Wednesday, 12 September 2012

Media & Fine Art Tester

As part of the first six weeks of the FAD course, all the students have to experiment on all the different pathways, even if you know what pathway you want to go on. Today was the first day of this. 

I went to spend the morning in media. We experimented with scratch film. Scratch film is 'Drawn-on-film' animation. This means that footage is made by drawing directly onto a piece of  film. Scratch film is normally produced on 35mm film, but we made it on 16mm film. There are two ways to produce a piece of scratch film; one is drawing onto a piece of clear film (this is what we did), the other is using black film (already developed). We were given 6ft of 16mm film, which would create round 10 seconds of film.

You have to be really careful when working with film stock because it is easily damaged. If a hole is made in the film then is is unusable. There are 24 frames per second, the frames are indicted by little holes on the left hand side of the film.We could draw on the film using different materials; pen, ink and stamps. Every student will do this and once everyone has had a chance all the separate film stock pieces will be spliced together and shown as a collaborative film. 
Once the film is finished it can be taken further by using editing software to add sounds or effects.

In class we looked at two videos of scratch film;

 Len Lye


Len Lye is a New Zealand born artist who is known for his experimental film and kinetic sculptures. His films are held in archives such as 'British Film Institute', 'Museum or Modern Art' and 'New Zealand Film Archive'. However if you want to see any of his work it is easily accessible on YouTube. Although he was a naturalized citizen of the United States most of his work went back to New Zealand after his death.

Len lye - Kaleidoscope - 1935 


I really like this film because of all the colours that are used. I like the way that different shapes mix together and go over each other, e.g. 20 seconds into the film. This is a recurring theme is this clip. A lot of time and precision must have gone into this because of the way the shapes dance across the screen. Its a very fast paced piece of work, if you blink you'll miss something. Every time I watch it I find new shaped and patterns that I like. One criticism I do have is that I prefer to watch it with the music turned off. However the fast paced music does fit the image on the screen and fits with the time this animation film was made, 1935. 

 Some of Len lye's other work

Stan Brakhage


Stan Brakhage also known as James Stanley Brakhage was an American Non-Narrative Film maker.He is considered to be one of the most important people in 20th-century experimental film. Brakhage created a large and diverse collection of work exploring a variety of formats and techniques.

Stan Brakhage - Mothlight - 1963




This is an experiential silent short film. It was created by pressing objects between two pieces of clear film. The objects that were used to create this piece of work are moth wings and flower petals and leaves. Stan Brakhage originally came up with the idea after he saw that moths were dying near candles. No two images on this film are the same because he used natures own materials. This film is even more fast paced than the previous one, on parts it sometimes made my eyes go blurry. Some images look like they are sketches done with pencils. 

 Some of Stan Brakhage's Work:


Here are some photos of the work I did;
Three dots horizontally per frame

One dot per frame

Red marker smudged

Three different colours going down the
frames in wiggly lines

One smiley face per frame

Lines in different colours. one line
per frame, two lines per frame,
three lines per frame.

Wiggly lines in different colours, then
blue and green pen smudged.

Random scribbles with a smudged
 background

Different coloured lines

Flowers




The working space was pretty small. Because of this I sometimes found it difficult to work because of the length of the film and the way you have to be careful with it. I tried out different patterns and tried to stick to the 25 frames per second. I really enjoyed this experiment as it was something that I have never done before and would maybe like to look into it further and possible try it again. My experiment turned out pretty well I did simple designs and varied them so that every second was different. I really like the Flowers that I drew and the lines were it goes from one to two to three. They are the best design that I did. 
Fine Art
In the afternoon I went to do some fine art. 

We were given the task to distress photos using paint and various materials. To distress the image we put paint directly onto the photo and using a ruler we had to move the paint around the image in whichever way we wanted. We could use sanding paper before or after the paint was applied to distress the image further. I enjoyed the way you can change an entire photo using paint and different materials, but fine art doesn't interest me that much and although I enjoyed the way an image could be changed with the paint I really didn't see why I was doing this because It didn't interest me and had nothing to do with what I want to do. 


 I chose this photo because I really like wildlife photography. I wanted to keep the Giraffes in the image and paint the surrounding area. The colour green was chosen because I felt that this represented nature. I really like the right hand side of the image because of the way the paint is on the photo. I like the way I mixed a bit of red in with the green, this was done unintentionally. On the rest of the photo the paint is a bit too thick. I could have spent more time trying to improve the paint and the way it affects the photo. I really like the way you can still see the trees behind the paint. I thought that I could have been more careful as the paint sometimes overlaps on to the giraffe which I didn't want. 







 I like this photo the best. For this image I first used sanding paper to go over the image. I then carefully applied the red paint with a ruler, to make sure that one of the mere cats were still fully in the image. When the pain had dried I then went over the image with the Sand paper again. The sand paper took some of the paint off and also added scratches into the picture. I really wanted to experiment more with this photo and I did.  I really like the way this image turned out because none of the edges are blunt, the paint seems to blend into the image the best way it can. The colour doesn't symbolize anything, I chose it at random. I really like the way the paint doesn't obscure any of the picture.

 I don't really like this image much. The colour isn't symbolic of anything and neither is the way the paint is applied. I just wanted to experiment with different colours and different methods of applying the pain e.g. the amount of paint, the amount of pressure to the ruler etc. 












This penguin picture was chosen because again I like animals. I wanted to do something different than I did with the giraffe photo. Instead of keeping the penguins in the forefront of the photo I painted over them. I chose green because of the nature aspect, but I accidentally mixed red with the green. However I actually like the green with the red. I could have improved this experiment by mixing the green and red throughout the photo and not just on the far left hand side.

This image was originally a landscape of a field. I used this image twice. The other image is the blue and black image. Compared to the other image this photo is more of a success. One of the reasons is the the colours compliment each other much more than the other image. I like the middle of the photo were there are different shades of red, this was done by the pressure I put on the ruler. More pressure means than the paint will be thicker and less pressure means that the paint will be thinner.

 When I originally did this image I just used the blue paint. But when I looked at the image the blue paint looked too blunt. I tried making softer edges but it didn't work so I added the black paint to the photo but in a different direction. This left me with a piece of work that I don't like.

 This image was achieved in the same way as the others, but instead of working on the top of a photograph, we had to choose a piece of work at random out the the scrap work. I wanted to experiment a lot more with moving the ruler around a lot more in different directions a creating different patters. As I can see from the final product, it didn' work.
My Work Space












Gerhard Richter

Richter is a German born visual  artist who distressed photos. He has produced abstract, photo realistic painted works as well as photographs and glass pieces. Richter is regarded as the top selling living artist. He seems to like the use of colours. Looking at his artwork and seeing the vast amounts of it made me realize what can be done with photographs and paint. No painting is the same as the next. Some photos are entirely covered in paint whilst with others only a sections of the photo has paint on it. 

Firenze
The firenze compromises of 118 works which are all colored photographs painted over using oil paint. The series is based on 3 photographs Richter took in 1999 on the the Banks of River Arno in Florence. 
Some photos from the Firenze collection;






I like this collection because even thought it is the same three photographs no two are the same. I like the contrast between the paint and the photos, and the way the paint just seems to blend in with the photo.

Other over painted Gerhard Richter Photographs; 




This is a Richter's website which gives you a biography, chronology, showcases his artwork and many more things.
http://www.gerhard-richter.com/


Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg (Milton Earnest Rauschenberg) was an american painter and graphic artist whose earlier work included the pop art movement. He is well know for his 'Combines' work in which pieces of his art work incorporate non-traditional materials.  Rauschenberg was both a painter and a sculpter and his 'Combines'  are a combination of both.
In 1951 Rauschenberg created his 'white paintings', in the form of monochromatic paintings. He said its purpose was to reduce paintings to its most essential nature. He then created the 'black paintings' which were similar to the 'white paintings' and were single colour works, but on these pieces of work he incorporated pieces of newspaper into the paints so that sometimes newspaper could be seen and in other places it could't. He then moved onto the 'red paintings'. These paintings were created with multiple kinds of paint applications. He also added materials such as wood, newsprint's and nails. 
Robert Rauschenberg - Black Painting


Robert Rauschenberg - Red Painting

Robert Rauschenberg - White Painting

 Rauschenberg then moved onto picking up unwanted materials and found objects on the streets that interested him. He brought them back to his studio were they became integrated in his work. 
Some pieces of his work;




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