This weeks findings.

After receiving my brief this week I have started to experiment with some different ideas that I have had, inspired by 'Piano Phase'. Below are some of the results.

I started off by simply looking at the sheet music. As Phases is made up of different layers that become distorted I tried to replicate this effect by tracing different elements in the sheet music and rearranging them in a different way, to create a new, distorted image.

I then used Peggy Gyulai as my inspiration, by listening to Piano Phase, and picking up different medias and letting the music tell my hands what to do.

I used both hands for these experiments, and even used my fingers in paint to add more character. I like the layering effect, and I feel that the chaotic feel of the music comes across well in some of the samples.

I decided to take this idea further, by creating more of these samples on a bigger scale. I started to struggle to decide which colours to use so I used the colour scheme from my seal photos from summer as well as the music to inspire these spontaneous drawings.

I thought the 3D effect of the gouache worked really well and I enjoyed letting myself loose, and becoming inspired by the music without any idea about what I am going to paint or draw. The results always vary and surprise me. 

Peggy Gyulai

Peggy Gyulai creates oil paintings interpreting the lyrical qualities of music. She listens over and over to understand the essense of each sound, and tries to feel its beauty, emotion and character. And then she puts it all onto canvas. Below is a link to a really interesting video showing her creating one of her peices whilst the orchestra is playing in her studio.

Link to video of Peggy Gyulai in action 

Its interesting to see how she responds to the music, and I love the large scale in which she works. I would love to try and interpret Piano Phase in the same way, and let myself feel the music, without planing or having any ideas about what my hands are going to create. 

Visions of sound: Piano Phase, Steve Reich.

After starting university again this week, my first task was to chose a brief out of the five given to us for this unit, Intentions. When reading through the briefs, 'Future past' was one that stood out to me as being 'my kinda thing' but I decided to go completely against this gut instinct and try something new. The 'visions of sound' brief really interested me but also scared me. I really want to push myself and take risks, and not worry about the outcome of my work as much, which is why I decided to go for this brief.

My next decision was to choose a song to base my project on. As previously posted on my blog, I went to a concert at the Bridgewater hall during summer which featured Phases by Steve Reich, so I thought it fitting to use this as my starting point for this project. 

I have started to think about the inspiration that I can take from the track, such as repetition, distortion, and layering. I have also considered the history of the piece, as it was created in the minimalist movement, so I could look at minimal artists from that period too. With all these ideas I'm looking forward to seeing what I can create this week, seeing where the song takes me.

(Refer to post below for a link to Piano Phase)

Bridgewater Hall

Music has always played a big part in my life, but I have never thought about linking my passion for music to my art before. When visiting the bridgewater hall last week there was a percussion concert in the foyer and one piece in particular gave me some artistic inspiration. The original piece of music was written for the piano and is shown below. It is called Phases, and was written by Steve Reich.

The piece is played by 2 or more musicians who play exactly the same piece of music: whilst one remains at a constant speed, the other gradually speeds up until the bars of the music eventually overlap.  I thought I could incorporate this in some way to my artwork, for example drawing the same thing with two hands, one acting faster than the other? Or stretching or compressing my work to make them have different 'speeds'.

Developing Doodles

For the past few days I've been doing a daily doodle, inspired by Alyn Carlsons sketchbooks. I therefore decided to create a doodle based on the Norfolk Sunsets and the surrounding grassy plain, using soluble felt tips and watercolour to bring some vibrance to it afterwards.

Patterns

When looking through my holiday photos, I realised that the qualities I liked in lots of my photos were the colour and texture. I therefore decided to enlarge and print out my favourite pictures and cut snippets of textures and colours that caught my eye and arrange them randomly.

I enjoyed this task because the photos no longer looked like an object anymore, they became a pattern which has given me much more to think about when developing my work further.

Patterned Seals.

After seeing the gorgeous patterns on the Seals fur, I tried to represent them abstractly using watercolour, fineliner and pencil.

I created a base in watercolour and added pattern over the top. I felt as though the result illustrated what I loved about the seals fur and I might try to do another similar study, adding more abstract patterns.

I decided to paint a big A2 size seal to experiment with the texture further. I was planning to add patterned detail but I thought it looked complete with the water colour.

I therefore created some studies in my sketchbook with the watercolour patterns, and combined it with my doodling style inspired by Alyn Carlson.

Marimekko

Marimekko is a Finnish textile and clothing design company renowned for its original prints and colours. The company designs and manufactures high-quality interior decoration items ranging from furnishing fabrics to tableware as well as clothing, bags and other accessories. 

When Marimekko was founded in 1951, its unparalleled printed fabrics gave it a strong and unique identity. Marimekko products are sold in approximately 40 countries. The number of Marimekko stores totaled 108 in 2012.

 I aspire to work for such a company creating a range of fabrics and patterns to be applied to a wide range of products all over the world.

One collection that I particularly like of theirs is their weather collection. It’s nice to see that the project processes of a large scale company are the same as what I go through. 

I enjoyed seeing how their ideas generated from brief to final idea.

The actual design process took several months. In her workspace, Aino-Maija made a large number of drawings and paintings, each more impressive than the last. The design team met at Marimekko at regular intervals to discuss the process. 

After various phases, much pondering and shared insights, the end result was a bold collection of fabrics, tableware, home textiles and posters inspired by weather phenomena. 

She started by putting together a collage of moods using photographs and samples of her pattern sketches. The collage became the basis for thedesign process. I love how although some of their patterns of digital, they still keep the hand drawn element to them as well.

Experimenting with Milk

After seeing someone use this method on Pinterest I was excited to try it out. I painted the following images in milk, let it dry and then ironed it to reveal this brownish image. I liked how uneven the colour was, as it made the work look aged, and the depth of colour was random and unplanned on my part. I also enjoyed painting blind, as I couldn't see what I was painting which made my work look a bit looser.

I used imagery from my holiday, using the beach huts, stones, and shells as my inspiration for my experimentation.

Alyn Carlson

Alyn Carlson is an artist and designer, who uses a lot of different medias when making art. Quite a large proportion of her work consists of bold, colourful oil paintings, but what inspires me most is her watercolour and sketchbook work.

I love the way that she injects colour, texture and meaning into these loose watercolours. As stated on her blog, she is “Always in search of the line, font, pattern, seed, flavor, musical note to be placed at the right time in the right place.”

These are some examples of her drawings, which she created in her Moleskin Sketchbook using fineliner. She states that she does this as a daily practice and that her drawings are never planned; she puts pen to paper and lets her pen do the work. She is therefore surprised daily by the results. 

These are the results when she started to add watercolour to her daily doodles. She uses minimal colours, which adds to the effect of her drawings. I admire how loose and free her drawings are, and I am going to experiment with these aspects in my work ,as quite often I create neat pieces without this much character and fluidity. Another reason why I love her work so much is that I can see a clear link to surface design, which is an area of textiles that I am passionate about.

After being inspired by Alyn’s work, I decided to do a page in my sketchbook based on her style. I really enjoyed doodling on my page with a pen; I hadn’t realised that I haven’t doodled on a big scale before which I really enjoyed. However when adding the colour I didn’t like my work so much. I think I didn’t narrow my palette enough and I also think I applied too much colour, so I would like to have another go and see if I could improve my last attempt.