Evaluation

This evaluation is about observational drawings and development. This unit was really strange and alien to me at first, but later in the assignment I learned to enjoy it. Firstly it was quite strange since we had a live nude model coming in whom we had to draw from over and over again. The life sessions were fun, I think it was a new and really good experience that I do think doesn't happen too often. It seemed quite an easy project to start from.

I used different tools to draw with such chalk coal or just chalk which weren't new to me, but it was the first time I used it on a big scale which was numerous of A1 sheets. I have also used pencils and soft pastels at times. It was hard since when we started we didn't get much time for example a minute for a pose and there were quite few poses like that which came out really rough in my opinion still it was the poses I used in my developments and final piece. I also had to research the artists and some pictures of art works that I wanted to work from in the style of. I chose Samuel Durkin who is an amazing artists that produces beautiful pieces of art. I mainly focused on that artists because it was tricky enough so I wanted to focus on one technique to work from.

My final painting consists of a base which was done to an almost black, very thick colour using primary colours blue, yellow and red. After that has dried a little I painted only the lighter areas that I wanted. So whatever I wanted darker I didnt paint over with lighter and brighter colours. My focus when it comes to colours were warm colours. The reason for that is because from the start of my development I found the red/yellow warm background goes the best. So I started building colours on top of eachother starting from light yellow and white to orange, magenta and red. After I have done that and painted all the light areas i wanted to be light I used a wash and painted a thin water based colour on top which really blurred it which I really liked. After that I added the finishing touches which were more tones of different colours on the figure and i also blurred the arms a little so they blend well with the background. The pose was one of the most common poses that I mainly used through out the development so I decided to stick with it.

This final piece was one of the hardest to come up with, I have done 3 other art pieces that I thought are going to be my final but weren't. I am happy I went through all the frustration of finding a painting technique that will work well because I am happy with the end result. I am happy about the fact that I experienced new things such as working on easel as well as drawing a life model. If I had more time I would have definitely researched more artists so that I can experiment more, but over all I'm happy with the work I produced and with the different stages I went through my developments.

My inspiration for the final piece: Samuel Durkin reasearch and opinion

My inspiration for my art work was by an artist called Samuel Durkin. He is a British artist born in Portsmouth,England. He grew up in a small town of  Oxford shire called Wallingfor. He was surrounded by art works since his mother who has done many art movements such pointillism  realism as well as expressionism. He went to Bournemouth and Poole art college to study art. He had some health problems but even then art seemed to be the one thing he concentrated on. He learned about a lot of painting techniques looking for his own style, and I think he got it. He had some heart problems but he still found himself painting whenever he possibly can.

His movements are a mixture of impressionism as well as abstract. But no matter how abstract he went he always wanted the paintings to be not so abstract that you couldn't see what he wanted to achieve. Many times he kept painting over and over again on one canvas to create a very thick colour for his base which he mainly used three primary colours: cyan, magenta and yellow. He thought that with the base of these colours its easy to show the vibrancy of his final work. He mainly used bigger flat brushes doing his work to achieve more rough, not so precise brushmarks which I also tried using in my final piece to achieve a very nice, unique style.

He was inspired by many famous artists such as Piet Mondrian and the famous piece of his called Vond (Evening); Red Tree as well as the later cubist art works such as Composition with Red Blue Yellow which is also very famous. He was also inspired by Claude Monet but that was earlier in his work. He is known by his nude painting as well as cityscapes but he has also painted animals. He believes that his art work is still to be developed and the way he paints now has been developed from many experimentations and art works as well as influences from other artists.

 In my opinion he is an amazing artist that should get some more credit for his work since he isn't so known. He has this unique style of painting that I really liked. I think it was very hard for me to understand the technique he has painted his art works in but that's why I developed through quite a few stages finding out my style that would be inspired by Samuel Durkin. So now I understand why its so good and useful to experiment with your art work because you never know when you going to like what you produced.

About and how I developed my final piece

My first painting was an experiment in the technique that I wanted to do my final piece in. I used warm colours which were yellow and red which i mixed and got orange from it. For the background and it was done using a palette knife as well as for the outline of the figure that I painted. Using a palette knife was quite tricky since i could pick up a lot of paint unless i used it sideways but for the background it was quite easy to use, but very hard, almost impossible to blend or get a smooth blended surface. I knew palette knife technique was going to be tricky.

Then my other experiments which were developed onward from the first experiment was a little different since I used a mixture of cold as well as warm colours to create a contrasting background. I have not use tonal value in my first experiments since i was using a palette knife. my brush/palette knife marks were a mixture of big and small, bigger for the background, smaller for painting the figure. I only used acrylic paint through out my developments but I also used a little of ready mixed paint.

For 2nd and 3rd of my experiments I have used a squidgy which helped me drag the paint out creating a hoped for abstract look in my painting. i used squidgy on a few of my developments but then i realized it wasn't the tool for me to use.

For the next development pieces I used different tools, firstly i started using a paintbrush. I used bigger and thicker ones and smaller ones. On my other experiment I used acrylic once again and a big flat paintbrush to create a green background. I'm not sure why green but I thought it would be quite nice to use a different - cold colour since i was using warm colours in my previous development pieces. I used black to outline and shade in the figure and then i used white to add the light areas and then I repeated the process with the white and the black to create tonal values.

The other piece which is really light, was done in the technique I wanted to do my final piece in. I basically painted a black background and left some white outlines for the figure, this time I used a different pose. after it completely dried I used a wash which was a really watery 'top coat' to get more natural blurred effect. I used a little white mixed with loads of water for that. after that i started painting everything on top white or really light yellow to get a very light and nice blended background. I added very light shades to the figure I done which I have done using bright colour such as yellow, pink, red, blue and purple mixed with loads of white so that the final developed piece is the closest to what I am going to make as my final piece.

For my first 'final artwork' I have went completely different direction since my paint dried out very fast so I had to do it again. Firstly the blending or wash didn't go well since everything dried very fast and after a was it was exactly the same. Then I wen't even further and added some abstract bubbles in the background which was even more weird and completely different to what I was planning to do, so that piece which was suppose to be my final piece turned out to be just another experiment with painting techniques. To me that was too precise, I wanted something more rough and textured.

Oliveira Bridge

This bridge was made in Brazil and was first opened in 2008. It is 5,200ft long and 453ft wide. It is a very unusual shape as it is similar to an 'X'. I think this is what this makes this bridge so awesome and unique. I think the design was very hard to make yet to construct it was even harder as the shape of the bridge is very different. I think there are loads of bridges that are very different and unique and I think this bridge falls into that category. Once again in the pictures the view you get at night with all the colours looks amazing.

Golden Gate Bridge

My opinion of this bridge is that its amazing. Especially through the night I guess as you can see it shining in golden that’s why this name was picked for it. Type of the bridge is the same as the Millennium Bridge its Suspension bridge. It crosses the Golden Gate ocean.

It was opened in May 1937 which was 74 years ago In

San Francisco, California! It carries Cars as well as pedestrians. I Think this bridge is brilliant, I really like the way its been designed and that its over 8000ft tall!

Norman Foster

Norman Foster was born 1^st of June in 1935 in Manchester, England. He is another famous British architect. He went to Manchester university school in 1961, after graduating he went to Yale University where he gained a masters degree in Architecture. Norman foster is a founder in Foster and Partners which was found in 1967. This company is spread through the world and has designed many famous buildings and bridges. Some of his famous bridges: Millennium bridge which is in UK, Arsta bridge which is in Sweden as well as Millau Viaduct which is constructed in France. He had an exhibition in UK called National Police memorial which was in 1996-2005.

My concentration of his work was the bridge that was designed and constructed in UK which is called Millennium Bridge. Official name for this bridge is London Millennium Footbridge. Is is a pedestrian bridge which crosses river Thames. It is very long (1,214ft which is equivalent to 370 metres long). The width of this bridge is 13ft (4metres). It was first opened in the middle of 2000 which was 2 months late then was planned and it is a type of a suspension bridge. The bridge was temporally closed in 2007 because of the Kyrill storm as they were worried that the pedestrians might be blown off.

I haven't seen the bridge live myself but I seen it in the pictures and I do think it was quite hard to design however I don't see it very interesting or unique its simple but I think that's exactly what they wanted for it to be simple but very well done. I do think however they did a very good job as it had many modifications which just shows how well they wanted it to work out at the end and to be as safe as possible.

Architects

Thomas Heatherwick

Thomas Heatherwick is a famous English Designer. He was born on February 17^th In 1970, He is 41 soon to be 42. He was born in London. He works In Heatherwick studio which was found in 1994. That's where he designed 'The Rolling Bridge'. Other key works of this architect are designs such as: The Seed Cathedral, also he designed the new bus for London, as well as the East Beach Café which is the building created in West Sussex, UK. Also he designed the sculpture in Manchester called B of the Bang. He Had an Exhibition in 2004 where he presented 1,000 everyday design objects that he has gathered.

Heatherwick designed a bridge called 'The Rolling Bridge' so I’m going to talk more about that. The bridge was made to carry pedestrians and was finished and constructed in 2005. It was Designed in Thomas Heatherwick studio and is a total of 39ft which is equivalent to 12 metres. It was a movable bridge and consists of 8 triangular sections joined to the walkway. It is made of steel segments, hydraulic actuators and lightweight deck. It allows the boats to pass safely as it curls up to an octagonal shape and once the boats have floated through the bridge extends and lets the passengers walk through. The bridge had some maintenance issues at around 2008, it had to be fixed and was fully operating again in April 2009. This bridge is known to be the only 'curling' bridge that exists.

My opinion on this bridge is just 'Wow'. Firstly because I never would have suspected or even though that this kind of bridge exists and yet it was already designed and constructed by this architect. I would love to see it sometime as it is in the London, UK. I think the idea of the bridge is really unique and one of a kind. I read that in Victoria era there was similar moving bridges, but none of them looked like this one.