Month: April 2022

Contextual Research

These are all my contextual research pages I did this year including the two artists talks. As I have researched so many, I felt that putting them all onto one post would make it easier for my summary and allow me to be more concise and reflective without simply listing all of my research pages and using up my word count.

Alongsiding Exhibition by Anna Lucas – information about Anna Lucas’s small lens based exhibition at a science building at the University of Leicester with reflections and my opinions of specific pieces

Contextual Post – Along siding Exhibition by Anna Lucas

2. Robert Phelps artist research – information about the artist, links/images of his website, images and reflection of his work with a particular focus on his uses of colour, YouTube videos giving an insight into his process, how his work will impact on my practice

Contextual Post – Robert Phelps

3. Rebecca Haines – artist research, information about the artist, images and reflections of her work with a particular focus on pattern, texture and colour, YouTube videos giving an insight into her material choices and artistic process, how her work will impact upon my practice

Contextual Post – Rebecca Haines

4. New Walk Museum Exhibition – images and reflections of different exhibitions at the New Walk Museum including Indian Modernism, Leicester and the community through the pandemic and the classic art history exhibition that is on permanent display, my opinions of pieces

Exhibition post – New Walk Museum

5. DMU Exhibition – information about rhe exhibition ‘Art by Post: Of Home and Hope’ concerning the community in Leicester coming together in any way possible during the pandemic, images of the work and information, reflections of the works and how the work will influence my work particularly in terms of colour

Exhibition post – DMU gallery

6. Henry Moore’s sheep drawings – brief information about the artist, information about his sheep drawings, images and reflections of some of the sheep drawings, how the drawings affected my practice and the ways that I collect drawings from life for my project

Contextual Post – Henry Moore (sheep drawings)

7. Andy Warhol’s serial cow imagery – information about Andy Warhol and the serial cow imagery, images of the art and reflections, YouTube videos about the work with interesting facts, how the work will influence my project particularly in terms of colour and repeated images/how it is relevant in terms of subject

Contextual Post – Andy Warhol (Serial Cow Imagery)

8. Franz Marc – research into the artist, his fascinations with colour, YouTube videos giving information about his practice, how the incorporation of colour and animals in his work influence my own practice, images and reflections of his works – particularly the horse paintings

Contextual Post – Franz Marc (Colour)

9. Artist Talk 1, Grace Ndiritu – information about her and her practice, q&a she answered during the talk, images and reflections of her work, how her work is relevant to me/influences my practice, what I like/don’t like

Artist Talk – Grace Ndiritu

10. Cheri Christensen – information about the artist and her focuses of colour and lighting, images of her work and reflections, YouTube video explaining her artistic process, how her work will influence my project, what I like/don’t like about her work

Contextual post – Cheri Christensen

11. Pat Saunders-White – information about the artist, images of the art and reflections, links to my work/how it will influence my project in terms of colour and subject matter

Contextual Post – Pat Saunders-White

12. Artist talk 2, Kasia Redzisz – information about the curator, information about the exhibitions, images of the work and information learned about them during the talk, reflections of the talk and why I found it interesting

Artist talk – Kasia Redzisz

13. The Blue Rider Group – information about the group and why it was founded, key focuses of the group, particular focus on colour, information about members of the group and images of their artworks, reflections of the work and how it is relevant to my own project, YouTube videos with information about the group

Contextual Post – The Blue Rider Group

14. Dana Ellyn – infromation about the artist and her intentions, interviews and videos giving information about her processes, images and reflections of the artworks, how the work is relevant to my project and how it is different, how it will influence my work in terms of colour and pattern

Contextual Post – Dana Ellyn

15. Jackson Thilenius – information about the artist and his intentions, images and reflections of the artwork, what I like/don’t like, how the work is relevant to my own project

Contextual Post – Jackson Thilenius

16. Art on DMU walls – art that was suggested for me to research due to subject matter being animals, reflections of the artworks

Art on wall in De Montfort University

Tags 3302, Contextual Research, CPS, Year 3

CPS 3302 Professional Development Year 3

Professional Development

These are all the professional development posts I have done this year which are featured in my summary. Keeping them all in one area is important and useful in keeping my summary concise and detailed, without having to link every single page which can take away from the 700 word count.

After University Plans – identifying my skills and areas I can improve and seeing which careers are useful to me.

After University plans

2. Artist Residencies – research into what artist residencies are, finding relevant artist residencies websites, watching YouTube video about peoples experiences, finding potential artist residencies which I can apply to in the future

Artist Residencies

3. CV post, generic artist CV and Master CV – research into difference between artist cv and resume with examples and my own artist CV/Master CV showing all of my experience and information about me

CV Post – standard artist CV and master CV

4. Being an artist, exhibition post – research into different exhibition spaces, different websites/subscriptions you can use for exhibition opportunities or competitions, applications to exhibition opportunities and responses, reflection upon rejections and how I can overcome being rejected

Being an artist – exhibitions

5. Artist website – information about artist websites and their functions/uses, examples of artist websites that I like/don’t like, the process fof making my artist website on WIX

Making a website

6. Online Exhibition – discussing the positives/negatives of having online exhibition vs one in real life, process of creating my online exhibition on artsteps, feedback of my online exhibition

Online exhibition

7. Artist Statement – short artist statement for my website and longer website for exhibitions

Artist Statement

8. My Website – my finished website with reviews of each page and screenshots

My Website

Tags 3302, CPS, Professional Development, Year 3

CPS 3302 Professional Development Year 3

My Website

https://gemmasly.wixsite.com/website-1/artworks

Here is the link of my finished website. I am very happy with the final look and I feel that the website reflects me and my work effectively. I like the fact that I included a banner of my two favourite artworks at the top of each page, alternating between colours in a thoughtful way. This allows people to see what my work is focused on even when not looking at the artworks page and pulls the website together.

The pages that I decided to include in my website are:

Home
About the artist
Artist Statement
Artworks
CV
Contact

Home Page:

I have kept my home page quite simple with the banner of a purple cow and six images of my work to draw people in. I didn’t want to add any information other than welcome as all of the other information is on the other key pages and I didn’t want to make it too overwhelming. The simplicity of other artist websites is what I liked when researching artist websites and so I decided to apply this to my own website. I included my LinkedIn profile and art Instagram profile at the bottom so that people have ways to see more about me and what I’m involved with. These are showed in the menu and at the bottom of the page which gives people double the chance of noticing them.

About the Artist:

Text says – I am currently a final year Fine Art student developing my practice in painting and developing my professional artistic career. With an interest in a range of subjects including architecture and animals in captivity, I am constantly developing my own unique style. Colour in particular is a big focus in my art as I love how playful and captivating colour can be and how colour can often change the perception of an image. I have experience in a range of media, although I have my own particular preferences that I keep coming back to including acrylic paints onto wood and lino prints. If my style or focus appeals to you, I’d love you to get in touch!

I decided to include an ‘about the artist’ page so that I could give the viewers some information about me and my intentions while pursuing my passion for art that my statement may not have allowed me to convey. I didn’t have any photos of myself with my artwork that were professional and so I am hoping to get some taken in my degree show so that I am able to update the photo to allow the viewers to see what I look like in a professional manner.

Artist Statement Page:

Text reads – I am currently focusing on exploring the ethics of keeping animals, particularly farm animals, in captivity. This topic is so normalised in day to day life through farms and even animals in the countryside which we see when driving to places. I am hoping to give a voice to animals and allow them to communicate how being in captivity makes them feel and impacts on them. Colour is an important aspect of my work to represent how humans are often hypocrites who claim to care about the welfare of animals but don’t actually do anything to better the situation. Subtlety is important to me as I want to make people see through sympathy rather than disgust or outrage from violent imagery, the innocent imagery is very important to me. The idea of humans being regarded as more important than animals has always saddened me as we are similar in so many ways and animals deserve a lot more respect than we give them. There is more to animals than becoming a food for us to consume or a form of entertainment.

Artworks Page:

I added a range of the art that I have created this term in clusters of animals, beginning with cows, then chickens and finally sheep. I have been working on some goat paintings and prints too but these aren’t yet at a standard to be uploaded to the website and so I will do this as soon as I finish them. I presented them in groups rather than muddled up as this is my intention for the degree show and the idea of clusters of animals is something I find interesting as animals are often separated into different groups in farms and different habitats. Some of the images look bad quality but this is due to some of them being done with pastels which creates a matted effect and is difficult to photograph. Overall I am really happy with this page and I’m looking forward to adding more as I progress with my project.

I included the titles of the pieces, material information and dimensions.

CV Page:

This is my CV page in which I have included a simple CV showing a small amount of information about me, my education and exhibitions that I have taken part in. I didn’t see the point in including areas where I have no experience as this would just be a waste of space and I am looking forward to seeing this develop as I gain experience in my artistic life. Again the short CV goes quite well with the simplicity of the rest of my website.

Contact Page:

This is my contact page which is quite simple yet includes a range of different information to allow my viewers to interact with me in a detailed manner which will help me to understand what they are asking. I am hoping that people do get in touch as it will help me to see how viewers feel about my work and whether I am meeting my intentions of my work.

Tags 3302, CPS, Professional Development, Year 3

Studio Practice 3301 Year 3

Studio practice 3301 – Working onto more lino prints

Post author By Gemma Sly
Post date 22 April 2022
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Working onto cow lino prints:

Chicken print manipulations:

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Home

Studio Practice 3301 – Coloured ink linoprints

Post author By Gemma Sly
Post date 22 April 2022
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I did some lino prints using coloured block printing inks which ai bought in the colours white, black, red, dark blue, purple, light green, dark green and yellow. The inks are waterbased which makes clean up easier and I can even mix tbe colours like paints to get different tones or mix new colours which I like.

Purple Prints:

Red prints:

Turquoise prints:

Light green prints:

Dark Green Prints:

Yellow prints:

Dark blue prints:

Layering different colours:

White Prints:

Studio Practice 3301 Year 3

Studio Practice 3301 – Work so far

Post author By Gemma Sly
Post date 21 April 2022
No Comments on Studio Practice 3301 – Work so far

Exploring different layouts
Confined layout yet different shapes on the edges almost breaking away
Trying to group pieces together that have similar colours or would it be best to do the opposite? contrasting colours next to each other
Need to make the barbed wire more obvious, just looks like bars
need to add enclosures to other pieces

Tags 3301, Studio Practice, Year 3

Studio Practice 3301 Year 3

Studio Practice 3301 – Linoprints

Post author By Gemma Sly
Post date 21 April 2022
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Chicken Linocut 2:

Chicken Linoprints:

Cow linocut 2:

Cow linoprints:

Tags 3301, Studio Practice, Year 3

Studio Practice 3301 Year 3

Studio Practice 3301 – Working onto Lino Prints

Post author By Gemma Sly
Post date 19 April 2022
No Comments on Studio Practice 3301 – Working onto Lino Prints

As all of the prints I have done so far are black and white, I felt that I needed to work over some of them to incorporate colour to see how they fit in with my other work and since my project involves a lot of colour this was very important. I will be doing some coloured prints once my ink arrives but until then I felt like I should keep my project moving rather than coming to a stand still. As the inks I have used are water based, I couldn’t paint over the prints as this would have caused the paints to combine and create very muddy colours which I do not want. After some consideration I came to the conclusion to try coloured pencils over the top of the prints which worked really well, particularly over the black ink areas. Pastel pencils seemed to work the best and so I decided to go through all of the prints adding colour to them. I kept some of the original prints black and white as a reflection to show my progress and because I feel that the black and white prints are very effective on their own, they just don’t fit in too well with my project as they are.

These are the sheep print manipulations I did using pencils. I was experimenting with different colour combinations and seeing what works the best. I didn’t worry too much about staying in the lines of the original print as the border will be cut off as soon as they are complete. I feel that the prints on the top left and middle left row are the most effective in terms of colour combination (green, oink and yellow & light green, dark green and blue). I feel that this is because they have a big area of contrast while the other colour combinations have colours that are similar tones or similar shades in terms of warmth of coldness. This has really helped me to identify key colour combinations to consider as my project progresses as well as colour combinations that don’t work well.

These are my chicken print manipulations in which I explored different colour combinations. Again, I didn’t feel the need ti stay within the lines as these will be cut down later on. Although I feel that all of the designs are effective, I feel that the colour combinations on the top row are the most effective due to the right tones of each colour being used. There are some positives in the bottom row and I would like to see where I can take the brown shade one. This design made it easy to apply the blocks of colour and rhe pencils add texture/pattern in areas which is interesting. I wonder if I would be able to work over the pieces with another medium but it depends if the pencils I used were too waxy as I used a range of pencils including watercolour pencils, pastel pencils and oil based pencils. I may try this out to see if I can develop them further.

These are the cow manipulations I did. There is a much bigger quantity of these prints as I generated a lot of these prints at the start due to me wanting to experiment with them. I like that I did some prints involving the simplified version of this print, although I with I had done more of them so I could experiment more, I could always photocopy them if it comes to it and then work over them. In my opinion the simple version involving the red on the middle fourth row ( red, orange, yellow, blues and pinks) is the most successful out of the two as I feel that the tones of this all work together nicely yet contrast with the bright yellow and orange. For the more detailed prints, the orange and blue/green and red pieces work really well (first and middle pieces on the third row) as they are simple yet complementary colours so they balance each other out yet attract your eyes. I am happy with the outcome of a lot of these manipulations but some were difficult to work on due to the ink of the print being really thick (first and third on the first row) and so I feel that I should work onto these some more with different mediums to see the outcomes I can achieve.

Tags 3301, Studio Practice, Year 3

Contextual Research CPS 3302 Year 3

Art on wall in De Montfort University

Post author By Gemma Sly
Post date 13 April 2022
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When I was walking to my CPS lesson, I came across these paintings done by a previous student at DMU featuring crows. There wasn’t any information about the artist but I still feel that the art itself is interesting enough to consider in relation to my own work. These paintings are quite realistic and muted in colour which is very different to my own work but these paintings are very effective and could be a good colour scheme to explore in my own work – it won’t hurt. I like that this also demonstrates how different people’s approaches can be to animals with people having their own styles and particular focuses.

Tags 3302, Contextual Research, CPS, Year 3

Studio Practice 3301 Year 3

Studio Practice 3301 – More linocuts

Post author By Gemma Sly
Post date 13 April 2022
No Comments on Studio Practice 3301 – More linocuts

Linocuts
As I am hoping to do clusters of different farm animals in my degree show, I decided to do more lino cuts of different animals including a chicken and a goat. I tried to use a range of the lino cutting tools for variations of marks and detail. As soon as I get a range of prints, both black and white and colour explorations, I hope to work into these more to develop them further.

Chicken linocut:

This was the chicken lino cut which I did. Focusing on just the head of the chicken was a good idea to give variation from the other chicken paintings I’ve done. I tried to keep it quite simple but wanted variation in the thickness of the lines cut out. I found the thicker line was hard to control and I sometimes very easily cut too deep into the lino creating a horrible texture and feeling like I was damaging the lino. I tried my best to avoid this but I can only get better with practice. Overall I love the design of this lino cut and I like its simplicity yet its varied line. I look forward to seeing what this lino cut looks like printed.

I did a rubbing of the linocut to see what it would look like by using a piece of lined paper, which was all I had on me at the time and a pencil and rubbing over the linocut. Although this wasn’t a perfect execution, I feel that it helped me get a sense of what if would look like printed.

Goat Linocut:

This is the goat linocut I did using different line thicknesses for the goat and the enclosure. In this example the mess up of the thicker lines of the enclosure is more obvious and I wish I could rectify this somehow. Though I tried to build detail using repeated lines, I feel this linocut is really simple and I will definitely work onto it more soon to build it up and make it look better.

Lino Prints

To print my linocuts I used a roller, some water based printing ink and a range of white papers. Applying the right amount of ink isn’t always straight forward but once I get the hang of it, it is an enjoyable process and very satisfying. I have ordered some coloured inks to work with and I look forward to seeing the different effects I can achieve in the future.

Chicken Lino prints:

These are the chicken lino prints I did as a collective. I didn’t want to do too many as the black ink can be quite limiting but I am hoping to work over these prints with pastels or crayons to incorporate colour which is vital for my project. Overall I’m really happy with the design but feel that I could do something with the background to make the chicken stand out more. I also need to add the enclosure but I will do that later on.

Here is a better picture of each chicken lino print. I feel that the two prints on the right side had the best outcome as the other four are quite faded due to not enough ink being applied. Though this could create a cool effect with coloured inks, I feel that the block effect is the most effective for the black and white prints. However, this doesn’t matter too much as I will be working over these black and white prints to incorporate more colour and make them fit in more with my project. I really like the design of this lino cut and how simple yet detailed it is.

Goat Lino Prints:

These are the goat l prints I did photographed together. The two prints on the left were the most effective in terms of ink application. I feel that the general design definitely needs to be worked on more as I feel that it is lacking a great deal in comparison with the chicken lino print.

These are the individual prints and I love how crisp the lines are. I hope working over these will give me insight into how to improve and make me see the positives of these prints. Adding some mark making and pattern could be interesting but I worry that I will overdo it and make the print worse but it’s a matter of trial and error and I can always do another goat linocut if the worst case does happen.

Tags 3301, Studio Practice, Year 3