SKETCHBOOK WALKTHROUGH - 2

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My main intentions with my second sketchbook were to experiment with different materials as well as create interesting images in the hopes that I could find a specific style. Going from sculpting, the transition to focusing on 2D work instead was interesting but quite freeing because I was finding the sculpting very laborious, so my sketchbook work was initially a reprieve from that which I began to focus on towards the end of the sketchbook.

 The quality of the scanner caused the colours to be distorted, and in places where I have used gold the scanner also struggled to pick these up.

1)Portrait of Daniel Ash using Caran D'ache necolour wax oil pastels 2)Eye-study of the same person using the same materials.

I found these wax oil pastels that I had been given a long time ago and had never used them so I wanted to test them out. Over the course of the portrait, I found that they layered really nicely and were very vibrant, as well as blending very nicely with a blending stump. Unlike oil pastels, the top layer doesn't remain sticky and the colour doesn't always transfer (although without setting with a setting spray, a little colour transfer is inevitable over time.) I have used an acrylic wash underneath which was loosely inspired by artist Michele Petrelli (https://www.michelepetrelliart.com/), whose portraits are often built out of the wash underneath which was an idea I was intrigued by. I wanted my first page to be bright so I used a bright red wash and I thought that colour might suit Daniel. The text on page one, 'Hot Trip to Heaven' is a reference to a Love and Rockets album from 1994, which I like in reference to the connotations of using a red background. The lyrics on the second page 'don't know what colour your eyes are baby but your hair is long and brown' are a reference to the Love and Rockets song 'So Alive,' which I used because I wasn't sure what colour Daniel's eyes were but his hair is long and brown.

1)Portrait of Daniel Ash using mixed media-watercolour pencils, drawing ink and white gouache 2)Lyrics page using acrylic paint.
Photo credit, taken from the recent Bauhaus show at the Hollywood Palladium:

One dilemma I had been meeting in my paintings is that the pictures of Bauhaus in the 80's are typically worse quality, due in part to the technology at the time and the fact that their visual aesthetic involved taking predominantly black and white pictures. Some of these were quite difficult for me to work from, as most artists will use high-resolution pictures to get an accurate portrayal of the subject. While I do like using worse quality images or old pictures because I naturally work quite abstractly, and this can help that process, more recent pictures of them are no doubt better quality and I felt that it might make the process easier. But then there is also the factor of drawing them at different ages and what sort of impact that might have on the art but ultimately I decided that trying to justify drawing pictures of them older or younger was too complicated for me to go into and wasn't vindictive of my final major overall.

I really like the contrast between light and dark in concert pictures from the Hollywood Palladium shows, it reminded me of the use of chiaroscuro (the treatment of light and dark in drawing and painting) by artists such as Rembrandt, Francisco Goya and my favourite for his use of colour, Caravaggio. In religious paintings, the important figures are often highlighted by being a lighter colour than other figures, or are highlighted by the light source in the paintings. In concert pictures, the figures are also highlighted by colour and light against a dark background. I like the duality of this and find it highly pertinent for my final major.

I started my portrait of Daniel Ash after trying to do a figurative one and getting quite frustrated at it, I sketched the outline in watercolour pencil and then added ink and water in places and leaving the pencil dry in some areas which created a very interesting texture.The most interesting though, was the outcome the fan brush had on my paintings, it created a streaky texture that had a lot of movement and I found very exciting. When I first painted this I really didn't like it as amongst the abstract marks I had made, I ended up losing definition specifically in his jaw, but after looking back at it and adding these details back in I began to really love the outcome.

The lyrics on the next page are me experimenting with wanting to add lyrics into my portraiture to bring the musical element back to it, I used neon yellow paint and red crayon and I quite like the obscurity of the text when it is added in layers. The song it is based off of is Where's my Leather Catsuit - Daniel Ash ft. Christopher the Minister which I heard on the album Stripped- which I thought was a really interesting album as I thought the re-working of older songs into something more modernised was a really cool notion and even though it's not the sort of music I listen too, I think it works really well.

1) Peter Murphy studies in acrylic on canvas 2) Peter Murphy study in caran d'ache neoclour wax oil pastels. 
 
I found myself highly inspired by artist Henrik Uldalen, who during quarantine has been making a gouache portrait sketch everyday and sold six of them through his gallery, JD Malat, with the proceeds going to the WHO Covid 19 solidarity fund. I have been obsessed with the way Henrik Uldalen paints for a very long time, so when I saw him painting everyday it inspired me to do some paintings in his style of abstraction. which is far more floaty and transcendent than mine. I saw him using the fan brush for this technique, which only solidified my love for the marks I can make with a fan brush. As I had run out of gouache, I didn't use any gouache in my sketchbook, however I think I may as well have bought some because I love using gouache and it probably would've been more effective than acrylic in creating depth and contrast.

On the second page I wanted to give my wax oil pastels the ultimate test and do a full portrait with them. While I found them highly effective at creating vibrant colours that blend together really smoothly, I found it took me too much time as the pastels are quite small and it takes a long time to build up the layers and I felt I wasn't really learning anything by completing the drawing. I do, however, enjoy the treatment of light and dark in this drawing. The song I used for the lyrics on these is Rosegarden Funeral of Sores which is a John Cale song covered by Bauhaus. The lyrics have quite a perverse nature about them to me, which I like the imagery of.

Artist mentioned:
Photo credit:
Song:

Page 1) Text page of letters written to fans by Morrisey 2)Morrisey illustration depicted as the 'patron saint of apathy'









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