Thursday 27 October 2016

lips, frazzled Grandma and Flanders...

Well - what a morning!  The excellent results are below. 


Introduction to Dada
(http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/dada)

Dada artists felt the war called into question every aspect of a society capable of starting and then prolonging it – including its art.  Their aim was to destroy traditional values in art and to create a new art to replace the old.

As the artist Hans Arp later wrote: 
Revolted by the butchery of the 1914 World War, we in Zurich devoted ourselves to the arts.  While the guns rumbled in the distance, we sang, painted, made collages and wrote poems with all our might.

In addition to being anti-war, dada was also anti-bourgeois and had political affinities with the radical left.

The founder of dada was a writer, Hugo Ball.  In 1916 he started a satirical night-club in Zurich, the Cabaret Voltaire and a magazine which, wrote Ball, 'will bear the name "Dada".  Dada, Dada, Dada, Dada.'  This was the first of many dada publications.  Dada became an international movement and eventually formed the basis of surrealism in Paris after the war.

Leading artists associated with it include Arp, Marcel DuchampFrancis Picabia and Kurt Schwitters.
Duchamp’s questioning of the fundamentals of Western art had a profound subsequent influence.

Man Ray, who wrapped a sewing machine was also seen as part of Dada.  Christo was influenced by Man Ray.  [Art Circle 22 September:  Christo, wrapping & pink rubber...]

Sheila

Sheila

Monica

Monica:  forever and a day

Angie:  poor Grandma who was a bit frazzled

Mike

Dorothy:  Scarce heard amid the guns below. (Major John McCrae: In Flanders Fields)

Dorothy:  We shall not sleep, though poppies grow (Major John McCrae: In Flanders Fields)

Thursday 20 October 2016

autumnal objects, shapes & marks...

Natural items gathered from gardens and hedgerows were the starting point this week.

We found shapes in the objects and then developed those shapes into drawings, in one case around a geometric shape.  

Some excellent mark making and use of colour...
Well done everyone! 

Mike:  sycamore seed
Mike:  sycamore seeds

Dorothy: pine cone
Dorothy:  seeds from a pine cone
Angie:  a weed 1
Angie:  a weed 2  

Angie:  rose hip  

Monica: rose hips



Thursday 13 October 2016

Tonking, Durer's Grid and a laid back scarecrow...

Last week we drew from life - a bumper harvest of apple and pears provided the subject which we depicted using charcoal on paper.  

We explored Tonking which was named after Henry Tonks (1862 - 1937), a method of wiping out the drawing and reworking on top to create depth and a dynamic to the piece. It takes a brave soul to do this for the first time then it's sometimes difficult to stop...   

Apologies, someone forgot to take the camera so only Angie's work is shown here, however everyone else's was fab too.    

However, I did remember the camera this week.  (see below)


We looked at Durer's Grid which is a Renaissance drawing aid, and experimented with enlarging images and then either distorting them or drawing them without the grid.

Very interesting results and definite improvement in the drawings made.  
Well done everyone!







Christo, wrapping & pink rubber...

a catch up...

The starting point was looking at the work of Christo from his earlier objects to his latest, The Floating Piers 2014 - 2016.

"For sixteen days – June 18 through July 3, 2016 – Italy’s Lake Iseo was reimagined. 100,000 square meters of shimmering yellow fabric, carried by a modular floating dock system of 220,000 high-density polyethylene cubes, undulated with the movement of the waves as The Floating Piers rose just above the surface of the water."




Then we had a go!  
Thin cotton fabric (an old sheet) and string served as materials which was supplemented later by rubber. 
Great fun and impressive results - well done everyone.