We are going to London

As part of out art coursework we will be visiting London for a day to see the various museums and galleries. One of the museums that will be very beneficial for out current portraiture topic will be The National Portraiture Museum, The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portraiture Prize 2017 is an exhibition that will be on when we visit so we will probably see that while we are there. Also there will be Cézanne Portraits exhibition while we visit so we will also visit that too.

Painting

On my journey to my end piece I created different pieces inspired by the palm house, this is a painting that I made using the pictures i had taken from the palm house. I started by making three different designs using pencil and chose my most preferred one to paint.

This is my first design, I used the pattern that is featured above the doors in the palm house as a focus and then created various plant life around it with a bust going up the right side of it with vines flowing down, on the left side I enlarged a flower and had it almost become part of the architecture and a enlarged leaf in the background to fill space. This is my favourite of all the designs as I just like the main pattern in the architecture; this piece was my main inspiration for my final piece.




This was my second design (which now looking at it seems very confusing when its not upright so I'm sorry), if you can see it properly it in the right corner is the pattern from the door again and on the right side going towards the middle is a big flower with leaves around it, and then moving towards the left side is branches of a tree with smaller flowers coming off of it. This was my least favourite design of all three as it looks very confusing and isn't pleasing to look at.





This was my third design (sorry it isn't upright) and consists of a pillar from the inside of the palm house of the right side of it, this goes from the bottom to the top of the piece and branches off as if it is inside the palm house. I have then significantly enlarged a flower that is coming from the left side of the piece with the pistil of the plant hanging down. I then have two different types of leaves covering the bottom of the piece. I like this design as it focuses on plants instead of architecture but it isn't my favourite.





With it being my favourite design I chose the first design to paint. First we got thicker paper and washed a layer of water across it to make it stretch and then we taped it to a board to help it stretch. After it stretched i drew the design onto it using a pencil. I then gave it a wash of light green and continued to go to a darker green to highlight shapes and show the light and shading on the piece.

Wall Hanging

For my exam i had to create something inspired from the palm house that would be appropriate to display around the palm house, for this i created a wall hanging. I started off by making multiple designs in my sketchbook. I was also partly inspired the french artist Henri Rousseau. I created three different designs and used different shapes for each design to see how it I could work with other shapes.

This is my first design (sorry it is upside down, i could find a way to flip it, just tilt your head), I used a rectangular shape as it is basic but can look good. I put a flower bush that flows down the left side of the piece and on the right side is part of the palm house architecture hidden behind wines and a large plant that almost looks like it is made of feather dusters. I like this design because it gives the palm house a secret garden feeling as if it is a magical hidden away place.












This was my second design (Yes, this also isn't upright, sorry, just tilt your head again, build those neck muscles), this time I used a different shape but I don't know if there is a name for it so I'm going to call it a rectriangle; it reminds me of older wall hangings for house banners in castles. I incorporated the whole palm house in this one with plant life around it. I used the pictures i had taken from the palm house to create more accurate looking plants. I also used Henri Rousseau's 'Tiger in a Tropical Storm' for some inspiration. I wasn't to happy with how this design looked at first but now I like it because it doesn't just focus on one part of the palm house but shows off all of it.

This is the third design I created (Oh look its still not upright, guess you're use to it be now). For this design I used circles as my shape, I done this because when looking up to the roof of the palm house from the inside you can see a circular shape ( Its actually an octagon but they don't look too nice and are hard to get a perfect symmetrical one). For the bigger circle i focused purely on the plant life of the palm house with the star-ish shaped flower bush running on the side of it and a smaller flower bush on the other side, I then chose two more unique plants to fill in the gaps; this shows off the range and variety of plants that can be found at the palm house. For the smaller circle i focused on the architecture of the palm house with the design above the doors being the central focus as I like this design compared to other designed featured in the palm house. I then added some plants around this to fill space so it wasn't just the design on its own. I liked this design the most out of all three because it is different with each circle focusing on its own thing instead of it all in one design like the previous designs. Due to this I chose the design for my end goal but because of it consisting of two different designs I chose the smaller circle as my main focus but I didn't just forget about the larger circle design.


I made a painting of the larger circle pattern to see what it would look like in colour. I created this by first putting a layer of lighter green ink down where the bushes are, I then went over it with darker greens and yellow to shows the different leaves as they aren't all the same colour, then i used a fine liner and darker blue ink to draw the outlines of each leaf. For the other plants I used different inks so make them, and added fine liner around the edges of them to add that little extra detail and so they look neater.

With this design being my main focus I made a smaller maquette of with straw-board being the main material and using string to make a 3D shape of the palm house structure, I then placed a layer of tissue paper where the leaves are for the texture and added vines over that using string. I then painted it all using ink with lighter greens first then going darker around the outside of leaves to show their shape. This is what i aimed for my end design to look like.

This was my final outcome I used cotton for the material to put it on but i had considered other material which include cardboard, other fabrics and straw-board. I then used batik to put the outlines of the shapes on it as i was planning on using ink for the colours. After getting all the outlines done i done a wash of light green ink across the whole piece, then I continued to go darker, putting the darkest colour on the right leaf and then bottom left of the piece. It also became black on the top middle as during the wash it was on the table ans for some reason it went black so I then put paper under it for the rest of the time however I feel like the black adds to the piece and improves the look of it. After doing all the dark colours i went to the lighter parts of it and added some yellow to create a slight diversity in colours but i wanted the main colour focus to be green as that is the colour I associate with the palm house due to the vast amount of plants. I'm happy with the outcome of this as it clearly depicts the palm house and the plants around it and is pretty accurate when i look back at the original design and I feel as though it can be enjoyed by everyone even if they haven't seen the palm house as it is just a nice piece.

Printmaking (Palm House Inspired)

Using my pictures and the inspiration I gained from the palm house I made prints using lino. I created indents into the lino to make a pattern inspired by the palm house.

This is the lino I made with the pattern cutout of it. The cutout is inspired from the spiral staircase and i added some plant life into it.

This is the first print I was making i used a roller to roll ink onto the lino I can then use this to lay it onto paper and roll it onto paper so the design will imprint onto the paper.

 

This is the print i made i used yellow ink for it as a trial one for all the other prints I made so i could see what my design would look like on paper.

I then added another layer of ink onto the first print to make it look it better as the multiple colours highlight the details in it and to overall improve the quality of the piece. Finally I added a third layer of blue ink to the piece to finish it off, this improves the look of the piece and it has different colours to break up the image instead of just one colour, doing this brings out the detail and makes it look more unique compared to other prints with only a singular colour.

Palm House Trip

We visited the Sefton Park Palm House so we can gain inspiration as our test had to be something that included aspects of the palm house and inspiration from it.
I took a lot of pictures so i had a variety of different aspects to base my test off of. While we were at the palm house we created multiple different pieces using different mediums: pencil, charcoal and fine liners and used different techniques for each piece; here are some of the pictures I had taken and the pieces that I created.

This picture was taken due to how bright it is an it stood out between the other flowers the red petals and yellow middle go together really well and so I thought it would be a good source of inspiration to base pieces off, using either the colours within it or the actual structure of the flower.  

 This flower was really unique and very different to the other flowers that surrounded it, this is due to its odd shape and bright colours, the shape is almost like a cone with all of its petals pointing upwards and reminded me of a pineapple, due to it being so different it was a good image to base drawings off of.

This flower has a more standard shape however the bright purple with speckled white spots gave it a nice look. The white middle looks like it has just exploded and the white spots spread out across the flower emerging from the middle and getting thinner as it goes to the end of the flowers petals. I incorporated this flower i n a drawing due to how it looked.







This picture of the hanging basket was taken as it was different to what we normally see, The basket was large but the plants were larger as you can see they overflowed over the edges of the basket and flowed down, almost like a plant waterfall, this created a nice image which I did end up drawing to do how nice it looked. These plants are mostly different shades of green with a but of red on the ends of some of the leaves.



This is a quick drawing of the outside of the palm house due to it being quick I only done a rough outline with minimal detail, however i like this piece as it shows that I can do something that can capture the target in little time and it resembles it quite nicely, then I can come back to it later and add in more detail if I wanted to using the pictures I have taken.






This drawing was too a quick drawing of the hanging basket that was shown earlier and as, i done this purely because i thought i was different and captures just how many plants are in the palm house in a little drawing, due to me having a little extra time i began adding detail to the picture but did not finish, but I will come back to it and finish it later on.

This drawing was using a fine liner and was of the purple and white speckled flowers shown earlier, I used a continuous line technique for this piece so it did become a bit messier than previous pieces due to me not being able to take the pen off the paper, however due to this is shows slight unrealistic shapes and proportion but i like this as it makes it different to the usual drawing, i began testing out a shading method and adding detail on one of the petals without taking the pen off paper and it made a strange pattern but i kinda like it.

This drawing was focused on the structure of the palm house, I had picked out a piece of the structure and made that the focus of the piece, In this drawing I used a spiral staircase as the focus and I used charcoal to create it. I drawn the staircase first with some detail and then add leaves and trees surrounding it to incorporate a bit of plant life.



This drawing also used structure as a focus, this time I used a pillar in the middle of the palm house as the focus  i drawn the pillar in and added some detail to it include shading, i then began adding some of the surrounding architecture of the building to make it look a bit better and wasn't just standing on its own, The charcoal smudges are from another piece that rubbed off once I closed my book but i feel like it adds to the effect and improves the overall drawing.

This piece focuses on the shape of the leaves from my chosen plant, I chose this plant because ti leave were very clustered but also spread out and it had a variety of big leaves and small leaves so i could draw different types, also the actual pattern on the leaf was unique as it almost mimicked the shape of the leave but was a bit wavy.

This was my final drawing of the palm house that day and incorporated pencil, charcoal and fine liner this shows that i can work with different mediums to create a singular piece. I also used a technique which involved me going to three different points of interest to draw a portion of it for the drawing and blend them into one, I used flowers for my first point then a small tree with thin intertwined branches for my second and then a palm tree for the third using it leaf shapes to create a unique drawing.