Dreamland, Turner, and The Belgian Cafe

Yesterday was a day of odd surprises. After watching 'Edge of Tomorrow' in the morning, we set off for Margate. Originally I had thought we were going straight to the Turner Gallery, however my Dad pulled up to a small amusement park, ironically named 'Dreamland'. It's fairground rides and small roller-coaster looked as if to be trying to cover up the run down area, and the peeling 'Dreamland' sign added to this aesthetic. Overall, against the grey skies, and towering flats looming in the background, it looked a little creepy. - I quite liked it.

 

After Dreamland, and visiting the Turner Gallery we then went to Ramsgate to see the boats lit up with Christmas lights, and also to eat. For food we went to The Belgian Cafe - a bar furnished with a jumble of mismatching tables and chairs, movie posters lining the ceiling, paintings covering the walls, and even ornamental mannequins (3 female and 1 male from what I could see). It looked like what I imagine my mind look like - a jumble of bits and pieces I have picked up from my experiences.

The boats lit up at Ramsgate

Sketch of the interior of the Belgian Cafe - fineliner

Dover, Deal and Sandwich

For the Christmas and boxing day weekend I'm in Kent, so yesterday we went exploring some parts I haven't visited before; the white cliffs of Dover, Deal and Sandwich.

Quick sketch of the cliffs in marker pen

Dover made me realise that Christmas and Boxing Day make people do crazy things. Although it's mild for December, I still wouldn't fancy swimming in the sea by the cliffs... unlike two guys in santa hats - I couldn't work out if it was for charity or if they just wanted to go for a swim. I also felt like the 'white cliffs of Dover' should be renamed to be the 'off-white cliffs of Dover'.

After Dover we drove up along the coast, making our way to Sandwich and came across Deal, with it's striking, brutalist style pier. It looked more like somesort of marine military base than a walkway to a restaurant. Amongst all the traditional 'beach holiday' architecture of Deal, this pier stood out in extreme contrast - part of the reason why I loved it so much.

 

 

 Lastly, going on from Deal we ended up in Sandwich, where we were going to have a sandwich before realising it was too early to eat, and ended up just having a drink instead. 

Sketch of the pub in Sandwich using fineliner

Medicine Cabinet Art

This morning I woke up with a sore throat, and whilst looking at a box of 'Lemsip Max' I thought about how often we define ourselves by our ailments. "Hey, how are you today?" "I have a sore throat"

It gave me an idea to make a sort of medicine Cabinet of people? Maybe something to explore further, or perhaps just a side effect of feeling under the weather today. Tomorrow I'll read this back and be like 'what were you talking about Ori?'

Life Drawing Lesson 3

This week we had a couple short in the class, allowing us to spread out and choose which view we wanted. The media we used this week was also allot more experimental, with more mixed media. Overall I'm not very happy with how any of the drawings turned out, however I like the process of the last, completely mixed media drawing.

To start out we were told to draw the figure in only 6 lines. Not only is this already hard to do, but the view I had was also very difficult to make look good. In the end I sort of gave up, having restarted the drawing 3 times - not a good mindset to have, but I felt there was no way I could actually make this drawing work.

Things didn't seem to progress much better than that, the overall figure not being in proportion and just not looking right in general. After the first catastrophe we did a fine liner and tissue paper drawing, using the tissue paper as the shading. We also did another reclining pose using charcoal, chalk, biro, pencil and fineliner pen. I quite liked the materials for this piece, however again, the form and proportions don't look right.

 

Life Drawing Lesson 2

For the second week of life drawing, we were a bit more experimental with our media. We chose a minimal palette of oil pastels to use on different coloured grounds. I decided on using 3 different shades of blue and also a piece of white chalk. Despite oil pastels being completely new to me, I really liked how these came out, with the colours and also the white to highlight the light shining on the model.

 

We then did a longer reclining pose in pencil again, and were told to look at and use the negative space around the model. We also rotated where we were sat to get a different view, which ended up with me having a much more challenging angle to what I would have had in my original space. At first I wasn't very happy with this, however I feel like the drawing actually has turned out the best so far. There are allot of things to improve (especially the legs) however, overall I don't think it came out too badly.

Crowds and People

Within my recent project I'm looking at the movement of large groups of people and crowds in urban areas. Through taking photos of crowds in the streets of London I came to the conclusion that we as human beings are selfish, whether we mean to be or not. Each person in the photos I took have different ideas, different opinions, different outlooks on the world to even the people walking directly infront of them. The brief crossing paths of strangers in the street will be quickly forgotten as we go about our daily lives. There's nothing wrong with this, but it made me realise how small my own 'world' is, and how I think that even if you experience lots of different things and travel far and wide, your world would still be small, - limited to only your perspective of what you have experienced.

Along with the photos of crowds I have taken, below is a progress photo of an oil painting I'm doing, layering up simple outlines of people photos I have collected.

Life Drawing Lesson 1

Last night I had the first of 6 life drawing classes I'm taking at my 6th form. It was really good and surprised me in how much better and easier it is the second time round. Despite this it was still challenging to get back into it, but the tutor was really good at giving us ideas and guidance, whilst still allowing us freedom in our pieces. 

First we started with some short poses and gesture drawing

We then had a longer sitting down pose using pencil. I liked how this one came out, however I found the feet and the prospective of the legs quite difficult to get right

Bankside Gallery and Tate Modern Visit

On Sunday, along with collecting material on people for my project, I also visited the Tate Modern and the Bankside Gallery. Overall I didn't overly enjoy the Tate - it was interesting to see the weird and odd modern art, but I didn't find much of a connection with any of the work. In fact, the thing that interested me the most about the Tate was the building itself, with the large open space and strange entrances. In the main foyer there was an exhibit that I liked as well, but this was probably due to the size of it and the way all the triangles created a pattern.

Iona admiring an inspiring grey canvas

In contrast to the Tate Modern, I really enjoyed the Bankside Gallery. Although it is much smaller than the Tate (one room as opposed to floors of exhibitions), I felt allot more of a connection to the work there. They were celebrating 50 years of the Printmaking Council, and so were featuring artists prints. Usually I stick to painting or drawing, however after seeing what can be done with etching and
linos, it has inspired me to explore that medium more. I wasn't sure if I could take photos of the work there, but I did note down some artists that liked, so I could look at them again later; Pamela Hare, Eleanor Durbin, Ros Morely, Sumi Perera.

Links -
Tate Modern
Bankside Gallery
Printmakers Council

Birthday Ashmoleon Visit

For my birthday I went to the Ashmoleon in Oxford with my family. To be honest I didn't find it overly interesting, apart from the Roman statues room and the angular stairs in the centre of the museum. I collected a few good quick sketches of the statues in the Roman room, however I wish there had been more than what was in that small room.

The main thing that drew me to the sculptures were the eyes. Some were seemingly lifeless and black while others felt like they were staring into your soul.

Kitchen Water + Fineliner

I acquired my new mini sketchbook a couple of days ago and today I made the first lines in it. Just a short observation of my kitchen using water and fineliner. I quite like the size of the two page spread, and might be an idea to use in my more finished work.

Turnagain Lane

-Turnagain Lane in Canterbury.

Whitstable Graffiti

A couple of shots of the graffiti around Whitstable - Will need to complete the set when I get the chance 

- 'Fall in love, not in line'