Analysis: Sheep landscape by Michelle Shuff

http://michelleshuff.com/sheep-landscape/

Consideration based on “Making Sense of Art History“.  I’ve selected this approach as a basis to see if it helps me consider the work in a deeper sense.

In the Studio: Agnes Martin

Agnes Martin is giving me a bit of a philosophical challenge. From what I can see I think I’d quite like her work, but the meaning discussed about her body of work seems quite “Emperor’s new clothes”. She is definitely an artist where the work doesn’t translate to internet based images. The body of is based around the imperfections of hand making around the “perfect” grid concept.

In the Studio: Mark Rothko

I seem to be engaging with this approach to exploring the Abstract Expressionists. The next Artist on the Journey was Mark Rothko, who creates complex colour field paintings. Again, when I went to the Abstract Expressionist exhibition last year Rothko was one of the artists that stood out. These colour fields are complex for pieces that are (initially at least) seeming fairly simple in concept.

In the Studio: Jackson Pollock

Well, I guess I had to get back here sooner or later. Interestingly, however, I think this approach to finding his work at least helps me understand it to a degree. I think I am also starting to understand why I don’t “get it.” My tutor described Pollock as “a painter’s painter”, and I have never really had a serious attempt at painting. This (to my mind) limits my ability to appreciate a body of work that is essentially about the action of making a painting in different ways.

Ceramic Tests

Another side-track for the course, but before I can finish the Annie Peaker, or other ceramic, work I need to do a set of glaze tests so as to know how to approach colouring and Glazing them. This needs to be completed carefully and rigorously if the results aren’t going to be disappointing.

The following notes illustrate the process.

The challenges of wood carving

 

I’ve been working on a relief carving of a Thames barge for a while. I had a dark patch under the bowsprit. Unfortunately I needed to deep it a touch, and in doing so a knot below crumbled. I now need to work out a way to patch it which is in keeping with the design, is achievable and will be sufficiently robust.

 

In the Studio: Willem de Kooning

Continuing on the “In the Studio” series, the focus has moved to de Kooning.

Approach

The initial video is about de Kooning’s style and approach. Here the artist is an “Action Painter” with major gestural marks on a large format and working with the “physicality of the medium”. This is explained in the videos as using the liquid and viscous properties of different paints and paint blends to get effects.