For this project I have to find a competition to enter that is related to my specialist area. I have not decided on my specialist area yet as I am still finding new areas to work in. So, I have chosen a competition that I think I will have the most fun working for.
The Campaign for Drawing announces a new art award: The John Ruskin Prize.
The prize will be awarded to the best wall mounted artwork on the theme 'A New Look at Nature', and is open to anyone over the age of 18 who working in painting, print-making, drawing or mixed media and resident or domiciled in the UK.
The Prize winner will receive £1000 and a specially commissioned pencil case. The winner's art work will be exhibited at Brantwood (John Ruskin's Lake District home) and in the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield during the major autumn 2012 exhibition, Force of Nature: Picturing Ruskin's Landscape.
Nine runners-up will be included in the exhibition of short-listed artists at Brantwood, and offered one night's accommodation to attend the Private View, where the winner will be announced on 7 September.
Deadline for submissions: 1 June 2012
Entry fee: £10 for one image
£20 for three images
My Work
I want my work to represent our 'Future Nature', meaning: if we carry on the way we are, digging up land and constructing new buildings, sooner or later we wont have a 'Nature'. Therefore, my piece will have an organic theme but everything will be made out of man-made and unnatural materials such as:
. Wire
. Paint
. Plastics
I got my first idea from my last project: Multi Disciplinary, where I made a heart out of wire. it turned out really well so I decided to use wire in my first experiments.
I created lots of different shaped leaves and decided it was working so well I made a larger one to add into my final piece.
I later went on to make experiments with plastics, this is when I found Angelina Fusible Fibres. This is lots of small, coloured, strands of plastic/film that you layer together in between two pieces of paper and iron. The heat causes the fibres to stick together and make a sheet. The colour I found is perfect for my work as it is two-toned metallic gold, copper, green and brown. The metallic effect on it really fits in well with my theme.
What is really nice about Fusible Fibres is that after you have ironed it together, the edges are very hard to get neat and tidy, so you get a torn/frayed effect. This will represent blades of grass with in my piece
As you can see, when the light is moved around the colours change.
The Paint
I have chosen to use oil paints for this project as I have used a lot of acrylic in the past and I wanted to use some different techniques. I created some small examples of different techniques on how to use the paints like:
. Fading and shading
. colour palettes
I found that if you use a primer on your canvas first the oil paint dry MUCH quicker than if you paint straight onto the canvas material.
Influences
My first inspirations for the subject of my piece were leaves. I wanted the background (paint) to look like it was out of focused leaves on the ground. This would pick up tone, light and shade, and blurred blocks of colour. Whilst doing research on the internet I came across this image, it is a very good example of blurred leaves, if I was to paint this thought I would make the colour scheme darker, maybe browns and greens instead of orange and green.
After some experiments I found that I didn't like this idea as it was hard to create a lot of texture with the paint itself so I went out to find some new inspirations. After an afternoon at Formby Pinewoods taking photographs I found I really love the patterns of the tree bark so I created experiments with this in mind and they worked out pretty good.
It was easy to use really thick paint and still capture the amazing patterns of the bark. The only thing I changed was the colour scheme, I added in more greens and other 'leaf colours'.
Final Piece
So this is my final piece...
It is quite hard to see the wire leaf and some of the other details so I have taken some close ups...
Wire Leaf.
You can see (above) that I have added shells into my piece, also you can see part of my wire leaf.
Gold Leaf.
As you can see I have added gold leaf to the paint. This is beautiful when the light shines on it and it really adds a strong metal effect to my work. The gold leaf I have used came in a little box and it was all different colours (all metallic) Gold, copper, bronze...
I have used gold paint which you can also see in the image below.
The white drips you can see here is PVA glue. I use it a lot in my work as it dries clear but just gives surfaces a little more texture.
Thick Paint.
I have mentioned using thick textural paint a lot through out this project so I thought it would be a good idea to try and show you just how thick I have used it.
Fusible Fibres.
Here i made a large sheet of fusible fibres and then tore bits apart and stuck them down.
It is a little hard to see but once it catches the light it looks pretty good.
You can also see the different coloured gold leaf.
And finally, the last thing I do on every piece of art work I create is sign it.
DONE!