Tag: looking

We are Saturday Club and we are artists

This week we were in production mode; developing our slogans about what we believe art is into a giant collaborative banner.

Using a limited colour palette of white text on a dark blue canvas *  to unify the individual slogans we arranged everyone’s contribution. The whole process was very democratic with each decision about aesthetics and design being held to a vote.

The hand cut vinyl letters were bonded on to the canvas and create a really sharp professional look almost similar to screen printing.

To sit along side our banner we each made a t shirt with the slogan ‘artist’ to be worn to the private view. The t shirts also allowed us to try out a third method of getting text or images on to a textile background. We created stencils using ‘freezer paper’ and sponges to apply fabric paints; this simple technique created really striking results. Of course some of the artists rebelled with ideas of their own about their t shirt designs; which seemed totally fitting after all our discussion around art allowing you to find your own voice!

The manifesto will get be sent straight away to London for the exhibition; we cannot wait to see it at Somerset House as part of the National Saturday Club Summer Show!

*Made from dyed and patched reclaimed fabrics, inspired by our session with Linda Mackie which focused on textile waste.

Some of the club members had plans to use this printing technique on other projects so for their reference here are the materials we used:

Fabric paints        https://www.bakerross.co.uk/search/go?w=fabric%20paints

Sponges                https://www.bakerross.co.uk/search/go?w=paint%20sponges

Freezer paper sheets    https://www.amazon.co.uk/Silkcraft-Freezer-Paper-Sheets-A4/dp/B00DS4Q2C0

These are not sponsored links.

Art is……..

We are Winchester School of Art Saturday Club and we believe art is…

As a round up to the year we decided to create a manifesto that will be exhibited as part of the National Saturday Club Summer Show.

We started by looking at the graphics and methods used in political art or protest to voice ideas. We then looked at artist manifestos and artists commenting on challenging social situations and how this might instigate change.

Reflecting on our experiences over the year in Saturday Club we created a long list of materials and processes we have used to make art. We also added verbs as to how you might make art. We then thought about our ideas about what art is and how these might have been strengthened, broadened or even changed by taking part in Saturday Club.

Each member chose one statement to put forward to be added to the Saturday Club manifesto. We are going to create this collaborative final art work next week but this week we created our own smaller test banners.

Everyone developed their own ideas using reclaimed fabrics and a textile bonding technique called bondaweb. Each panel was totally unique, reflecting the individuals ideas in text but also through colour and pattern choices, font and layout. The outcomes were really fantastic and I was quite disappointed that they were only tests. I hope the final manifesto looks half as good!

To see some of the artists referenced for this workshop check out:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/vanessarolf/protest/

There is a really great exhibition connected to the ideas in this workshop called Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics on show at the Design Museum until 12th August

http://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/hope-to-nope-graphics-and-politics-2008-18

Clay!

Today’s session was all about exploring the possibilities of clay. With very little guidance the group began to play about with a lump of clay. Instinctively members began to build, extend, grow, impress, indent, impress, loop, mold, press, pummel, pinch, pull, poke, roll, stretch, stack, stroke, score, scrape, thump, topple and smooth the clay as soon as it was put down in front of them.

To begin with we worked with no tools except our hands, later introducing found tools from the kitchen drawer. We also thought about how we might create small units: coils, containers, cones, cylinders, donuts, letters, leaves, pebbles, strips, sticks, squares, spheres and anything else the group could conjure up. We explored the clay’s material properties with no notion of what we might make.

Mid-way through the morning we looked at some images of how clay is used in our every day lives, from tea cups, to toilets, sewer pipes and bricks. We also looked at artists who push the material possibilities of clay, thinking not just about making representation objects but how what we make can reflect both the material and the physical processes of making.

We worked focusing on the tactile exploration, thinking more about the experience than outcomes and enjoying the process. We created some fantastic experiments and we wait to see if they survived the kiln, as they are going to be fired over the Easter break.

Take a look at the pinterest page for more inspiration

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/vanessarolf/playing-with-clay/

The brilliant ceramicist Nao Matsunaga will be exhibiting at the Crafts Study Centre in Farnham from 3rd April 2018 – do go and see the show if you can.

http://www.csc.uca.ac.uk/new-events/2018/4/3/70pv9umzst87dqqm9f0v5fim8j65u5

Thinking in 2D, 3D and back again

Back from the festive break and ready to get making! We kicked off the year drawing and thinking of how 2D and 3D looking and thinking are related.

Using common household objects as our starting point we began with some drawing warms up to get us back in the swing. Working on long lengths of paper for 1 minute with charcoal, we moved around the room, drawing around or over the previous person’s drawings. The paper began filling up as we drew by touch and from someone else’s description.

Now that we were really familiar with the objects we moved from representing them in 2D to 3D, drawing directly with lengths of wire. The wire forced us to relinquish some control, as it is harder to manipulate and encouraged us to think about the line coming off the page and becoming sculptural.

This then developed to working in cardboard. The group’s representations of brushes, cups and tea pots working roughly in cardboard were ingenuous and showed a real understanding of 3D thinking. Their knowledge of how to create basic 3D shapes from a flat material allowed them to be really ambitious, often taking a very individual approach to creating responses to the same objects.

Their wire and cardboard objects were then installed alongside the originals and we drew both ‘real’ and sculptural version of the real objects again, this time using ink. The ink drawings showed confidence of line and how the activities had developed the members’ observational skills.

By the end of the session the room was filled with fantastic drawings and sculptures.