Identities project

As I only started my blog about halfway through the identities project I realise that there may have been key areas that I have missed. This post will fill in any gaps from that project.
After working with drawings from my head I decided to move to people who exist and are recognisable. The thing which made me realise I could more fully explore identities if I worked with famous recognisable faces was this list.http://www.buzzfeed.com/paulaersly/glorious-illustrations-of-pop-cultures-favorite-baldies. The list features only the top of the head of 15 bald pop culture icons as drawn by the artist Mr. Peruca (website:http://www.mrperuca.com/). I liked how each character was easily recognisable despite only seeing one part of them and wanted to do something similar with my work. I then thought of a similar poster I'd seen that shows musicians iconic hairstyles. I originally

used the hairstyles from this poster to draw the same head but with the hair of iconic musicians to show how much identity can be shown through hair. I then thought that if identity can be shown through hair so easily can it be shown without it. This is how my bald musician project started.






















I also want to talk about a systematic way to make a range of identities. I came up with 9 sections to make a face: head shape, mouth, eyes, nose, hair, ears, eyebrows, wrinkles and skin oddities. For each of these features I came up with 10 different versions. These features can be mixed and matched to create a variety of different identifiable faces. I also created a system where you could take someones phone number and assign each digit to a feature to create another completely separate identity for that person. This series of work reminds me of a kind

of analog identikit as you could combine certain versions of each feature to try and create an actual person. Here is a good website to experiment with identikit that I've looked at http://flashface.ctapt.de/.
This series of work was useful but challenging because coming up with 10 versions of each feature was difficult and meant I had to come up with ways of drawing some features that I'm not used to or have never done before. This would hopefully allow me to be able to draw more of a range of faces and styles in the future.








 I found a video that I thought was useful and could be seen to do with identities. The Paper Kites, Young video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF8PSGl-aIY) is made of over 4000 photos and over 350 faces. Despite these 350 separate identities most of them get lost in the speed of the photos changing or appear to create new identities as your brain tries to keep up with the change of photos and merges the photos together.

Here are pieces I have been doing by using gouache straight on paper instead of sketching out the figure first. I quite like the looseness and freedom appearance of the figures but this comes at the cost of intensity and control which leads to the figures being out of proportion and not having the impact they would have if there was pen or ink lines. I still like this technique however and think that those who don't value boldness and intensity as much as I do could event prefer these to my usual style.
As these are done without using pen to give them structure I've had to use the gouache more than I usually would to shape and shade. If I use this painting technique alongside my drawing style I may get a happy medium between the two.

Yesterday I went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and The Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. Although both of these were mainly sculpture orientated, which don't usually interest me I did find some pieces that interested and influenced me. I'm going to post a fuller account of this later as there's quite a lot to go through and to organise.

Here's a piece I've been working on recently. I've tried my different methods of mark making on it. The figure I've decided to leave black and white as I liked it's effect. It's kind of ghost like and to me creates the impression of a memory, like the girls was once their but isn't anymore.

I've been experimenting with different marks making techniques as a way of showing different textures, distances and boldness. With pens I've tried different solidarity of lines and intensity. With ink I'm trying different tones and brush sizes. I'm making a variety of marks and feel I'm making more contrasts between the different layers of images but I'm finding it more challenging than i anticipated. This new approach to my drawing style is going to take some getting used too and time to fully develop.
I'm thinking of mixing pen and ink to get more variety of marks and hopefully add more depth to my drawings. I could also do something with colour, colouring some elements of the drawing and leaving others black and white.

This image has two figures in it as apposed to the one I've been using so far. I've mainly only been using a single figure as it creates a sense of loneliness, space, distance and solitariness. I'd thought that by adding another figure into my work these effects would be decreased. I accidentally made the second figure small though. This gives a sense of detachment between the two figures which just amplifies the sense of loneliness and seclusion of these people. I think that the difference of size also makes it appear that the two figures are in the same place but at different times. Jo also sees this as the case. I like this effect as it adds more of a sense of narrative to the piece.

Today I talked with Jill and Jo about my project and my work at the moment. There were two key areas that came up in both conversations. The first was one I was thinking about and exploring already which was the way I use similar marks to represent everything in my drawings. We all agree I need to use different types of marks, thicknesses, tone, to differentiate between the figure in my work and the background and to give a sense of distance. The marks in the foreground of the background should be different to the marks in the distance so the piece gains more of a sense of depth. Jo also talked about using different marks in the way I use colour. At the moment I'm using the same basic technique for everything but I could easily vary the way I use brush strokes to present a variety of textures.

Jill also talked about the dystopian/ post-apocalyptic feel of my recent work which I had noticed ever since I started merging figures and landscapes. This sense is created by the space and distance in my work which creates a sense of loneliness in the lone figure, as if they're the only person in the world. I think the landscapes themselves add to this as they are all to do with travel which is a major theme in a lot of post-apocalyptic texts for example an obvious one that comes to mind is 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. Jill advised I look at William Burroughs, a writer who's had many of his books turned into films, like 'Naked Lunch'. Although not familiar with his work Jill tells me that it will fit in with the developing Utopia/Dystopia theme in my work and will add some background context to it. She also suggested looking at the book 'America' by Boudrillard which by the sound of it is a lot like Jeff Brouwes 'Approaching Nowhere' and has photos of America akin to the photos I've been doing work from.
Jo also saw the dystopian relation but also thought the work was like scenes from an American road trip movie but a bit more British.

I've been continuing my ink drawings and trying to find the right balance between definition getting a variety of light and texture. I think my new system which is a hybrid of my first ideas works quite well. Instead of drawing with definite black lines to shape the figure I draw lines of varying tone in dip pen to define the figure but still give certain softness and depth. I then use a brush like before to add tone like usual.

Here is an example. While I don't think the ink work itself is as strong as in my other two pieces I do believe it succeeds in combining the positives of my previous two styles and is the technique I will be largely using from now on.


















I've also been trying to figure out if I can integrate colour into my inking style. Here is an attempt with gouache. While I think it looks alright I do think it could be improved upon so that the colour works better with the ink rather than diminishing its properties. 

I liked my large scale ink work I showed in my last post. I am still having trouble taking up space on a scale so much bigger than I'm used to. One of my problems with my piece from the last post is that I started it by drawing a black line with ink around the figure to define and shape him. This lead to every solid line in the picture looking the same and making some parts look too flat. With this in mind I started another piece but this time, after sketching the figure out with pencil, I went straight into shading with the ink using a brush. This should lead to certain parts looking softer and hopefully will give a fuller image of texture and depth.

Here is my first drawing and my second one in progress. I like the effect that some of the marks are making of adding a softness to certain parts and making the lines less uniform. I am having trouble however defining certain aspects of the figure and of making the heavier black shades not look out of place next to lighter lines.

I did more on my 'drawings of people on bus' today. I realised that attempting to catch the sense of individualism and identity that I was aiming for in the drawings was challenging for a number of reasons. For one I mainly only get to see the back of people's heads and shoulders or at angles where mainly hair is visible also the movement of the bus can make it hard to get down subtleties of people's character, finally the people themselves are all quite similar all being students in Huddersfield means they are relatively the same age and dressed in similar style clothes for the weather.

I've also started working on a larger scale. I started with some quick sketches to get used to drawing so big. I found it difficult to actually draw figures that were large, whenever I started off I soon realised the drawing would take up only a fraction of the page. I'm starting to get a better hang of it however and have recently been working towards more complete pieces. Here's an example of one at the moment.

Today there was a guest lecturer in called Chris Dobrowolski. He is mainly a sculptor but in his lecture he mainly focused on videos, and photos, some of which contained his sculptural work. What struck me most about his work and presentation was how everything had a story behind it, It all seemed to have a deeper personal meaning. This is because most of the work we were shown was based around either his car, which has been in his family since he was born, or his fathers time fighting in Italy in WWII. The look at WWII gives an extra layer of meaning to his work because of it's historical context; it's not just got meaning to Chris.
This made me think about the lack of meaning in my own work. I usually don't mind that a lot of my work has little intended meaning as it allows people to give it their own meaning while not excluding anyone who may not grasp the original meaning. I do however think that it would make my work more interesting if their were stories behind them about why I did them and what they mean like with Dobrowolski's work.
Most of the lecture was based around his series of work called 'All Roads Lead to Rome'. This is a series of work and documentation of Chris restoring his Herald Estate then driving to Italy to visit where the car was made and visiting places where his Father fought in the war. Parts of the presentation can be seen here- http://cdobo.com/
 

Here are some of my drawings from life that I've done of people on the buss

These sketches reminded me of an artist I saw at The National Portrait Gallery called Humphrey Ocean. These are from his series 'A handbook of modern life'. This is an ongoing project where Ocean paints visitors to his studio. Like me he does these pieces quickly and he uses gouache as well, although his work is completely gouache and I only add it later.

 (Source: http://www.humphreyocean.com/docs/works/100portraits/thumbnails03.html)

There are quite a few similarities between the styles of our two projects. They both have a certain looseness and disproportion to them that show that they're from life. I think my work is slightly more controlled however as I draw in pen first as apposed to just painting like Ocean does. Something that I like about his work that I think I could improve in my work is how he gets a sense of individualism in each of his pieces. He catches certain details in how the people are positioned or in how they wear their clothes that gives them each a sense of their own identity. I don't think my work quite catches this enough as a lot of the people in my drawings seem the same as the others.

Today in experimental drawing we allowed to draw whatever and however we wanted. I went for a shot with strong perspective as I'm currently interested in perspective from researching liminal space. The sports hall is a great place to draw perspective because it's vast and rather empty but has a network of different lines on the floor that stretch out in front of you at a variety of angles.
When Jill saw my work she mentioned the very mathematical way that I work (something Bob has also previously mentioned). She suggested that looking at artists who use a systematic approach to their work may help me with my process for my own work. I can't think of any artists at the moment but I will do some research and find some.

I've been meaning to start working on a bigger scale and the other day I spoke with Bob and Ian both of them also suggested I do this and use it as a chance to explore how to use space or different types of line making. Ian questioned me on how I plan to tackle working on a larger scale and I said I'd thought of just using my usual method except sketching the image out with pencil first. Ian suggested I just do some quick large scale sketches to start off with. I also think ink would work better than pen on a larger scale as it is bolder and you can get a variety of thickness with your line.

Recently I've been looking at ways to combine my figurative work of people waiting and my more landscape orientated work of liminal zones to do with travel and transport. I've struggled with this earlier in the project as I was unable to  figure out how to put figures into the landscapes I was interested in without ruining my interest in them. Recently though I've found a few compositions, from my drawings of people waiting at traffic lights, that I think could fit into the landscapes I'm interested in without ruining the sense of distance, space and emptiness that caught my interest to begin with.
I think the reason that a lot of these compositions seem like they would work is because the figures have their back their back to us or are looking away. I feel if anything this just emphasises the sense of distance that I'm interested in but could also give the piece an enigmatic feel and suggest a narrative.