André Derain

Painted this image on the left in 1906 of the Charing Cross Bridge in London on Oil on canvas. I found this image from looking into fauvism to look at the technique artists use when studying fauvism. Post Impressionism was their primary influence.

The key characteristics of fauvism are:

Color, Simplified Forms, Ordinary Subject Matter and Expressiveness.

Fauvism was not technically a movement. It is simply a word of periodization we use in a place of: "An assortment of painters who were loosely acquainted with one another, and experimented with color in roughly the same way, at roughly the same time.

 This painting was one I found from the period of Fauvism. The technique was very interesting as the colours were bright and the leading lines brought you into the image. I decided to use this painting as a guildline to produce my own painting. My main interest of this painting was the colour, it grabbed my attention and gave a warm atmosphere. Firstly using different materials such as pastel, oil and chalk taking sections from the painting to create the picture but using the textures of techniques for my final composition.

This is a photograph I took in the pinewoods. The composition attracted me as the lines directed you into the centre of the image. I found that this image was as close to identical to the painting above. I wanted to do the exact same technique using the variety of colours but, using my photograph to make my image bright and give it a cheerful atmoshphere.

I noticed that the composition was central, directing you to the end of the painting. The perspective gets less clear in the background were as you can see the detail on the fewer trees on the foreground.

This is my final composition. I have been influenced by the technique the painters such as Andre Derain and Van Gogh use to create layers of textures in all sorts of colours. I have used the same tonning of colour in each layering using thick acrylic paints such as, deep blues, rough reds, light pinks and a soft orange. I wanted my painting to stand out with the use of colour and patterning throughout the picture, with the lines leading you into the center of the painting. Overall I am happy with my final composition as I have understood the methods of fauvism and used my own photograph to guide me into creating a bright, detailed painting. 

Observations

 

I took this photograph of the flowers in the daylight outside to capture the clearness of the individual flower. The shapes are interesting and show alot of movement. I wanted to concentrate on the sharpness of the shapes and not so much the colour. I think it is important to look at the detail on a small scale instead of focusing on a whole scale image.  

I responded to my photograph using biro as it caught each shape of the petal clearly. It was a fast process of getting the movement of the stems moving outwards behind the deeper shaping. I wanted to see if the darkness of my drawing could stand out as much as the photograph itself of the deep and light pinks. I think my picture looks effective and outlines the shapes I pecifically wanted to capture. The scale of the drawing is the size of the actual flower to show what it would look like in real life and to see if it would stand out just as well as the coloured photograph.

The texture of this shell was my main attraction to drawing it. I worked in fineliner to capture the detail in the inside but also focus on the light and dark tones. The fineliner grabs the lines and edges of the shell, also the colour in real life was not as bold as the pen has made it in my drawing. It looks much more effective. The water on top of the fine liner brings out the texture and roughness the shell has.

 Natural Landscape 

 I took this picture in formby pine woods on a clear day. From a low angle and the camera facing upwards, I got as close to the tree as I could and faced the sky. I concentrated on the texture of the bark and the shapes it created. In the background the layers of the leaves are interesting as it gave a patterned section leading you back into the main focus of the tree. The clearness of the bright blue sky stands out and creates a warm atmosphere. The composition is structured due to the object being directly in the centre of the page.

 Another photograph I took on the same day, but a different scene was on the beach in the open wind. I walked straight up to the tide to capture the layering of the sea, and the rough textures it created as it drifted into the sandy beach in front of me. I focused on producing a high horizon image, showing the sky in the background meeting the waves. I have captured the different layering of the water from the calmness of the foreground, with the movement of the bubbles sitting on the top, to the darker and harder toning in the background showing you the deeper harsh tones.

This is one of my favourite images as the sun brings the picture alive, clearly showing the light and dark. The brightness of the sun is powering and controls the picture. The trees stand tall and close together, in the foreground you can see the shadowing beneath the trees shooting in the same direction along the hills. There is alot of movement in the picture, showing us the atmosphere in the pinewoods that day. The bottom of the image is deep toning but moving up to the top of the picture the toning changes, you can see the greens coming alive making the photograph stand out.

Andreas Feininger

 

Andreas Feininger - New York Midtown, Manhattan at 42nd Street in1947.

An American photographer and a writer on photographic technique. He was noted for the dynamic black and white scences of Manhattan and for the studies of the structures of natural objects. He focus on the New York skyline, capturing the layering of the high buildings and the working industry in the 1900s.

 

                                                                        Textures

 

This image which I took in formby pinewoods, I captured of the bark on a low angle to focus on the texture and layering of the tree. I thought the roughness of the bark was interesting so I decided to use different materials which would give my image texture and make it stand out. The picture below shows the sample I have produced from the idea of a messy rough texture to give similaraties of the tree and the warm colours.

 For the smaple I layered tissue paper to create creased edges and sharp lines. Once it was completely dry, I mixed orange and medium brown ink together to create a lighter brown. Parts of the tissue paper I ripped off giving the image more texture. I place the ink quickly over the tissue paper as it sunk in and around the paper, bringing the image forward. I can clearly see that the texture I produced represents the bark, as it is rough due to the texture and the layers make it stand out.

 

 

 

 

 

Aeolus 

 

 

Gillian Ayres (born 1930)

In the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool I came across this painting which caught my attention because of the texture of the work. Her technique of dragging one thick colour over another, wet on wet, produces sensuous effects. Amidst the density and apparent chaos of her imagery: trees and flowers, hedges and fences, a wheel and bridges, as though a garden or a farm provided inspiration for the painting. Ayres usually gives her work poetic or literary titles. In Greek Mythology Aeolus if the ruler of the winds. I choose this particular painting due to the texture of the thick mark making being used to create sharp edges of different lines and shapes. The colour is also a main key feature of the painting as it stands out and brings the image alive.

Oil on Canvas, painted in 1987.