Camberwell
MA Painting
Project Space
Day 1
Bobbie Seagroatt
20 - 26 July
20 . 7 . 2020
Today started with finishing the current painting (above), from last week. Progress was was held up by problems with the paint drying really slowly. Image on the left is how it looked this morning, image on the right, this evening. Details of this can be found in my online journal, so I'm still at it today, but pretty good progress has been made. Please see the video below for a little chat - hopefully interesting, as I talk about scale - something that is very hard to define on a screen :
Possible fabric extension to replace the temporary one in the photo above. Another possible is currently in the washing machine! (To soften and whiten the fabric)
Day 2
21 . 7 . 2020
Before this residency started, I realised that I didn't actually know the definition of an 'artist's residency'. So, on looking it up, I found some definitions that referred to the relation of the actual place you are when you do it, and how that affects your work while you're working there:
'Artist-in-residence programs give artists the opportunity to live and work outside of their usual environments, providing them with time to reflect, research, or produce work. During a residency, artists can explore new locations, different cultures, and experiment with different materials. Much like study abroad programs, residencies are often aimed at young artists and can end up having a long term impact on their life and work.' (https://news.artnet.com/art-world/art-demystified-artist-residencies-649592)
This is interesting in a way, as all of us current MA students of 2019 / 20 are currently in enforced separation, and in some cases, isolation. Unbelieveably, this situation has now existed for four
months. . . .
So we have become used to where we are, but these are strange times to say the least, and it's more the mindset we employ for our work, bearing in mind the situation of the Corona pandemic, rather than the physical location. We are where we are!
This is the piece I intended to add to the painting today - it's gessoed on both sides and painted with oil paint. But see the video below for what happened......
Day 2 video
Another unexpected thing that happened today was that the painted elements on the light weight muslin fabric that I washed yesterday, almost totally washed out. A friend told me that it wouldn't, but I think that because the fabric was so open weave, it washed out nevertheless. BUT. . . . . . ! The resulting creased rope of fabric actually looked interesting, and I took some pretty nice photos which I'll use for another piece of artwork. So all was not lost, and I wasn't 100% certain I'd use it on this painting anyway.
At least I've learned about what acrylic paint does on this type of fabric if washed! See below:
Another exciting thing that will be happening on Friday, is that I have booked a life model to come to the studio for a photoshoot. My plan is to photograph her with various lengths / ropes of fabric twisted around her body to show the relationship of fabric to a female form. So areas of skin and fabric together, which, based on a previous shoot will hopefully be really useful for ideas for forthcoming work.
Day 3 22 . 7 . 2020
Today started with a critical practice tutorial, with Anna Bunting Branch, which was incredibly useful. I've been worrying about the writing of the 4000 word essay - I had an idea as to how to approach it, and knew that I had a good amount of material to draw on, and some good references, but I didn't know how to frame it generally. I had part of the title which was to be: 'Once Upon a Time in Suburbia', but not a specific research question as such. Anna gave me such useful advice as to how to practically do the essay, that I felt that it would come after I'd written a bit of it, or at least before I started next week, if I kept thinking about it subconsciously. (That being the main cause of sleepless nights!)
One suggestion which I thought was really useful, and would help me to identify specifics and to analyse the information, was to spend half an hour every day for 2 weeks simply writing down my memories of my experiences with fabric related incidents and stories (as they are my guiding threads, and recurring motifs in my paintings, drawings and photographs in my artwork).
For example, galleries I had visited, events I attended as an older child and teenager, (gigs, festivals, discotheques), west end shows my Mum took me to, fabric shopping expeditions, my Mum dressmaking and my Nana knitting things for me as a child. Favourite playthings in the toy cupboard and experiences of them and why I remembered them. Fairy stories (Grimms fairy tales especially, as they were a bit frightening) where items of clothing described just lodged in my brain and stayed there. Items of my Mum's, Nana's and my own clothing especially, which are imprinted on my brain, along with the names of the manufacturers.
Anna suggested a way of gathering all my memory information by writing these memory pieces (above) on separate pieces of paper, so that I could look at them more easily all together, and maybe group them together in types.
I started right after the tutorial, and remembered that I had my Nana's old fountain pen, and that I had spent quite a long time about 18 months ago, getting it to work, as it seemed to be gummed up & wouldn't write.
When I'd succeeded, I was really happy - a good, well used fountain pen can feel lovely to use - smooth and flowing of line, and this one proved to be exactly that. I got some fabulous ink from a very old established company which has a huge range of very subtle colours, and was apparently formed originally to produce ink that was used by monarchs and high ranking officials to sign important documents. So again, I was pleased to have found that company, and it was a bit more special than 'Quink', which was the search I first started with!
I thought Anna's advice was really good for someone like me who has a lot going on in the brain, but doesn't find it the easiest thing to get everything done efficiently.
After this, I spent a fair amount of time testing out arrangements of the folds in the piece of frayed canvas I had gessoed yesterday. (First image below, comparing the new piece to the previous) The only way to see if it was looked right was to gaffer tape it up temporarily, (middle image below).
The whole painting is now off the wall, and laid on a big table, (third image), so as to make it easier to sew and glue it to the base canvas - basically in the same way they I did the first of this series, 'Folded Circles #1'. This image gives a much better view of the scale of the canvas, compared to the ones taken on the wall. I'm thinking that when I put together my proposal and visualisation for the online exhibition, I'll put some object in front or to one side of the painting to give a scale comparison.
Day 4 23 . 7 . 2020
Half an hour of memory writing again this morning, first thing. It's amazing how once you concentrate on remembering things, how they start to flow faster and faster.
After this, I painted the swirls / circles on the larger piece of gessoed canvas with acrylic this time, so that it would dry in good time. So an hour or so later when dry, I placed it on the painting (now laid on the big table), and arranged it as I think I'll fix it. As I didn't want to start on that immediately, I thought I would just try out my idea for mounting the paintings so that the frayed edges could be seen without resort to any kind of visible fixings. I'd been meaning to do this for a long time, and this was a good opportunity.
I used a 'sketch' painting (below) I'd tried out on a piece of canvas I thought would be big enough, but it wasn't, so I'd laid it to one side, waiting for a purpose to come up, and here it was...
Although it doesn't look it, this strip is actually 180cm long.
1. Velcro attached to the top of the canvas and the batten, before pressing together View of the back
Front view - no fixing visible from the front
The process was:
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cutting a piece of 2' x 1" batten to just under the width of the canvas, short enough to leave the frayed edges free
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Cut a piece of 50 mm wide heavy duty velcro to the same length as the batten
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Sticking the velcro to the batten, and to the corresponding place at the top of the canvas.
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Press both strips together, and attach hanging rings to the back of the batten
Glad I did this trial, as I realised that the velcro would stick better to a smooth, non porous surface, so I decided to paint a strip on the top of the canvas with acrylic before attaching the velcro to the canvas.
I was then left with the smaller circle / swirl painted strip I'd intended to use on the big painting. I remembered that I had a smallish square canvas painted black that I'd intended to use for something else, but never did.
I realised that the painted strip was about the right scale for the 2ft square canvas, and placed it on - I thought it looked good, so a bit of serendipity.....! See below:
It's been a busy day! Now I have to go and find the fabrics for the photoshoot tomorrow morning....
Day 5 24 . 7 . 2020
Today, I had a photoshoot with a life model, so that I could photograph her with fabrics wrapped around, or draped or layered on her body, to achieve the visual relationship of fabrics on the body.
My aim was to really show the materiality of the different fabrics as much as possible, and to show the contrast of the skin texture versus the fabric. These shots below I was pretty happy with - in fact even greater texture of the fabric can be seen in a bigger file size I - reduced these to just over 1.5 MB, as the originals were around 6 MB, and so a bit big to upload here.
She was a bit late arriving as she is an NHS responder, and had a patient to attend to unexpectedly just before she left home, so we didn't get started till midday. But as I was waiting, I had the half hour to do my 'memory writing' which I'm using as reference material for the forthcoming 4000 word essay. Yesterday night I also ordered the MIT Whitechapel series on various topics in art practice - it looks like a brilliant series, and unsurprisingly, I've ordered the on on 'MEMORY'. I'm really looking forward to reading it! I think it'll be brilliant for my essay research.
She was a good model, and I think I've got some pretty usable shots here.
The hard scrim fabric I bought from the college shop just before lockdown was great as it was semi transparent, light, but quite stiff so it held it's shape. I have edited these photos with iPhoto (a stripped down version of Photoshop), and I like them a lot. I took over 150 shots, just to be sure I'd get a good few to work with. See below:
Days 6 & 7 25 & 26 . 7. 2020
Being at home, and not in an exotic residency location, I had to do some domestic things on Saturday (25th) and today (26th) was my birthday and wedding anniversary!
BUT, I did do a fair amount over the weekend.
On Saturday 25th, I managed to stick with PVA the bigger fabric attachment, to the big painting, and I PVA'd a strip along the top of the painting as I saw that the surface should be preferably non porous to make the velcro stick better. The attachment stuck really well and looked good, but the strip along the top proved to be a mistake!
The problem was that PVA is water based and so the strip along the top caused the canvas to wrinkle - at least to get out of shape a bit. So my conclusions are:
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either to use oil paint for the strip, which is a bit of a pain as it takes a long time to dry
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OR, use a spray varnish to 'prime' the canvas, although I haven't tested this, but I will.
Spreading the PVA on the attachment, and the strip at the top of the painting.
These were pieces of fabric left after the photoshoot. I thought these images might be good for the basis of a series of paintings. . .ings. . .
This was the twisted piece of lightweight calico used in the photoshoot. Storing it like this, keeps the creases in the fabric over time. A famous designer of the 1920's Fortuny, made beautiful dresses from creased fabric, and this was the way to preserve the creases.
Here ends the residency. . . getting fluent with the WIX website (as I've never used Wix before) was the hardest part, and led to lot of stress at the end of the day, most days - not the best end!
But, doing this was really useful in a lot of ways - it made you concentrate on the job in hand, and work consistently through the day.
The mobile view of my page needs editing, but I will do that tomorrow., and hopefully add an an image of 'Folded Circles #2' finished!
Fortuny dress
Fortuny dress