Tom Davidson - Printmaking

Tom started printmaking in 1984, doing lino cuts. He uses a single block of lino, all hand drawn by himself, and does a reduction print starting from light to dark, printing colour on top of colour and produces the most amazing lino landscapes. He makes between 20 and 30 prints with each block.

I think Tom is the most impressive lino printmaker ive ever come across as he makes his work so realistic in some sense. It gives off a calming feeling for me, along with the enthusiasm for myself to get better at lino. 

Expressive drawing Evaluation

For this unit I decided to choose the ink drawing/painting i guess, of the life model in her lying down pose as, to be honest i think its probably the best life drawing work i've done yet. I also really enjoyed applying the media to the paper, using different colours to represent the skin, shadows, blankets and everything else. It was interesting to see what came out of this unit, and by doing it ive come to understand a lot more about the human figure.

I also realised the importance of line, which is why I chose this one as it shows me trying to communicate thicker and thinner lines in specific places, as you see the lines i used for the thighs are thinner than the shoulders. I used a brush pen do this and it was super helpful.

*insert picture*

For another drawing i did, i used pastels. The life model was wearing a magnificent Spanish dress, and it was the most fun thing to draw, i used chalk pastels to attempt to imitate the folds and ruffles in the dress and although messy.. it was a very fun exercise to do, i usually dont get along with pastels what so ever so it was nice to get out of my comfort zone. 

*insert photo*

Another thing i found useful was to initially draw the figure in a light yet visible colour, for example.. a light blue.. and then go over all the mistakes and attempt to correct it with a bright opposite colour like orange. it made a great and interesting drawing when finished.

*insert picture*

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Just like the nude of the life model lying down i did the same technique using ink for a sitting pose. I didn't like this one as much as the lying pose however its still okay. I know the arm was a bit dis proportionate and needed fixed however.

*Picture*

I tried to draw the life model with a form of monoprint, where you ink up the board and paint into the ink with a brush with washing up liquid as it breaks down the ink. I dont feel i did too well with this one however I thought id choose it in one of my 7 as it shows a diversity in technique i used for this unit.

*Picture*

Finally I chose another mono print, this one was where you placed newsprint over the ink and draw onto the paper and then you lift it up and whallah.. you have your print.. the image i got was a copy of the lying down pose at the start but i decided to focus on one point, which was the shoulder right down to the feet. 

i really liked these prints as i dont know.. the feet were pretty cool i think.

*picture*

In conclusion i enjoyed this uni, as short as it was. I really struggled at the start trying to get into it, but i warmed up in the end.

*At this time most of the pictures i cant upload as i may have accidentally deleted the pictures from my phone by mistake during a clear out :s 

They will be uploaded however.*

Chris Silver - Expressive drawing

Chris Silver is a graduate from Glasgow School of Art, and did Painting and Printmaking. His work is inspired by the theme of Pop Expressionism and has worked in a variety of ways, from Sculpture to portraits and is inspired by art history and the theatricality of fashion imagery. I find his work extremely interesting to look at, his use of colours and the way he applies the media makes his work very expressive and in some paintings, very messy, however the models face always shows through. 

could probably look at his work all day. 

"Sick and tired"

"Burn"

tea, watercolour and graphite

sketches

"The Ready Mades"

Lana Lisitsa -Expressive drawing

Lana was born in Odessa - the Soviet Union, in 1967 and studied under local artists while she was in the School of Architecture. Lana is fascinated with social interactions and human nature and would regularly visit parks, train stations and beaches with her sketchbook. 

Recently she is interested in the realm between imaginary and real life, and the blurry line that separates them, just like in dreams.

I picked out some paintings I like the most, i like them because of their use of colour, line and composition, and how 'messy' they appear to be. 

Angel

oil on canvas

Ennui

oil on canvas

Gold and Cobalt

oil on canvas

Red

oil on canvas

Trumpet Solo

oil on canvas

John Fellows - Printmaking/Media Handling

John Fellows is a printmaker I looked at last year for a unit called Specialist Techniques where I chose.. well.. Printmaking. John collects a variety of paper, hand written letters and maps dating back to 1880's and collages them to print on to make a completely unique print with his completely unique style.
Now collaging paper together to print on is actually something I've been heavily thinking about for a couple of days while my mind has been what I like to call "art ticking" so I thought doing a report on John would be a great idea.

We Are All In This Together (Sink or Swim) / 16”x20” / linoleum carving collage on used nautical chart / 2011

 Der Holzfaller / 10”x17” / linoleum carving collage on topographic map / 2013

Der Wanderer  /  10"x8"  / Linoleum carving collage on Swiss topo map  / 2014

I think John is one of my favourite artists, I love the idea of using maps in art, and especially when its the use of maps with print!!

I love the way he carves shapes and the way he designs the illustrative human face. He just very much makes my arty brain tick and think about how I can be better with lino, how to cut certain lines and what to do within my own work I guess.

He also posted his process on his website and that was pretty helpful.

Molly Hashimoto - Printmaking/Media handling

A lot of Molly's work are block prints with watercolour. I found Molly while I was cleaning a woman's house this morning and noticed her calendar in the kitchen and was instantly drawn to it and thought, "HEY!, I'm going to look into her for my Printmaking AND Exploratory Media Handling units!".
Molly lives in Seattle, Washington and her work is usually put into calendars, postcards, gift books, etc. Her work is usually of birds and nature... but mostly birds, I see... Her prints are put onto rag paper, and printed with oil-based inks and are hand tinted with Watercolour.

I think I'd enjoy this technique and defiantly going to try it, maybe use gouache too in my experiments.

Crow and Moon 8x10

Owl and moon

Crow, Moon and cherry blossoms 8x10

All of them have a great, illustrative use of line and colour and I don't particularly think I have a favourite print at all as they all appeal to me and I'm excited to get back to college to try this technique for myself :)

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Printmaking

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was born on May 6th, 1880 in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria. Ernst was considered to be a part of the Expressionism and Die Brucke movements. Die Brucke was a group of German expressionist artists that came together in 1905, Ernst was one of the founding members.
Unfortunately Ernst committed suicide on June 15, 1938 while the Nazi's rose to power and their campaign against "Degenerate Art."

The human figure was very important to Ernst's work, he portrayed the figure in movement, as he believed that it expressed the natural form of the human body.

I selected a few prints of his that I particularly liked, throughout all of them that I've seen, I've discovered I love his style and graphic-ness in the prints, something I may want to attempt in any future lino prints I do myself.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, woodcut, portrait of henry van de veldes, 1917

Out of the three I've chosen I think this one is my favourite. I love the use of line and composition with the face and the landscape behind. I also love that there's so much to look at in this print, and I think the print just being black and white adds to it somehow.

interesting how simple line can hold so much detail.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner: Man's Head, Self Portrait (1926) woodcut

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner - Tribulations of Love, 1915, Colour woodcut

These last two I decided to put in as they use colour and kind of the process of a reduction print.

Just like the first one, I like the use of line, and in this case I also love the use of colour.
All of his prints are very interesting and to me, very eye pleasing and I don't think I've seen one that I didn't like that much.

Jim Dine etchings

Jim Dine was born in June 16, 1935 and is an American printmaker and pop artist and is also considered to be a part of the Neo Dada movement.

The first image I came across was the one above, I liked it because its busy and dark due to the black/blue ink. It sort of makes me think of a hammer filled cityscape by the way the hammers have been placed together. Going on I noticed that there is also a say and a hand included. I like how scratchy and messy the image is completely. 

The second image I came across was of these wrenches and I found them interesting because this etching is a lot cleaner than the last. You can completely make out everything in the picture and nothing else jumps out at you, however in contrast I like this one as its a very clean etching I guess.

Lastly I came across this image, It contrasts completely with the images above as, well obviously its colourful. I find this one interesting as I had never thought about this process while experimenting with etching myself.