Get Your Jazz or Should I say Rock Hands Ready!

It was time I got hands on with my painting (I will now stop the silly hand puns) and took some time to actually paint with a paintbrush. I started out by just painting what I saw so using the photograph posted in the last post of my friends hands I sat down to tame the chaos.

Painting hands is hard. I hated it last year when I was painting a long pose but then I had the rest of the body to occupy peoples attention, this was just the hands. Hands are a pain to paint for a number of reasons; 1) the proportions are hard to get right 2) fingers aren't sausages but neither are they lumpy bumpy shapes 3) after staring at hands for a long period of time they start to look really freaky. I did some sketches of the hands before I started on my canvas which helped and then used the paint to add more dimension.

 I used the same paints as the paint party for the paint splashes and am happy with how they turned out. Skin tone is always hard to get and I forgot when I paint I tend to work with pale high contrast colours so the hands are a little neon but I like the contrast with grey and the paint on the fingers. The hands truly stand out. The only problem, apart from the shape of the thumb on the right and the ring finger on the left, is whether or not I should have left the hands floating on the canvas as they are? As it is the painting looks like either a horror film cover or record cover art. However, as observation painting it's not bad.

This painting was an experiment  I drew around my own hands and then using Winsor&Newton Modelling Paste and a palette knife filled in my hands shapes, the two hands at the bottom of the canvas in the foreground, to use arty words, had two layers of the modelling paste to make them stand out more. The paste as a matt effect so when I painted over it not only did I get a nice smudged dry brush affect but the acrylic also dried matt instead of shiny. I then added the metallic paint over the tops in random areas using quick brush strokes to avoid over analysis and controlled movement. I also flicked some paint onto the canvas. I think this has captured the lights at a gig quite well but it is a little messy technically and composition wise. It was a good experiment and I might use elements in my work later on and it has told me I need to work bigger.

Next challenge work bigger and better!

Creating something Vulgar

The definition of vulgar according to Google:

vul.gar

Adjective: 

1. Lacking sophistication or good taste; unrefined: "the vulgar trappings of wealth".

              

 2. Making explicit and offensive reference to sex or bodily fuctions; coarse and rude: "a vulgar joke".

Synonyms: common - coarse - rude - gorss - low - rough - plebeian

After the first meeting with my painting tutor it was decided that I needed to create something vulgar before I could then tame it. By making something vulgar I would be letting loose and by doing that supposedly making something that captured the energy and movement of gigs. However, one big problem hit me in the face as soon as I picked up my paint, I can't let go. I like control I thrive on it! I'm known as a control freak and the idea of making something vulgar went against everything inside of me. I love art work where other artists have made something rough and messy, I like the crash and demonic screams of heavy metal but I can't make something like that. I like smooth clean flowing lines and if I was composing music I like the sweet harmony of strings. So my first attempts at making something vulgar came out as controlled mess that resembled a flat black and turquoise box with bits of masking tape glaring at you as if asking you "what is my purpose here?". 

So I hit the creative wall quicker than I ever had. After sitting and staring at my failed mess with my music turned up my foot tapping I was suddenly hit with an idea. How can you capture and paint something you can't see? So I went shopping...

You are cordially invited to a paint party...

I decided to let the movement and energy capture itself. So I roped in some of my house mates covered my whole room (walls and floor) with plastic decorating sheets and then taped up red wrapping paper, lining paper and some cloth, got so paint ready, donned the painting suit turned the music up and had a party. Once all the paint had been thrown, splattered, smudged and slipped on and we were all covered in it as well we climbed out of the window into the yard (don't worry I'm on the ground floor so there is a drop of 50cm to the floor) and let the paint dry.

Not only did I get some amazing sources to work from I also opened up another path to explore. After we had finished our paint party our hands were covered in paint and it struck me, how many times have hands have been the only thing I can see at a gig now and again only catching brief glimpses at the stage. And covered in paint they seemed to be an interesting idea to explore.

Here are some photos of the paint party and some close ups of the outcome.

A lot of new paths for me to explore so time to get my paint brushes ready!

'Sense of Place'

Your mission if you choose to accept it: create a body work with a final painting based on the theme 'sense of place'.

Since I am a 2nd year art student and this is the first part of the module I had no choice but to accept the mission. So my mission was to think of something that doesn't involve painting a landscape since I tend to wander when painting a landscape. A painting that is meant to be realistic turns to abstract and I will paint the grass orange as I get sick of green.

Plus when I think 'sense of place' I don't think of an actual place instead I hear music. Yeah I know that sounds kind of pretentious but it's the truth. I'm a music lover, I love everything from classical to metal and everything in between and my i-pod is my most treasured object. When I think of home I think of music, I was brought up listening to my dads punk and rock vinyl till the early hours of the mornings. I link music to books, memories and places.

Therefore I decided that my focus of 'sense of place' would be based on being at a gig or concert, because as cheesey as it may be I feel alive when I go to a gig, adrenalin pumps and you can just let go and enjoy yourself with others who are there for the same reason, plus hearing the music live can be so much better than recorded (only if they can preform live that is!). This sounded great when I first decided to go with it but then I came across my first hurdle; how do you capture the energy that is a central part to a gig on paper? 

I started researching ideas and was influenced by Chuck Close, Rothko and Franz Kline. Even though I went to Download this year and a few gigs in the summer I have no pictures of them so I had to look online for photographs of being in the crowd and from them I did a few sketches using charcoal, vegetable oil and ink. 

These obviously show a little more of the influence of Franz Kline but colour can be added later. And they are the start. Where next who knows?