Bubbles...

I bought bubbles for my dog really, I had seen my friend use them to play with their dog and he loved it so I tried it out to see whether my dog was the same with them. As you can tell from my pictures Rio really enjoyed playing with them, he would jump up to pop them with his mouth, playing this gave me the idea to blow bubbles that are also made with inks to see the patterns that would be created, however after experimenting with this idea the bubbles never fully popped on the paper so all it left was faded ink marks. After this bit failed I decided to blow bubbles again but these times catching them with the stick and placing them on the paper and watching them pop. This creates deliberate and predicted marks, what I didn’t want. I predicted random marks.

My niece Kara-Louise...

 

I am really terrible at drawing faces and bodies so this summer I decided to give it a go at improving on my drawing skills involving these areas as well as improving on my painting skills. I tend to add over detail on areas that only require subtle colour. I decided to focus my paintings on my niece Kara-Louise as I spent a lot of time with her during my summer holidays; she is one of the most special people to me. I draw 3 different positions of my niece and even though I do see improvement in my drawing and painting skills, I still wasn’t completely satisfied with the results.

Danielle Kenyon-Untitled...

These 3 ink paintings are an amazing presentation of the human body in some of its forms. Danielle Kenyon looked at human manipulation through contortion and these 3 pieces delicately present that. Her gentle use of subtle colouring makes these pieces look real and strong, like the positions shown. The positions shown in these ink paintings must take a lot of hard work, time and practice in achieving the unusual stands. I like how Danielle Kenyon keeps her colour palette minimalistic, the drips of ink work well with the posers shown, she creates areas of depth and detail by adding highlights and shading to the body and not over-doing the shading. She limits the detail by not adding features to the faces which would work for me because I’m terrible at drawing faces.

Yoko Ono-Parts of Light House...

This piece contains 55 glass tetrahedral prisms and the results are just stunning and the way they react with the camera is glistening and stunning. I like how this stunning presentation is made from repeating the simplistic shape of 3-d prisms, the use of glass makes this piece look bigger and contain more detail than what is actually here. The structure of this piece is 3-d but fairly presented close to the ground, I wonder how these would look stacked up. Many buildings are made of glass and would hold the same structure but nothing that would come close to how reflective and 3-d this piece is.

Terence Koh-Untitled, 2006...

This installation consists of 8 stacked boxes that vary in sizes positioned on top of a golden leafed MDF base. In some of these glass rectangular containers is bronze shaped lumps that represent excrement, there are 3 of these rectangles that contain nothing. The biggest box contains the biggest bronze lump. The use of the bronze material means that the lumps can change over time. I actually liked this piece for it being understated and simple until I found out that the little bronze pieces were meant to be excrement.

Joan Mitchell-Chord 2, 1986...

The energy put into this painting must have been tiring, the brush strokes made by Joan Mitchell were unrestrained but none look out of place. This oil on canvas uses different shades of colour to create depth in certain areas, the drip marks of paint show the pace Joan Mitchell must have worked at, there was no being careful. As I couldn’t see the connection between this energetic painting and the title of the piece, I did some research which stated that Joan Mitchell’s brush strokes were deliberately placed to show the relationship between the musical notes and a chord. The colour palette is rather dull; the choice of colours used complement each other, the sky blue colour makes this painting look brighter.

 

Naum Gabo-Head No.2, 1966...

 

This is a 3-dimensional model that is made out of Cor-ten steel. This is a simplistic version of a woman’s head that was based on a charcoal drawing which did also include a hat and veil, even though this was left out of the sculpture. The head from the shoulders tilts slightly forward and at certain angles the neck is barely visible, the simple outline of this piece is edgy, straight and alert. There are 4 other versions of this piece, 2 of which Mrs Gabo still owns. At first it reminded me of Cubism as it contained all the elements of art: colour, line and shape. Cubism is a way of simplifying detail and can make many pieces look abstract. I like the use of geometric shapes being placed together to create something unique and simple, lacking over-use of detail.