Time texture pattern part 2

Time, Texture, Pattern: Part Two (Studio & Process Portfolio outcomes)

SGBIS INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE DIPLOMA PROGRAMME Time, Texture, Pattern: Part Two (Studio & Process Portfolio outcomes) Creativity is an act of bravery. It states: I am willing to risk ridicule and failure so that I can experience this day with newness and freshness.

(Zinker, 1977, p3)

Task 5: Working towards studio outcomes Using a combination of digital and traditional two dimensional media you are now going to combine your photographs and elements from your visual diary within compositions that will be developed into several pieces of 2 dimensional studio work. Whilst certain aspects of the project will be sequential the central idea is that your creative process will be non-linear. That means that you will work on multiple, interrelated, pieces in your IWBs and studio simultaneously. Ideas and images should bounce backwards and forwards between all of the components of this unit.

Main studio outcome 

Large mixed media painting

Process Portfolio Outcomes: 

3 works on A2 paper plus several A3 book pages

These outcomes will be the result of a process of research, development, experimentation, trial, error, reflection and informed selection. Elements of chance or risk taking will help you to produce an exciting outcome that you cannot entirely predict at the start. Louis Pasteur said : “chance favours only the prepared mind”. What this emphasizes to you as an artist is the importance of research and investigation within the development of your work. You need to enable, recognise and preserve interesting and valuable surprises as they occur within your own work. Similarly, you need to cultivate an awareness of how different artists produce their work, including the critical decisions that they make within their own creative processes. Watch the linked videos of interviews and work by a number of artists who may help to inspire you. It is important that you use your IWBs to investigate and vividly describe such influences upon your studio work as it evolves.

Developing ideas for compositions In this case the term composition refers the way in which you arrange the various elements within your picture or design. You should aim to develop ideas for compositions that will allow you to make further changes as you go along – avoid static scenes or including aspects that will dominate the subsequent process (for example: a large symmetrical face in the middle of your painting).

The images that you will develop will move between abstraction and figuration. Sometimes you will be describing, or responding to, recognisable real world elements from your research. At other times you will be dealing purely with more abstract issues of harmony, balance, discord & rhythm within the relationships between the colour, texture, line and patterns, that exist purely within your own work.

As well as developing compositions to launch your painting, you might also go on to design printing blocks or stencils depending upon the media available to you. Some of the examples of students’ IWB & studio work provided here includes spray paint stencil and lino block printing. Varying your use of media and layering a range of techniques can help to expand your potential for discovery.

Preparing your chosen photographs: Cropping an image can radically change its emphasis, as you cause the viewer to focus on specific areas and exclude those portions which seem unnecessary to your emerging ideas. Your initial

cropping tool is the viewfinder of your camera, through which you target your initial image. However a lot more cropping takes place subsequently either in the darkroom under a photographic enlarger, or increasingly commonly, on the computer.

Crop your digital images in Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Paint, or one of the many excellent free alternatives such as: Phoenix (web based = no download) Paint.NET Gimp Photo-Pos-Pro If you are new to digital image manipulation then start with Phoenix. It has all of the most important tools and features for this project, doesn’t take up space on your computer, and won’t get too confusing!

Phoenix cropping tutorial HERE

Discovering compositions through experimentation.

Whether you are working in digital or traditional media (or a combination of the two) when experimenting with ideas for compositions the most important thing is to keep your various layers and individual elements moveable, modifiable and rotatable. That means using cutting, collage and pasting (either physical or digital) You are aiming to think visually as this will allow you to rapidly discover compositions that you might not otherwise expect.

Aim for 4 or more pages of compositions to start off with – but expect to develop more than this as your work takes off! Leave some early ideas unchanged so as to explain your thinking processes. Other compositional plans might be worked back into with different media.

Digital Compositions Scan/photograph some of the elements from your visual diary and save them in a folder along with your 18 selected digital photographs. These images will then be layered, repeated, rescaled, rotated and modified as appropriate within your chosen image manipulation software.

If you have access to Adobe Photoshop then you may find it useful to follow the guide provided in appendix 1. If you are going to use Phoenix then try this tutorial. Further links to online tutorials for other free digital applications are given in the Links, References & Additional Information section.

Traditional media If you want to stay completely ‘old school’ then you could also work with physical printouts, photocopies, tracing/drafting paper, glue and scissors. You should certainly include these traditional approaches when working through ideas within your IWB. For example: paint and draw over collaged print outs of your digital photographs and evolving digital compositions.

Use your IWB and larger paper to explore mark making. Experiment with diverse means of applying, reworking and layering the media – brushes, sticks, spatulas, pieces of card, fingers etc...

Documenting your discoveries Describe the processes that you go through and the decisions that you make in your IWBs. This is particularly important when working in digital media. Save, print and discuss the key stages of your evolving ideas. Some of your own, original source photographs should be included to allow others (including an examiner) to understand the depth and breadth of your research and investigation. Make it clear that these are images that you have made, rather than found.

Developing ideas digitally and in your IWBs (click for larger images of students’ work)

Looking at other artists for inspiration Your evolving work will be a response to itself, the media and the creative process, as much as to the images that you gathered to set the project in motion. Such an approach was typical of artists such as Willem de Kooning (1904-1997) who are often grouped within the Abstract Expressionist movement.

Investigating his layering of marks and semi-recognisable imagery could help you in your own work.

Excavation, Oil on Canvas, 1950 Willem de Kooning [1904-1997] As Robert Hughes (1974) explains in this article in Time magazine, Willem de Kooning’s apparently wild and uninhibited paintings are the result of a great deal of preliminary drawing, modification and reworking. De Kooning would sometimes transfer particularly interesting or successful marks or shapes from ongoing paintings that he felt were not working in their entirety. Critical selection of successful work is a vital part of the painting process.

In this VIDEO The painter Francis Bacon (1909 – 1992) describes the importance of chance and risk taking in his painting process. Whilst his work is more clearly figurative than that of the Abstract Expressionists , he found it useful to borrow many of their techniques.

Key Quote: 1:26 ‘and by making these marks about which I don’t know how they will behave, there comes something which your instinct seizes on as being for a moment the thing by which [the painting] could begin to develop’ Harrison (2005) describes in this article how the Bacon destroyed or mutilated paintings that he felt were unsuccessful. Use your IWB to carefully document and describe any dramatic changes or decisions that you make within your own working process.

Larger Time Texture Pattern paintings (average 1.5m x1m) by IB Visual Arts students.

These paintings were based upon students’ final IWB designs. However, they all continued to change and evolve during the course of their production. Media used include: oil & acrylic paint, varnish, lino printing, spray paint and stencilling, oil bar and collage on cardboard, wooden panel, MDF or canvas.

Click on images to view larger versions Most students find it helpful to begin working on their large painting using just one or two colours to establish the main areas of form and tone on their support (canvas or board). Avoid drawing out in pencil. Work directly with a range of brushes, palette knives and any other available means to apply the paint. Experiment in your IWB or on other paper to develop a vocabulary of marks that will lead to a richer and more dynamic outcome. Remember: whilst your plans are essential to help get you started, they are just a launch pad for the subsequent work, not a fixed map to be copied out on a larger scale.

Paper based Time, Texture, Pattern works Multiple works on A2 & A3 paper. Some in coloured media (acrylic, coloured inks, oil bar, block printing, stencil/spray paint), others monochrome (Charcoal, graphite, ink, water soluble graphite) Once your main painting is underway you will begin some parallel works on paper. These works allow you to develop motifs and ideas that are emerging in the main painting. One group of students named these parallel works ‘babies’. This is an interesting metaphor for the ways in which they are generated by the larger paintings and may have some family resemblance – yet will grow and evolve in their own way. This growth and evolution also influences the simultaneously emerging larger ‘parent’ painting. 

Moving away from the ‘babies’ metaphor: it is vital to see the paper based works as offering an arena for creative experimentation and risk taking that keeps your project spontaneous and surprising.

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Forms, marks, lines, colours and other elements can be copied/transferred and layered between the parallel pieces. Alternatively the actual drawing/painting can easily be torn or cut up and collaged into other pieces.

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Working on paper should enable you to feel less inhibited.

Ideas sparked off on the paper projects should be incorporated back into the larger painting (and vice versa)

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If space permits you might have up to 7 ‘live’ pieces of work in front of you at the same time!

Paper based Time, Texture, Pattern works (mostly A1 format) by IB Visual Arts students. Click for larger versions and to see further examples on line

Keeping things moving and deciding when to stop Ultimate targets and potential ways forward in this unit may not always be as obvious or straightforward as they would in more clearly representational projects. Moving between the certainty of what is already known (such as directly reproducing elements of your original images) and the leap of faith of searching for something new (such as following your instincts, or recognizing the possibilities within a painterly ‘accident’) is a crucial creative skill. There are many possible, valid outcomes for these open ended projects. How do you know when an artwork has reached a satisfactory conclusion? What are you hoping to achieve: balance? harmony? tension?

Finding new answers (rather than merely reproducing your photographs on a larger scale) may require you to adopt a range of new working strategies:       

Rotate your paintings – flip them. Work on them from different angles.

Take chances – cut or tear up pieces of the paper works and reassemble in new ways.

Drag or throw paint over sections that have become static.

Make rapid, spontaneous drawings of your larger paintings in your IWB. Attach your paint brush to a 2 metre long pole!

Swap paintings with another student for 5 or 10 minutes (if you dare!)

Vary and extend the range of media that you are working with: collage, printing (lino, silkscreen, laser cut block print) Stencil – hand or laser cut (see http://strix.org.uk/stencil/for help)

Dialogue & Collaboration

This is an ideal project in which to develop the crucial ability to share and develop ideas with your peers. The more that you participate, the more you will gain from the process.

Display your works in progress and associated IWB pages to allow for group critiques.

Possible questions you might ask your peers about your own work could include: 

Tell me one thing that you think is particularly successful about my painting (or drawing)

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If you were given this painting to work on, what would you do next? How would you develop it?

Possible questions you might ask your peers about their own work could include: 

Tell me about this piece – where did it come from? Where is it now? Where is it going?

How do other artists keep things moving, or decide when to stop ?

Watch these video clips to see how other artists find solutions to their own creative ‘problems’.

Asger Jorn painting . He is very close to concluding this work. He paces backwards and forwards in front of his canvas, making small adjustments and additions that respond to the existing shapes, lines, colours and textures underneath.

Karel Apel Painting Apel alternates between some rather wild and exciting application of paint and periods of critical reflection in this video. He stops, stands back and ponders the moves and marks necessary to take his painting closer to a satisfactory conclusion.

Sam Francis In his studio. Like Apel, Francis gets very involved in the sensual characteristics of applying the paint – but knows when it is time to pause and take stock of what he has initiated. At 2:55 he circles the floor mounted canvas like a hunter stalking his prey. Once he has decided on the best way forward he recommences the application of paint.

Concluding the projects A central aim of this unit is to enable you to fully explore the creative processes through encouraging you to work in ways which may be new, surprising, or even initially uncomfortable. Experiencing and recording this process is a vital part of your growth as an IB artist. However, the unit should lead to at least 2 major studio outcomes. Your larger painting is likely to be the result of a layering of ideas and images. Through critical reflection and discussion with your peers and teacher you will be able to decide when it is finished. The smaller paper works are a vital part of the project and should be developed to a level at which they can also be regarded as valid studio pieces.

To help to bring some sense of resolution or conclusion. Some students arrange the paper works into triptychs or other sequential groupings (click for larger images)

Others find it useful or interesting to combine several paper works into a single larger piece: working over/into their images so as to unify the separate pieces into a satisfying whole.

Links, References & Additional Information Web based image manipulation software and tutorials: Phoenix Phoenix tutorials

http://aviary.com/online/image-editor?lang=en http://aviary.com/tutorials

Paint.NET Paint.NET tutorials

http://www.getpaint.net/ http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/forum/18-tutorials-publishing-only/

Gimp Gimp tutorials

http://www.gimp.org/ http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/

Photo-Pos-Pro Photo-P-P tutorials

http://photopos.com/Photo-Pos-Pro-Image-Editor.asp http://www.photopos.com/pppforum/viewforum.php?f=7&sid=dea8dad5c1b b8adf7937fe0eccdfe198

Stencil maker:

http://strix.org.uk/stencil/

Francis Bacon Asger Jorn Karel Appel Sam Francis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2gKkOAwsqY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEvxK7-xYz4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsxR8aT2Ob0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgH4AD9R5WM

Videos

References & further information on artists mentioned Willem de Kooning [Dutch-born American Abstract Expressionist Painter, 1904-1997] http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/de_kooning_willem.html Francis Bacon [Irish-born, British Painter, 1909-1992] http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/bacon_francis.html Asger Jorn [Danish Painter, 1914-1973] http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/jorn_asger.html Karel Appel [Dutch Abstract Expressionist Painter, 1921-2006] http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/appel_karel.html Sam Francis [American Abstract Expressionist Painter, 1923-1994] http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/francis_sam.html Harrison (2005) on Bacon http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAL/is_517_161/ai_n13452803/?tag=content;col1 Hughes (1974) on de Kooning http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,879336,00.html Tate glossary abstraction http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=8 Tate glossary figuration http://www.tate.org.uk/collections/glossary/definition.jsp?entryId=104 Art Lexicon on Abstract Expressionism http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/a/abstractexpr.html Kandinsky: Concerning the Spiritual in art http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/phil%20of%20art/kandinskytext.htm Zinker, J. (1977) Creative Processes in Gestalt Therapy. New York. Vintage Books.

Image sources De Kooning Excavation, 1950 http://media.photobucket.com/image/de%20kooning/ksoholm/ Downtown%20Chitown%2012%2022%2009/DSCN1104.jpg?o=68

Appendix 1:

A Short Introduction To Adobe Photoshop

Remember that there are often many different ways to achieve effects and results in Photoshop. The processes that you will use in this part of your project are just one approach (that should be simplest to follow) Once you are more confident you will probably just use keyboard shortcuts.

Words in bold are commands on the menu bar (along the top of the screen). Click on them in the sequence shown. Words in italics are tools on the vertical toolbar. Look at the toolbar guide opposite to see which tool is which.

To begin: 

File > New > Preset > A4 > OK . This will give you a blank A4 sized image at high (300dpi) resolution.

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Now open some of your own images: File > Open > then find your way to your USB stick and choose the image(s) that you want to use.

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Bring your images into the composition as new layers: (Photoshop automatically creates new layers whenever you drag/paste something new in). Select the area of the image that you want to bring to the main composition (use rectangle tool, lasso tool etc) and then copy (CTRL + C) & paste into your main composition image (CTRL + V)

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To understand layers: imagine a painting made up of a stack of sheets of glass. The layers can interact with each other and become more or less transparent to let different areas show through. You can distort, change and move objects around on one layer without altering what is underneath or above.

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You need to click on the individual layer within the layers palette to work on it. (Window > Layers)

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To transform scale, angle, position etc : CTRL +T . Then manipulate the ‘handles’ on the corners of the selection box

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Press the return/enter key to confirm any changes that you make

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To observe/regulate/hide/show/move up and down through your different layers you use the Layers palette. This will either be found by going Window > Layers or by looking at the tabs in the Pallete Well (top right of menu bar)

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Once you have all of your ingredients pasted into layers of your composition you can start being creative:

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Use the eraser tool to remove parts of your image and let layers below show through.

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Vary the diameter, fuzziness and power of the eraser using the Brush & Opacity menus

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Cut out sections using the rectangle, circle and lasso tools (select with the tool and then delete)

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You can also use the quick mask options on the toolbar: Press Q to Edit in Quick Mask Mode.

Choose a brush and paint over the area that you want to keep (it will be transparent red) Press Q again to go back to standard mode – then press delete and the unmasked areas will be erased.

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In the Layers palette menu, experiment with altering Opacity and also the ways in which the layers interact with each other (Overlay, Darken, Pin Light etc are on the drop down menu to the left of the Opacity option)

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Use Image > Adjustments to open up a menu which will allow you to experiment with wonderful things like Hue/Saturation, Curves, Gradient Map, Brightness/Contrast etc

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Use Edit > Transform to open a range of options that allow you to distort, rescale, warp, move sections around, stretch, rotate and alter your selections.

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What you do with all of these possibilities is up to you – be experimental. the more you try the more you will learn – surprise yourself!

Save your images back onto your memory stick when you are finished. File > Save As. Give them names that include your own name. Save them as PSD files (default) to preserve all of your choices and different layers. Save them as jpegs (.jpg) if you want to open or print them in other applications

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