Its ok i am allowed to be using a spray can in this photo! I was under supervision. Those fumes from the paint were a whizz. Dunno how i got home that day. Only joking, we were wearing the standard issue face masks to protect ourselves from harm and HIV at all times. Look of course I have to take it one step further...
Yep this is the "before" shot, taken on the first day of my Certificate in Art and Creativity at the Learning Connexion. Me wearing my old lab coat ready to get down to battle with the paints. This lab coat could become a work of art itself at the end of this course as the scientist gives way to the emerging artist within me! The whole left brain right brain battle is in full swing I can tell you. One of the projects we did in the first term was to make a cast of our own faces and use it to make an alter ego of ourselves in the form of a paper mache mask. Here's my sweet little oddy of a face:
And heres my alter ego... Its "Fe man" the Iron Lady...
I have totally immersed myself in this course. THe first term started in February and finished in time for Easter. We spent Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in a class learning to draw and paint in various styles (impressionist, expressionist, cubist). We painted indoors and outdoors. We"d draw and paint 12, 15 pictures a day. We had live models to draw in charcoal and to paint with a palet knife. We did an environmental sculpture project outdoors. It was full on! Here's some pictures of what Ive been creating in my first term. This is more to document future progress rather than blow my own trumpet. Many of these pieces have stories of pain and self loathing attached to them! As it is when you are learning to do something for the first time - there's a strong pull towards the ladies loo for a meltdown now and again. But I stood tall and bold and big and brave and thought to myself, I am Serena, the Iron Lady, I have no fear. And thought who actually really cares anyhow if I fuck it up?
Then there was the project called The Travelling Egg. The brief was to create a package for a raw egg to travel in a A5 courier bag and to reach its destination intact. We had to work on a theme for the egg based on a brainstorm session. So I did my brainstorm and could only come up with mainly food related egg links, like omelette, pavlova, fertilization (ugh?), etc. Wasn't feeling very inspired by any of those. SO I asked J what he thought of when he thought of an egg. And he goes, Humpty Dumpty. Yes! Good old HD! Sweet. I'm thinking walls, horses, men. So off to bed all happy. Then 3am, bingo! I'm awake. The egg, the egg, how am I gonna do the egg? So not able to sleep I'm on FB checking my posts. Come across one of my crochet group posts, a link to a pattern for Donald Trump in crochet! Hahaha! Funny. Then I'm like, hang on a minute, what about "Trumpty Dumbty"???? Yes Trumpty Dumbty and his frickin Mexican wall! Oh yeah! And Putin and all his men! That's it! Woohoo! All excited now! We're on trend with Trump its all go. And I do love a bit of crochet me. So I made him a wall and added some graffiti art to it. I painted the egg to be his brain. Made a crochet head along with a flip top yellow fringe for easy access to his brain. Packed it out with fluffy stuff. And voila! One travelling Trumpty Dumbty egg.... perfick
About halfway through the term I did a weekend course in beginners jewelery making. Two days hard labour with a hand saw and a Naked flame was enough for me to realize I ain't gonna be a threat to Michael Hill (for non-kiwis replace this with H.Samuel! Stay with me, focus now!). But I still managed to make a chain from copper wire. Each link was painfully made with love for my hunny J. Here's a pic:
I like a process me. I love a problem to solve. So when it came to the end of the term and we had to choose a course to do for a whole week, thats not just the first 3 days, but 5 days total focus on one medium, I got to do "Hot Arts". Ok settle back down, calm yourselves. I may have spent a week in a barn in the middle of nowhere with some hot knives and a vat of wax but it was far from Kinky Boots I can tell ya! It was From Wax to Bronze. The "lost wax" art of bronzing. I you tubed the heck out of that and didnt find a huge amount of inspiration. But I did find one video of a female artist who was doing something really special. So I used some of her stuff as inspiration for my wax carvings. Remember all this stuff is totally new to me and to be honest we had 3 choices to put on the form for this block week and hot arts was 3rd. So I really didnt hav high expectations especially as I had heard that Hot Arts was about making a knife. Nice. Without going too much into the details, cos I dont really know them anyhow, what you do is make a thing out of melted wax which then solidifies and you use this to form a mold which is used to pour molten bronze into at like 2000 degrees. This obviously melts the wax and fills the mold with bronze which solidifies to form a thing that will be here for hundreds of years to come. Technical eh? Ha! Here's a few pics...
I started a 3D version of this lady which is bigger and should stand on her own rather than be placed on a wall like this piece will be once Ive cleaned it up a bit. Gives you an idea anyhow. I loved building the figure with the molten wax. Awesome.
Ive just finished the second block week which was in Oamaru stone carving. I absolutely loved this whole process. The best bit was working out where to cut into the stone and working through the puzzle of the design. Loved it. Going back to do more of this I think....
Well its the start of Term 2 and Ive done my first class in 2D to 3D. We started by making a skull out of plasticine. I'm looking forward to playing about with different expressions with other skulls. Happy with my first attempt...
I also have a Drawing it! Class and a Painting class this term. I have been trying to practice both media during the Easter break. Here's what I came up with...
Well I can say with confidence that this has been one of the very best things I have ever done and I am totally immersed in art and creativity. I am loving it. Challenging at times but what a great feeling when you can work through it or actually decide that nah, this ones not for me, move along!
Hope you enjoyed the update!
Oh wow, Reenie, Iron Lady, so good to hear from you again. As for what you are doing, I can totally relate! I love your art, all of it, along with your sense of humour.
ReplyDeleteWhen I went to teachers' college at age 39/40, I had never, ever done any kind of art at all. I thought you had to be really good at it to actually do it. But one of the teacher's challenged me to try it out. I ended up with Art as one of my majors, through the 3 and half years of the course. The reason I am telling you this is that one of my art teachers gave me some very solid (and much-needed) advice, when she realised how lacking in confidence I was. She said (direct quote coming up) "Everyone is born with the ability to create, to make art, it's just that some people have advantages, either because they have more support, encouragement and therefore more obvious talent. What you must remember, Francie, is these three rules: 1: learn and practise the techniques; 2: be prepared to make mistakes and accept them and learn from them; 3: whatever you create is valid. This, number 3, is the most important, providing you follow the first two rules."
I felt that this was pretty much the best advice I had ever been lucky enough to get.
As my art always looked extremely different to the other students' work, and (to my mind) looked like a pre-schooler's attempts, it took me awhile to accept the 3rd rule.
I thought you might like what my teacher said.
When I painted, I used the oil paints with just the palette knife, so it was a bit 3D.
Then we began to do woodcuts, which I loved, and etching on photographic plate (super fun) amongst other things, but we never did bronze work.
We did do batik and that was very satisfying.
Like you, I enjoyed the process very much. and yes, many times I ran and hid in the toilets to deal with the emotions the art released.
So keep going, this is obviously a strength of yours and I can't wait to see more.
So happy for you. 🙂🙂❤️❤️🌺🌺🌹🌹
Oh wow right back at you Francie! Every single word you have written is relevant and I'll carry these words with me in my book of inspiration. Thank you. Yes like you, some of my stuff is totally different from everyone else's. I even walk around the room in the opposite way to everyone else! The emotional side is everything isn't it. I think it helps that I've been through a couple of intense years and doing this blog has helped me open up a bit, be more honest. This is transpiring in the art, I'm trying to leave everything on the table. What have I got to lose. I still have the demons of self doubt and yes I frequently see a 5 year olds painting in my own! Feedback is so important and I really appreciate it. So thank you for taking the time and sharing. Hope you find time to do some art these days too. It is surprisingly exhausting eh?!
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