Punch

 

To try and capture the movement in destruction I decided to try and recreate the effect by using paper. I started by ripping back the paper and layering it on top of each other. As I went, I decided shade in the areas of paper, that were being exposed, with colouring pencils to define them from the rest of the paper. When I was finished with the ripping and shading I really liked the piece I  had created and wanted to do something else with it. So I decided to see if I could introduce more movement into this piece. So, I began to use masking tape to temporaily fix the paper back in it's original place and took out my camera. I proceeded to take a photo of each stage after I removed a single piece of masking tape. I then included photos of my own hand punching through the paper, then played around on Windows movie maker to make my very own "Punch" animation.

Desk Update

This is just a blog entry that I will try and do to remind myself to always update my desk and my ideas.

Week 3

Week 5

 

Back to Life

After extensive work with the withered leaves, to really introduce movement into my work with them, or rather introduce them to movement, I decided to shred them. Also, I made photocopies of my detailed drawings and shredded those too. I wasn't really sure where I was going with this but I did know that the work, even though literally involving the same materials as before, would be very different.

 As I began to assemble the shredded pieces of leaves and drawings on the page, I automatically arranged the leaves in a tree like shape, with the drawings acting as a sort of background. I went with this idea and glued it all together on the page. This introduced another interesting idea into my work, the idea of destruction with the intent to reassemble into something different. I hope to apply this to more of my work in the future.

Food Fight

Another artist I have been looking at is German photographer Martin Klimas.

I find his work very captivating, and I am interested in the fact that he captures his subject right at the point of destruction to create stunningly beautiful images.

Damaged Leaves

These are a few detailed drawing I did of the damaged leaves I had been working on. I set them in a certain way on the page to recreate the sense of a broken window as they share the same characteristics of cracks and sharp edges.

Splash

After my earlier work with leaves I now decided to use them in the making of work instead of depicting them. So I proceeded with my plan and dipped the leaves in watery red paint. I began to try and paint with them but then discovererd that the best effect was achieved by spinning the leaves between my fingers and letting the paint splash all over the page.

I really liked the end result of this experiment and felt it captured movement in destruction well, also it was different to other work I have done so far. But I didn't anticipate some consequence from this work, which was the fact that the paint soaked through to the other side of the page. But visually I also found this quite interesting. So instead of trying to cover I outlined the shapes that had been created.

These shapes lead me on to even more exciting new work. I photocopied them, cut them out, arranged them in a new form and mounted them on coloured paper. I enjoyed how starting one aspect of work can lead onto another and each piece is a different interpretation of the original splash.

Shredded

To further my exploration of movement and motion through destruction, I was kindly leant a mini paper shredder. I also decided to take this opportunity to take on some advice given to me by one of my tutors, to destroy something that would be personally liberating for me, obviously not in a sinister way :) So after thinking about it for a couple of days, I came up with the perfect paper to shred. After a long hard day of working in the bookies, which is my part time job, it was certainly satisfying to see the Ascot form being shredded to pieces........all in the name of art of course!

Explosive!

Here are a few examples of work from a Portuguese street artist who I came across a while back. Alexandre Farto aka Vhils, incredibly daring and exciting work all of a sudden came back to me when I came up with the idea of destruction for my project. His work incorporates destruction in a really obvious way with results that are both life-like and beautiful. Just see for yourself.....

                                             

Not sure how I can take this inspiration and apply it to my work in the studio in safe way but I'm working on it :)

Ink & Leaves

Since I have become interested in items that have been transformed from their original state via destruction, I picked up a bunch of withered leaves on the way into college. I thought it would be interesting to examine the movement of the cracks and lines that now cover their surface. Another important element of this study was choosing the right medium to portray these leaves. I decided to look at the movement of ink on a page of my sketchbook.

From the results of this experimentation I thought ink would be the perfect medium as variety of line is easily achieved when using it and this lend itself well to capturing the cracks and imperfections on the leaves.

 

Destroyed Apples

Leading on from the apples I had drawn I started to try and find a way to create more movement with them on the page. So a couple of sessions at the photocopier later, I was able to achieve this movement by destroying and reassembling my drawings.

Household Items

To start off with this idea I decided to look at the destruction of some everyday objects. This was a simple starting point from which I could build up more substantial ideas relating more to movement and motion. I decided to draw my apple, which I was going to physically destruct anyway as I ate it. The record of this is documenting a kind of transformation, which is something I have become more interested in.

Leading on from this, as I was walking to college one morning I came across a particulary destroyed coke can which I felt would be interesting to draw in my sketchbook. Also I liked the idea that even though this was a destroyed piece of rubbish it visually was more interesting than the original can.

Getting Started

Well this blog post may be a few weeks late but that doesn't mean I have forgotten what starting this project was like. "Movement and Motion", they say "And then it's up to you". So while I was sitting at my desk for the first time, pretending to know what I was doing and trying to process the heaps of information that had been unloaded upon me in the first few days in art college, an idea indeed did start to form in my head.

It started with just a few lines in my notebook, I mainly started it just to keep myself looking busy. But I ended up with coming up with the idea of destruction in relation to movement and motion. Not being fully sure where this idea was going to bring me, I decided to run with it.