New walk museum.

A trip to New walk museum in Leicester.

During this week I visited New walk museum in Leicester after a friend suggested I take a look at the collection of German expressionist pieces this museum is known for. The history behind the exhibition is a complicated and unique one. The museum has the largest collection of German expressionist pieces outside of Germany, how they arrived here was particularly interesting. When the paintings first came to England they weren't, as such, meant to be here and were brought in on the down low. Like in many cases within the art community, exhibitions and individual pieces can be seen as quite controversial, these pieces often make for the most interesting.

Before even entering the museum you are greeted with art literally at your feet. Within the pavement outside of the gallery there are butterflies and other insects encased in glass between the slabs. Giving an insight of what the inside of the museum has to offer, as within the museum there is a large collection of fossils, bones and preserved creatures.

Before entering The expressionist exhibition, there was a collection of artefacts from all over the globe. It was at this point I took minute sketches of some of the objects in the cabinets. As they were reasonably quick drawings they only give the general impression of what was in front of me, however looking juvenile and messy. I also took some pictures of some of the pieces within the room. However it was also at this point I was rather strongly warned about taking photos within this section of the museum, especially the pieces of Picasso ceramics.

Before travelling to the museum I looked on the website gallery at pieces that I was interested in and some of the artists featured in the collection. The artist Franz Marc stood out to me with his use of vibrant colours and unusual form within his pieces, and this I was rather fond of. As I couldn't take photos within this exhibition I collected two of the booklets on offer about the pictures I liked within the selection. One on Marc's Red women, which within Marc's work is a rare piece showing a figure rather that his usual subject of animals. The hair of the figure within almost blends into the subtle foliage of the background, Marc was a strong believer that art was significant, and everything within a picture had particular meaning. He also wanted to explore humanity and their harmony with nature, using both colour and form. The blue and greens of the image that blend with the woman are spiritual colours, maybe trying to illustrate a biblical image, both portraying a naked women and a 'green' connection to nature  

The second booklet I collected was on Ernst Neuschul's iconic piece of Messias (1919) oil on card.This image is displayed on the entrance to the museum and takes pride of place in the expressionist ensemble. The piece is controversial like much of Neuschul's work as he tried to portray the inequalities within society and had a history of difficult situations within the artistic community. In 1939 in an exhibition in Czechoslovakia his paintings were slashed and defaced with swastikas.This piece is a very early self portrait, and with the title of messias which is the Arabic word for messiah,it showed Neuschul's belief in himself and his artwork. He makes himself the true focal point of his own image, reiterating this to the audience by having his own figure in the image point to his chest. This powerful gesture, paired with the strong facial expressions made prominent by the sparse background, truly convey Neuschul's ideologies and personality. 

In this section of the exhibition a projected image was shown on every wall, of many of the pieces and their history, many of these were in black and white and not detailed images but simple line drawings that were prominent within the collection. A serene type of music was paired with this. The use of a visual 3D display paired with the element of sound to portray a particular theme, gave the exhibition a hands on feel as you walked through the experience, while looking at all the pieces surrounding the walls.

While walking around this section of the gallery and the other smaller exhibitions showing older more realist paintings of beautiful landscapes and the very abstract expressionist pieces, I took notes on the paintings I enjoyed. Within these notes i took down the artist, the size of the piece ( if available), the mediums used, the title and when the piece was either printed or produced. By doing this I have created a glossary of paintings, artists and techniques for future reference to use in my artist research and inspiration for future pieces of my own. 

' At the fortune tellers

 Paul Kleinschmidt 1883-1949

Etching and dry point 

Printed in 1922 '
http://germanexpressionismleicester.org/leicesters-collection/artists-and-artworks/paul-kleinschmidt/at-the-fortune-tellers/

'Blind Man 

Otto Dix 1891-1966

Lithograph 

Printed in 1923 '

http://germanexpressionismleicester.org/leicesters-collection/artists-and-artworks/otto-dix/blind-man/

' Stormtroopers advancing under gas

Otto Dix 

Etching and aquatint

Printed in 1924 '

http://germanexpressionismleicester.org/leicesters-collection/artists-and-artworks/otto-dix/stormtroopers-advancing-under-gas/

'The March into the unknown

Max Slevogt 

P1.1 From visiovo 1916-17

lithograph'
http://germanexpressionismleicester.org/leicesters-collection/artists-and-artworks/max-slevogt/visions-plate-1-the-march-into-the-unknown/

'The Yellowstone Falls

Edmund Marriner Gill

Oil on canvas'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Marriner_Gill#/media/File:Edmund_Marriner_Gill01.jpg

'Portrait of a Man

Karl Schmidt-Rootluff

Woodcut'
http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/visual-elements/images/texture/karl-schmidt-rottluff.jpg Closest I could find 

The next image is mainly of a quote shown in a description of the artist Winifred Nicholson.

'Winifred Nicholson 

Crystals 

Oil on canvas' 
http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/images/paintings/thumbs/lams/290x216/llr_lams_l_f780_1977_0_0_290x216.jpg

"The nature of abstract colour is utter purity - but colours wish to fly, to merge, to change each other by their juxtapositions, to radiate, to shine, to withdraw deep within themselves."

'Frank Howling 

Lguanagone

Acrylic on canvas'

After looking around the exhibitions involving 2D images I ventured into the part of the museum with models of dinosaurs and old fossils. At this point I stood in front of one of the largest dinosaurs structures and drew some of the details I could see at the joining of joints and different bones within the statue. These drawings are once again quick sketches, and the next museum that I go to I plan on spending more time on each sketch and making them slightly larger to allow for a more expressive nature of drawing. I also included a small section of Hieroglyphics, I could only capture a small section of the total piece as it was closed off for a lesson. 

At the end of my time in the museum I collected a small selection of postcards with the two pieces that I previously looked at and other pieces of artwork on. I plan to visit more museums and carry out a similar style of working for each one,building a small portfolio of each one in a collective sketch book to document visits. I also picked up at the museum shop a book on one of my favourite artists, this was a personal purchase. However her work is based around many circumstances that the main exhibition showed. Kathe Kollwitz' work is based around the Weimar Republic and the devastation that brought to Germany. an issue that is show as a trace is many of the expressionists work in the collection at New Walk. There were many graphic images showing nature of warfare and conflict which are all the artists memories and personal experiences of early 19 hundreds Germany.

Links to images found in New Walk museum.

Collage lesson. Annotations 3 using different shades of one colour.

Collage lesson.

Third use of collage using different shades of one colour and layering to show the nature of the subject.

I began in the same way as my previous collages by tearing up sections of tissue paper, this time using multiple shades of green to portray my subject. The layering of different shades of green make the outcome of the collage much more vibrant and eye catching. I used the same techniques as in all the other collages however when layering emulsion onto this piece I used slightly more, making for a pastel colour over the lighter shades of green. Below are step by step photos of the first stages.

I then proceeded to draw onto both collages, the leaf I chose for the subject of these pieces had many segments, due to the texture of the collage this was shown quite well through this piece. I also worked back into this image with small pieces of tissue paper similarly to the last collage I completed as I found this to be very successful in my last attempt.

I also worked back into the second collage, with the way I had glued the ripped pieces onto the second piece it reflected the shape of the leaf so I followed this shape with charcoal. As with my last drawings with this second collage it was hard to follow where the charcoal was over the drawing. I think this takes away from the quality of the piece as it looks unfinished and bare. However after completing many attempts of this technique in this style I have learnt that selection of background is incredibly important to the quality of the finial image.

Collage lesson annotations 2. Use of colour.

Collage lesson.

Second collage using colour that reflects that of the subject matter.

In this round of collage experiments I mimicked the colour and nature of my subject, by using a coloured tissue paper. My subject was a leaf with many different autumnal colours throughout it, so for my base colour I used red as with a mix of emulsion thought it would create the tones shown within my subject. I started off with the same technique as the prior collage, adhering small pieces of tissue paper to the page with pva and then layering emulsion over the top. From my first attempt at this style of work I learned to not use as much pva when gluing the tissue paper on the page to ensure that I had enough texture when removing parts of the surface, and still allowing enough paper to make a second collage. As seen with the image below the pieces of tissue paper are not as smooth to the page which made it easier to remove parts of the collage.

When removing small pieces it went fair better than my first attempt and the second collage ended up with much more colour on the surface to draw upon. 

When using compressed charcoal to draw back into these two surfaces, I discovered that they had a lot more texture than my first collage which made for a very interesting look to the drawing. Parts of the emulsion on top of the tissue paper had dried and made for a rough texture, which made the charcoal cling to only the raised section of the paint. Much like the first attempt at this technique some of the medium was still wet which meant there was still areas of smoother and more muted tone. 

Working into the second collage made from small sections of ripped paper, the charcoal was fair more visible than in my first attempt I chose to portray the shape of the bottom of the leaf which worked with the rough shape of the collage made from the collage. 

As with this I was exploring the different tones from the leaf I decided to work back into the drawing with small sections of different coloured tissue paper to mimic the spectacled nature of the leaf. I added small pieces of orange tissue paper roughly in the same place as where I could see them on the leaf in front of me. This creates depth to the piece due to the use of layering, it also opens the possibility for more layer and development of the technique with various different subjects. By adding more colour I believe the image is more complex and rather successful even though the nature of the refinement is only subtle, it changes the dynamic of the picture.

Collage lesson, annotations 1

Collage lesson

During this lesson I used many techniques of which I learnt throughout my previous attempts at college, to create various quick collages exploring mainly texture, to portray a subject.
Firstly ripping half a pages worth of newspaper and using pva to adhere it to the page.

Throughout this whole process I took pictures at each stage to show the development of the technique as with each collage I improve and the progression from beginning to the end, stage by stage.

After gluing the newspaper to the page I then added a layer of emulsion over the top of the collage to mute the undertones of green within my piece. 

While both the glue and emulsion were still damp I gradually ripped parts of collage from the page. I encountered the problem that due to the fact I heavily glued the pieces of newspaper to the page, it was hard to rip off a great deal of the medium meaning I was then limited in the textures that I could create. I continued to gradually tear off pieces of the newspaper until I was happy with how the surface of the collage looked. At this point of the process I took a separate piece of sugar paper in black and glued the sections that I ripped off the original collage onto this separate surface. In doing this I create two collages from one original piece, this method provides with a quick surface with vast amounts of texture and multiple surfaces from one starting place. The process could be continued multiple times over to make multiple surfaces. When adhering the ripped pieces from the original collage to the separate paper, I repeated the process of using pva and then a layer of emulsion as I did with the first piece. On the first surface I also applied a second layer of emulsion. As when ripping pieces of the newspaper off, more colours were exposed, the emulsion yet again muted these colours.

I then worked back onto these surfaces with compressed charcoal, as the nature of the surface is heavily textured I chose the subject of the piece to be a dead leaf as that had a similar texture to the one that  had I created, meaning much of the character of the subject was already portrayed by the surface. Compressed charcoal also has the property that it picks up on the texture of the surface you're drawing upon which made this image quite successful. As the piece was still quite damp due to the wet mediums used in excess, it made parts of the drawing smudged and not as intense in colour as other sections of the image. However I do think that this adds a good amount of contrast to the image as it portrays the effects of charcoal on a variety of surfaces all in one piece. In a way this image isn't a great likeness of the subject I was studying due to the black border created by the charcoal and the lack of negative space. However I feel that this piece shows more characteristics of collage than realism, so it can be quite successful to work in a brash and heavy fashion. When looking in closely at the image you can really see the effect that the different areas of the surface had on the compressed charcoal.I then used the same technique of working over the surface with compressed charcoal on the second collage made from ripped sections of the original piece. When I was initially pasting the newspaper onto the page I heavily glued them, which made the process of ripping sections away fairly difficult this resulted in not much newspaper going towards the second collage. When coming to draw over the second collage this hindered me quite significantly as due to the black background and lack of white collage the charcoal didn't show up particularly great. This is something that when completing the second round of this technique I learned to not use as much pva in the first stage.As shown in the image the lack of clear line the piece becomes very abstract and hard to interpret. Throughout all the collages I created I used black as my background for the second image, which If I used this technique again in the future is something that I would change, If I used back again I would also use chalk rather charcoal as it would prove for a more successful image.

Refinement of observational drawing

After reflection my sketch book some areas of my work needing refining. The original purpose of this piece was a college based around Greece as the subject of my image was made in Greece and I had previously focused and completed observational drawings of the label detailing the origin. The book pages inked to the theme of traces that we are studying as it was a metaphorical trace of the origin of the subject. However after completing the college by adding different tones of paper to mimic the colours of the pot, I discovered that the harsh background took away from the delicate painting of the pot in drawing ink, thus the painting was lost in the chaotic background. In this sense my idea of linking the college with an observational drawing wasn't successful and actually took away from the whole purpose of the piece. In an attempt to refine and generally improve the image, I decided to use the technique of emulsion to tone down the background and draw attention back to the main painting. In the first image I used a wide paintbrush and painted over the whole background with emulsion, this toned down the background considerably an made the centre of the image seem much more focal. However many of the original lines were lost in the painting of the emulsion, I considered painting back over the image but I decided I liked the organic nature of the image.

For the refinement of the second image in this style I wanted to experiment with different ways of applying emulsion to the image by using pieces of cardboard to paint onto the image. First of all I used a small rectangle and used the fat edge to create direction marks with the emulsion layering different types of shape and line onto the image, adding depth and character.

After applying that layer to the image I still thought that it needed different textures adding to make the image more complex. I took the piece of cardboard that I used to paint on the first layer and pealed the top section of cardboard away, this exposed the rough texture inside the cardboard. I then used this to speckle paint onto the page, when first applying it a round texture was created, this contrasted to the smooth nature of the page and the painting already there. Upon layering this texture a more dense colour can be made. By testing different techniques around the piece it took away from the background while still adding detail and texture for a much more successful piece. I feel the second attempt at using emulsion worked out far better than the first, creating a more complex and organic looking image.

John Stezaker annotations.

Annotations of the college inspired by John Stezaker.

Creating the college that mirrored the style of Stezaker, I had to capture the unique humor of Stezakers pieces and also work with old images which have their own memories attached. I used a scan of a picture of mum as a younger girl in a ballet outfit. This obviously has personal connections to myself but also fits with the style of Stezakers work in which he takes old images and re-contextualizes them. I chose to recreate the idea of the face of the subject being taken over by a piece of architecture. The piece of architecture I chose to fit with this photo was a section of the background of an old photograph of another family member. In many of Stezakers pieces he uses a postcard to layer over the top of the original image, these postcards tend to be a slightly different tone to the photograph under neath which creates a harsh contrast. I recreated this style of layering as the background i extracted from a photo was much older than the picture of my mother, it has a more sepia colour which contrasted with the black and white image of the picture of my mother. There is also a juxtaposition created within my piece as the harsh lines of the architecture contrast with the delicate image of the young girl. I do think that this image wasn't as successful as many images by Stezaker due to the shape of the building not reflecting the silhouette of the subject like his images. This is something I could carefully chose next time.

Edward Burra annotations.

Annotations of the college inspired by Edward Burra.

When creating a piece in the style of Burra i had to firstly chose the faces of the subjects within my piece. To make this college person to my self i scanned in photographs of relatives of mine and uses their heads as the subject within the scene. Burra's image shows a scene in which people are at a table, maybe at a cafe or bar. There is also a man grasping a women in his arms, this whole image is teamed with a chaotic background that fabricates a vary vintage feel due to the sepia tones, paired with a light blue- green colour. To mimic the style of this piece i decided to make a scene in which the main subject is sat a table indoors and a women standing with him. The style of my piece creating the illusion of inside a living room, however there was a contrast with the nature pf the subjects and the use of outdoor scenes making up the floors and walls of the room. The original version of the image I intended to sill the width of the page, however after many of the rest of the components had been added I realised the illusion of the room would look better if it ended at the point where the image of the brick was introduced into the image, as it mimicked the idea of a wall. I then tried to remove the piece of college that was next to the new edge of my piece, however when pealing it it left a horrible mess on the page. 

This would have ruined the style of the image, so using techniques that I have learnt I used emulsion to paint over the ripped paper. This technique doesn't completely remove this from the image however it adds more character to the piece while still disguising my change in heart.

Maurizio Anzeri annotations.

Annotations of the college in the style of Maurizio Anzeri

When creating my college in the style of Maurizio Anzeri I took inspiration from the image 'I will be with you on your wedding night'. I chose to interpret this image as i had old family photos of a wedding scene, that i thought would be close enough to grasp the concept of Anzeri picture but still have my own personal connection to the project. The photograph I had is decades old and is printed onto a thick piece of cardboard, as I wanted to keep this image unharmed, I scanned the image into a computer and spray mounted this printed photo onto a similar thickness of cardboard, as a likeness of the original. The piece of cardboard chosen was too thick to initially sew directly onto, so I had to drill holes into the picture where i wanted the design to be. Upon drilling into the image I came across the problem that if too many holes were drilled to close to each other the cardboard wasn't strong enough to with stand this and pieces of the cardboard pulled away from the rest.

As shown from the picture above a dent has been made within the image due to the holes being drilled to close together. From this It became a good indicator of how close to drill the holes into the image, and what is a reasonable distance between converging lines within the pattern. When all the holes had been drilled into the piece i had the general outline for the pattern of embroidery.

After beginning the embroidery, i quickly realised the way that i had started with the pattern wasn't giving the look that i had planned, and decided to go back over bits of the image that i had already sewn into.

 

Before working back into the sections I was unhappy with.

I went back into the hole at the start of the larger oval and went to different parts of the oval, but always returning to the same beginning hole. This added more depth to the piece by adding more lines and shape to this section which created a much more pleasing outcome. I then took what i learned from this section and applied to the rest of the image until I was happy with the way each section turned out.

After completing most of the image I decided to add one last line connecting the two larger ovals together, I feel that this made the image come together and added a dynamic that the picture needed. I added the holes needed for this by using a wool needle I found at home, this was far more difficult than using a drill however it allowed me to add slightly more holes which created for a slightly more detailed section. On the part of the image where it originally made a slight hole in surface, when sewing it proved difficult as the wool wouldn't sit where it was supposed to, which deformed the shape, I then added more hole in more stable areas of the cardboard around the hole to create a new path for the wool, which worked out rather well and in the finished piece this isn't visible.

Sarah Padbury annotations.

Annotations of a college in the style of Sarah Padbury

The original piece by Padbury pictured a women looking dismal, with her eyes closed and little facial expression. For my interpretation of the image I took a few images of my subject. The first image didn't show the emotion that I was trying to convey too well and looked more like shock that a person crazed.    

Due this image not being particularly successful I decided to try other ways of portray the emotion.

This image came out looking more like someone that's elated and laughing, rather than the negative side of crazed that I was trying to convey.

This image tended more towards the theme I was striving for, however it wasn't intense enough, and her face looked too staged.

This is the image I eventually chose, due to the fact it created a quite intense emotion, it looked as though the subject truly felt the emotion.I didn't want to recreate the original picture, as it was my own interpretation, i decided to take this image to create a piece with the idea of a crazed emotion rather than subdued as in the original picture. Firstly I mimicked the background of the image by Padbury with strips of newspaper, and patches of black ink. I then ripped up the photograph that I took, and layered it similarly to the original picture. Also adding two enlarged photocopied images of the word 'Today' at the base of the picture, in similar colours to that used by Padbury.

After this point of construction i had to mute the colour within the picture, similarly to the style of the college I am basing this piece on. To achieve this style i applied emulsion to some areas of the college, this mutes the colours and adds texture. It gives the illusion of the style that the college by Padbury portrayed.