Mixed Media White Flowers

 

Another daily sketch entry - really not one of my favourites. I layered so many bits of paper ephemera from a pile of scraps I had in my stash, and added some Tim Holts tissue tape strips. I applied clear gesso, and found that when I used my dylusions inks, they kept smudging even after drying with a heat gun. I eventually worked out that the inks seemed to need a porous paper surface to bleed into to fix properly....so lesson learnt. I glazed the whole thing and used white gesso to colour the flower illustration. It turned out OK, but I still find that layering in collage does not come that naturally to me. Hopefully with practice I will improve :)

An Artistic Train Of Thought

I thought I'd document how I've gone about producing work following the method of Primary research gathering, then developments from the primary research, to media experiemntations and ultimately to final pieces of work. It's more for myself tbh, to serve as a kind of diary entry. I do have a formal reflective journal that I fill in for the course too, but I thought it'd be fun to document it here too

Primary research - following a trip to the Tate in London, I came across Sir John Everett Millais's Pre Raphaelite masterpiece Ophelia. It is world famous, and had been a favourite of mine, seen in the form of posters on uni students walls....but this was the first time I got to see it in person. It is breathtaking....

There were many reasons I was drawn to it, the theme of Ophelia's descent into madness as described in Shakespeare's Hamlet for one, then the painting itself is a real draw - the dreamy feel, the luminescence and realism of the drowning figure, and the detailed fauna framing the scene. The other thing that struck me was the effect of the ornate dress part submerged in water - the textures were so rich and evocative, and the tinges of gold, silver and pearly blues were of particular interest to me

Media Experimentations and Developments - I became just a little absorbed with the idea of trying to emulate the effect of the layers of clothing submerged under water. I did washes of acrylic paint, combining it with thicker impasto layers, but this didn't have the effect I was after



In the end after trial and error I started experimenting with layers of different types of papers and melting wax to create the translucence I was after. I combined this with fibres of cloth, and random splodges of metallic pigment - finally I ended up with many sample of waxed layered papers, which were thick, strong and reasonably pliant



The first development I wanted to do was to use these collaged waxed papers to create dresses for dancing figures as seen below





I really loved the effect, and had fun experimenting with acrylic paint effects and indian ink to create the backgrounds too. As mentioned while making these waxed papers, I found them to be surprisingly strong, and pliant, so I thought I would test this out, by using wire to "sew" them onto wire frames. I started stitching a circle of waxed paper to a frame, and once this was complete I found I was able to twist and form the wire frame - the waxed paper stayed intact and even moved with the wire....this lead to the idea of making multiples of these stitiched waxed paper frames, and configuring them together into a 3D abstract form, as seen below...






(a close up of the papers and wire weaving)

I have no real idea, at this stage, what I am going to do with these 3D "things", but it has been an interesting journey so far, from Ophelia to these mini discoveries... I have enjoyed each stage including the failed experimentations, and am trying to keep an open mind with regard to the direction I'll be going down next



Samantha Braund

Happily Exhausted

This is the first time I have managed to catch a breath long enough to be able to post an update here, since starting my Art and Design course at DMU (DeMontfort University).

As you can see, there is no jewellery goin' on here lol. I will be doing ceramics and metals, and dabbling in glass at some point, but the initial phase of the course was to break us in, with tons of drawing, painting and lately, maquette making...

Everything had to be done fast, the tutors insisted that outcome isn't important right now, just the process. Basically this means being set numerous tasks and being given a time limit within which to execute them. I have posted up a few of my favourites in this post. The little scene above on the loveseat, is part of a narrative I had constructed from similarly fashioned little dolls - it was fun and just a little nuts lol

The images below are scenes photographed at Leicester Market, and collages I made from those images. We had to include materials collected at the scene which is why there are random bits of corn husk, paper, and cardboard packaging stuck to the pages...

I am loving the course so far, and am also exhausted by it, in a pleasant kind of way. It is full on, and there are 160 students all rushing around in this hulking cave of a studio! (which incidentally decided to burst a pipe of boiling hot water onto people's work today...what a mare...)

Anyway, things will be slowing down enough for me to make jewellery again soon, but for now, I hope you enjoy this departure from the usual on this blog :))























Samantha Braund