Visit: Ashmolean Museum

I was going to Oxford and managed to make sure I had a few hours clear to visit the Ashmolean Museum whilst I was there. So much that I’ve seen, so where to start? The “Monkey Tales” Exhibition (http://www.ashmolean.org/ashwpress/easternart/2016/07/11/monkey-tales-apes-and-monkeys-in-asian-art-2/, URL Viewed 23/07/2016) seems like a good place. This gave me the chance to see some excellent Chinese brush painting up close. (e.g. Three gibbons swinging on a tree branch, Chen Wen His (1906-1992)) painted c. 1980.

Book: High Art as marketing

Carrying on from my consideration of Jackson Pollock and medium use in “Modernism in Dispute” [Wood, 1993]. The “High Art” discussion around p172 is slightly harder to put in context:

…the works of Louise and Noland … look like this because this is how painting must be made to look, c. 1960, if they are to offer the viewer sufficient degree of aesthetic power…”

Book: Art as a materials study

Carrying on from my consideration of Jackson Pollock and Modern Art in “Modernism in Dispute” [Wood, 1993]. I found the statement, p172, about Saraband (Plate 140) and Bloom (Plate 141) being painted within a year of each other, and one or two years before the first publication of ‘Modernist Painting’:

The two works… are painted in acrylics. Unlike Oils acrylics will retain a high degree of saturation in relatively liquid form … both paintings which exploit the properties of what was at the time a relatively new medium.

Book: Modernism in Dispute and Jackson Pollock

I bought “Modernism in Dispute” [Wood, 1993], as it is a set book and I’m interested in “What is Modern Art about anyway?” I’ve never exactly had a love affair with modern art. Jackson Pollock (e.g. “War”, Plate 123) is deemed to be a great artist – but I just don’t engage with his work.

Project 1.2: Contour Drawing Revisited

I’m a little behind on posting my coursework to the Blog. I’ve had a few tries at these exercises and am yet to be happy with them. This is a revisit of the contour drawing for Project 1.2. Still a way to go.

Visit: Room within a room

I was in the area, and so decided to visit the Ruthin Craft Centre. My wife had visited the previous week and seen some good work, but they’d changed the exhibitions during the intervening time. The visit wasn’t a waste from a study viewpoint though. I was very impressed with Julia Griffiths Jones‘ Room within a Room.

Sketchbook: Pastels on Black paper

This is just an exercise in the use of pastels, even though I was re-visiting the Bonsai tree from memory. Interestingly I then sprayed it with fixative and lost quite a bit in quality. An issue for future consideration.

Maybe there are clothes there

I have been browsing the OCA website and ran into Sue Gilmore’s blog related to willow and the use of it as a “Performance piece”:

Project 1.2: Blind Contour Drawing

Unsurprisingly the resultant images from the blind drawing are less than stunning. I found the level of observation achieved by it compelling though.

Project 1.2: Contour Drawing

Made a couple of initial attempts on holiday. The main point is that I seem poor at getting the proportions correct on the contour drawing. I’ll keep trying with some “up front” measures this time before starting.

Reflections so far

Pool Light

Created from memory after swimming. The basic idea worked. Created the grid of the pool tiles over a graphite “wash”. Removed the reflection light then added shading and tile lines back in. Would like to do a few more to get the “highlights” more clearly, as well as the intricacies of the reflections. Taken some photos under water to act as inspiration after the holiday.