More Textures!

This texture produced by wrapping wire around a styrofoam ball, I prefer this texture when stretched out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cardboard strung together rolled over the clay gave this effect to the left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some insulation pipe ripped in half was one of my favourite ones, I also took some Macro shots of these textured pieces because I thought they might look quite interesting so those are to follow

 

During the 3D workshop Elaine also thought us some pretty cool techniques and things that would be revelant to us. These were things I'd never have really thought of trying myself and I'm glad now I know them.

 

 

One of the things was using hot wax to do various things, this was a good thing for me to learn as it could help me hold my paper pieces in place once their crumpled, so to try it out I crumpled some newsprint and dipped it in the wax, let it drip then left it to dry! I really liked the result.

 

 

3D Workshop

Took my first 3D workshop yesterday which was helpful beyond belief! It was great getting to explore different textures I could make in clay that relates to my project, you'd be surprised what you can use, just about anything really! Here are a few images of my textures :)

 



This texture was produced using a ball of twine, see how the top piece has stretched out? It can change and distort the initial texture which is useful to know, see the more upclose image below!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Love the positive and negative spaces the twine leaves behind

some heavy duty grease proof paper scrunched by wrapping it over a rolling pin and forcing it down on the ground

The same grease proof paper crumpled up gave a nice textured effect on the clay!

 

 

Developing Ideas

To get a bit further away from my initial images, ideas and drawings and to venture out further into the unknown is kinda scary.. but I just have to stop being scare of messing up and just go for it! I was given an idea that I should try working with paper and paper folding and so I started wondering how I could relate this to my work and looking at my photos I thought well.. you cant really fold anything that could relate to nature because a straight fold is like a line and nothing in nature is perfectly straight, thats the beauty of it right? so.. I got my page and screwed it up in a ball and got this lovely assortment of random folds and lines and I decided to go over it lightly with compressed charcoal and got something like this:

 

Then I decided to try it bigger out of my sketchpad and got this:

 

Which I really like as the black is so strong against the white and its like a play on positive and negative spaces. I love how the crumpeling of the paper has suddenly brought a 3D aspect to my sketchpad idea!

 

 

Then I tried it on black sugarpaper:

 

 
 It looks really interesting to see in person! It almost looks like a sheet of metal that has been crumpled and dinted (I am hoping to photograph sheets of crumpled metal this weekend).

 

Doing this has given me a whole new range of ideas! In this shot up a bit closer it appears almost like the texture of a rock.

 

And up even closer again it still holds interest in the colour and texture of the piece. Im very excited to advance a little more on this idea.

Black & White

It's surprisingly fun working from my photographs bringing them up to a much larger scale! Here is just a quick one I did on A1 black sugarpaper with a white oil pastel :P Oh but first heres the image I worked from:

 

And my quick drawings:

 

 

 

Big Close Up Drawings

As part of my project I'm continuing to make these rather large drawings, using the wall as my table. So, here are a few images of the most recent ones I've done :)

charcoal and eraser on an A1 sheet

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 I was advised to try some paper folding, so by using my leafy photographs as references I gave it a shot!

 I noted how the veins could not be accurately recreated by simply folding the page, so I took an A1 page and crumpled it up as much as I possibly could. The veins in a leaf are random and intricate

Above is the finished page. I used compressed charcoal to highlight all the protruding crumples of the page. I like how it defines between the positive and negative areas. I was happy with the overall result and think I will definitely be trying this technique in various ways :) 

Ceramics Seminar

On Tuesday last I attended a Ceramics Seminar, which was a lot of fun! It thought me to maybe not be so particular about my work, that its good to just mess around sometimes and loosen up! It really helped me with my studio work also, before this I was kind of working at a slow pace and I didn't have much inspiration as to what direction to go in next but since Tuesday I've been working lots and getting things done :) Here are some images of the eh.. very 'freestyle' blowtorch I had fun messing around with:

Here are two of the minute drawings we had to do at the beginning of the seminar to help us loosen up and get more comfortable with making mistakes 

Images of my 'wild' Blowtorch!

Had fun just really messing about with it :)

Leaf Vains

Getting up close and personal with my drawings as I was advised turned out to be more enjoyable that I had anticipated (I guess I'm more of a crafty person). I started bringing my drawing up to a whole bigger scale by   taping paper together and hanging it on my wall and just basically going for it! So I've been doing a few of these and kinda experimenting and all that jazz.

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This is one drawing I completed today. I used Willow Charcoal to do the outline of my leaf and to imitate the little veiny bits I used a PVA and tissue roll.

An overall view of the image. I was quite happy with how it turned out! 

Another close-up of the image. I lightly brushed over the tissue with the charcoal to make the 'veins' more prominent