
Filming this project was where I went in a little blind. I knew that I wanted to include clips of me taking off tape and putting them together in a way that they would be in sync, and I had an idea of the type of effects I wanted to use with the intro and outro. I had a browse through pixabay and found a calm and sombre piano melody, so i based the rest of the clips I included around that. I wanted to bring the viewer into my world with how oil pastels make me feel, creating them under a lamp in a dark room with calming music. After I took the tape off of them I wanted to show them all before they went on the wall. I did this by placing the camera over my dining room table and focused in my first painting so I could bring each of them up into it focus, giving it some personality. I wanted to show me looking at them to show how proud I am of how they turned out and I also needed a way to have the text appear for the outro video. I purposely had black screen transitions for each clip to break them up and so people could focus on the calming music before they were given more visuals.
Final Project – Pastel Escapism
*The video is too big of size to post here, it’s in the discussion board*
Project Intention Statement
What:
My main intent of this project was to hone in my love of soft oil pastels and paint pictures under a time limit so can improve myself. I have never done this many oil pastels in such a small amount of time so it really pushed my brain to brainstorm and ideate in a forced environment. This has helped me so much to rapid ideate and I can really take this new experience and apply it to other forms of art as well.
How:
I create these pieces with soft oil pastels and water color paper. My main tools of use were my fingers and paint knives, they really help to drive the pigment of the soft oil pastels into the canvas. I used regular painters tape for the edges of my paintings so (for the most part) they had a crisp edge to them.
Why:
I wanted to create this because I wanted to apply what i’ve learned in this program at NIC to other mediums. I am constantly glued to my computer because I am learning in digital design for the most part, so I wanted an excuse to take my eyes off the screen and learn with a different medium. I already was drawn to soft oil pastels so I thought it was the perfect thing to use. Now that i’ve painted all of these, I really want to try a different medium like gouache or water color to see what I can achieve with them.
Guest Speaker – Aimee Henny Brown
The speaker we had the pleasure to listen to this week is Aimee Henny Brown. Aimee uses a long list of mediums, but her preferred choice is the use of printmaking, collage work and performance art. She made it apparent that she likes to mind map when thinking about her art concepts. Aimee likes to use a lot of survivalism, architecture, transrealism, and Anthropocene themes throughout her work. I personally connect with what she makes because it reminds me of nuke bunkers back in the 70’s. She uses a lot of circular shapes and collage work, mixed with programs on the computer to make them 3d. I really enjoyed the performance art she did where she figured out which parts of the park she could set up a small camp to chat to people who have it rough over tea, It must have been a lot of work but it’s such a cool space she created that she could escape to.
I re-learned how to use a mind map. After seeing her make and apply her mind map to her work, it makes me want to re-think and do mine differently. I loved how she used a medium but then used it further and it applied it with different forms of art. She would make collages and then photograph them and put them into a program so she could manipulate them in a 3d way. She was really transparent with not coming from money and that she really utilizes using reticence’s and grants.
Overall, I admire how Aimee takes her art to the extremes. She has proved herself to being a great artist with different areas of mediums she’s explores and dominated.
Sol LeWitt’s Prompts
1.Error
2.Incompleteness
3. Infinity
4. Completeness
5. Stupidness
6.Subversive
7.Not original
