Exhibition

As I decided to do ceramic for my second project, I went to a Contemporary China exhibition called Ahead of the Curve. The initial inspiration for this exhibition came from a museums networking visit to China in 2009, organised by the British Council's  Connections Through Culture programme, so they had a chance to visit  the ceramic city of Jingdezhen. In this exhibition, they collected quite few works from a group of Chinese Contemporary artists, I thought the works were really impressive, many of they used the traditional China glazes and patterns but in a very contemporary way which gives a strong contrast. Especially Shao Changzong's work,  he made weird statues of some little men with porcelain, but applied with traditional blue and white glaze on the bodies. To be honest I found it creepy, but it is also quite interesting, and the Curves are my favourite, I love the simplicity of them, but also the strength, the artist definitely made a lot of efford  to get this  beautiful  thin curves,they are so different from what China was use to be, they are not vases or pots.  I thought this can be a breakthrough of the old fashion Chinese ceramic arts.

But for the whole exhibition, I thought it was a bit crowded as there were actually quite a lot works in the room, and the works were all fraigile china so most of them were kept in a glass box which made them look all squashed in. There were not much space for visitors  to walk through. There was a big screen on the wall to show the workers and artists' life in Jingdezheng, and how all the vases, pots been made. The video was combined  from quite a few short footages, I thought it was interesting to watch but it would be better if it had an english subtitle even though there were not much conversations in it.

In overview, personally I found the works quid impressive, but it would be better if they were in a bigger room, and pay more attention to the site layout.

Portrait photos

photos taken for portraits study

While I was doing my oil painting, I also did some sketches using ink, and thought it worked quite good. With ink or water colour I felt much easier to get that kind of free hand, loose drawing.

The 3rd portrait

Project 1 evaluation

Thankfully I finished three portraits in less than fours weeks, since I can not paint oil at home. I thought it was not difficult to paint but to prepare what to paint. I spent most of my time thinking about the expressions, emotions, style and colours, I found myself quite struggling when making decisions.  I was used to paint with water colour, oil is much thicker so it does not really flow.  Also this is my first time using oil to paint portraits, I was quite careful when I was painting, so I thought  it came out a bit too controlled.

I did not like my first portrait, I thought the colours was too bright, and I want it to be thin and airy therefore I did not paint it over and over again to correct the colours. Also the proportions were not very correct, especially the neck looked weird. It is quite hard to get everything right, without a reference as I am working from my imagination, so I took some photos of my classmates and intended a life drawing class as a study of proportions. I found the life drawing class was very helpful, it was much accurate than observe  correct proportions from photos or books.

I thought my second portrait was much better than the first one, it looked much softer and blend in. To get that kind of soft, airy looking rather than paint the colours on I actually swept them on, so it does not get thick and does not leave strong brush strokes. And I use a lot of white to make the background colour down, so it was not very contrast to the portrait itself. But one thing I did not like my second portrait is that it looked a bit flat as it was smooth and soft, and it looked like I was being overly timid or careful. As a result, I deliberately left some brush strokes on my third portrait, and it is got the most satisfactory colours than the other two which was dull , low key and can be a bit creepy.

In conclusion, I found it was not easy to mix that kind of dull colours, but in an over view I like my third portrait the best. But I did  not like that I seemed over careful while I was working on the painting, so separate from what I do for my project, I am also thinking to do some loose drawings just to practice to draw freely.

2nd portrait

I intend to show an innocent looking in her eyes,  with soft light tones.  But I thought it looked better when it was not finished. 

1st oil paint portrait

As this is my first oil paint portrait I found it quite struggle to get the proportions right, even thought I referred to some photos of side face it still looked a bit weird. To get my paintings right I will need more studies about human bodies. Also because I was not familiar with oil paint I found it quite difficult to mix the right colours, I was trying to get that kind of dull, low key colour but it just came out too bright.  Since I wanted to give it a neat, airy looking so it turned a bit too flat, therefore I ended it up by adding some brush strokes to it.

I attended a life drawing class in the college, thought this would be helpful to my observation skills. And also get to learn the right proportion and structure of humans' body.

Contrail

Im quite interested in capturing the different shapes of clouds

Drawing from life

After tried to draw from pictures, I also did this 5mins drawing from life. It was too short to capture everything on the face and I thought it was too much controlled, it might look better with free hand drawing which the lines would be more loose and flow.