Friday, April 4, 2008

Week TwentySeven: March 28-April 4, 2008

Art Centre - Week Twenty-Seven

Week eight of semester two of year one - four days of classes

Monday Morning – Printmaking

I worked steadily all morning to print my edition of six etchings – using the aquatint I did of Eric at the easel. Quite a challenge to stake out a work place and keep it clean as you dig for a bit of malleable ink in a nasty tin, spread it and wipe it exactly the same way each time, place it on the template without getting the plate or template messy, cover it with a blotted piece of 140 pound watercolour paper and take it through the press successfully. Taking off and putting on the inky plastic gloves through each stage is especially tricky as part of the process. One wrong move and something has ink on it where you don’t want ink.

this is the plate after three rounds of aquatint

I put the cats etching back in the acid bath now that it has had it’s third round of dry point and I’m pleased at last with the variety of textures I was able to create for the six little cats and the ceramic bowls behind them.

Monday Afternoon – Ceramics

I went along with the class to the orientation of glazing the greenware. We met in the kiln room in the main building and were shown the variety of glazes and we could also see how our first pieces (one pinch, one coil) turned out so far. I returned to the studio to complete the work on my slab pieces so that by the end of the class I could return to the kiln room with those to be fired.

We were given instructions for researching and creating the final project for the course. This work of art (like the current piece in progress) is also architectural in nature and we will be creating a display board to reflect our research and design sketches for the piece we create using a combination of coil and slab techniques.

Tuesday – Design

I handed in the three small objects and the three fabrics replicated – I did the assignment using pencil crayons and a few markers.

The class focus today was on colour and we went through the colour wheel together before gathering up a plexi-glass palette, three tablets of tempera: red, yellow and blue, a container with water and a brush. A template was given to us to stencil onto thick paper to create our own colour wheels. Unfortunately, the tablets of colour were not true as to hue and didn’t mix well so the blended colours looked off the mark. We’ll do it again with gouache.

We were shown the scraps of mat board on which to draw a picture in triplicate. When we get our paints, we’ll do each picture in a different combination of colours: Analogous, Complementary and monochromatic.

Here are helpful links about colour:

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0882846.html

http://iit.bloomu.edu/vthc/Design/analogous.htm

http://www.colorsontheweb.com/combiningcolors.asp

http://www.colormatters.com/colortheory.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_theory

http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-harmonies.htm

http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000069.php

WednesdayDrawing Fundamentals

We continued with the same arrangement of objects - This is the link showing the different perspectives on this arrangement:

http://people.senecac.on.ca/selia.karsten/Drawing/drawing03-26-08.html

The teacher called us up in alphabetical order by last name and we discussed all of the work done so far in the course: the organic drawing, the something and nothing drawings, shapes (cones, cubes, cylinders, spheres), perspective drawings, the chair, the bottles – and the one in progress. I need to do more work with values to give shape to things rather than relying on line so much.

Thursday Painting

No chance to continue work on the abstract painting yet. We had a new set up today and I spent most of the class working on a thumbnail to get the composition and proportions to an acceptable level. I then began to sketch this onto my blank 16 X 20 canvas near the end of class.

Here is a photo of the arrangement of the horse’s skull on a broken step-stool as seen from my POV.

And here is my thumbnail sketch….

Additional Notes

I have completed the work on the printmaking presentation I’ll be doing next Monday. I’m pleased with the amount of information I’ve been able to put together primarily on three outstanding Canadian Women Printmakers (who also teach printmaking) and examples of Canadian Printmaking Associations. I’ve included links to the 33 women I short listed as I decided which three I would present to the class. I’m still debating about whether or not to take my laptop to school so they can see the images of the prints better.

ALSO

Have you been thinking about cats? I’ve agreed to join my classmates to form a bowling team for the 4th annual bowl-a-thon for Toronto Cat Rescue on April 26 at Bowlerama. I’ve been seeking pledges from my animal loving friends and I am contemplating my bowling prowess (hah!) as well as a possible logo for the “Alley Cats”.


NOTE: The background colour used here is TURQUOISE - the colour for my Design project.

No comments: