B.K FMP
Research
Drawing Machines
ADA by Karina Smigla-Bobinski is a drawing machine which requires a user input. It's a ball filled with helium and covered with charcoal sticks which gets pushed around by visitors to create abstract patterns that cover the whole room.
Drawing Machine #1 by Joseph L. Griffiths is a pedal-powered drawing machine which creates very random art, utilising colour and line. The pens attached to the front wheel create multicoloured circles, and the pens attached to the handle bars create coloured slashes above it. The end result is something unpredictable and random.
These are drawing machines by Echo Yang from her Autonomous Machines series, where she created drawing machines out of everyday objects ranging from wind up toys to vacuum cleaners.
This is a drawing machine made by Neil Mendoza which is powered by his hamster, Joji. The machine uses a gear mechanism which is powered by the hamster and its wheel. It also exclusively draws hamsters
Weather Research
Weather is the state of the atmosphere with respect to the wind, temperature and cloudiness.
Synonyms for weather are climate and elements among others.
The word weather derives from the Old English word, of Germanic origin, Weder.
These are images from Theo Wenner's series Heavy Weather (left), and Anne Van Galen's series Warriors of downpour city (right). They are both representations of heavy downpour, however, Van Galen's images are of products she designed and made based around a world where it never stops raining with Sci-Fi-esque cone shapes and face shields as if taken from a Blade Runner-esque time period. Whereas Wenner's photos give a sort of dystopian vibe with their moody feel and washed out colours, coupled with the overcast sky and wind shown by the leaves flying around.
I found that - well, they're both interesting (to me anyway), especially Van Galan's images; however, I just kind of prefer Wenner's photos, probably due to the fact that Wenner's images are in a place, and that the image has a story, unlike Van Galan's where they're just showing them in a controlled practical environment instead of being used practically out in the weather they've been designed to help subdue, like Wenner's. But that's my opinion.
Ellsworth Kelly
This is Brushstrokes Cut into Forty-Nine Squares by Ellsworth Kelly. It is an ink drawing that has been cut up into perfectly even squares and rearranged into a random pattern. This method is extremely useful for idea generation as the randomness and unpredictability of this exercise allows for original and authentic ideas appear from where there is seemingly nothing at all.
These are my responses to Kelly, they are portions of our ink wind drawings cut up and stuck, rearranged like Kelly's. A major thing that I don't like about mine are the fact that the measurements are different between each other, particularly obvious in the horizontal image.
Hans Landsaat
Hans Landsaat is an artist who primarily specialises in making his artwork in a minimalist style using geometric shapes and block colours.
He makes these stylised pieces of reflections and clouds using very clean shapes.
While I do like his style, I'm kind of on the fence about whether I want to do something like his style, but I do think that I'd be able to make something pretty interesting and abstract with the dystopian tag.
These are the quick possible designs for a 2D piece in a style similar to Landsaat. Again, allow me to reiterate, these were done in very quick succession so they're pretty shabby and I could easily create more in more time.
Sara Lee
Sara Lee is a drawer/printmaker who creates these beautiful landscapes which capture the look and feel of weather. Lee's prints also are mainly in this really nice minimalist style which is quite aesthetically pleasing and produces a calming feeling. I would like to incorporate this minimalist style in my future artwork.
Clyfford Still
Clyfford Still was an American abstract expressionist painter who experimented with alternative ways of painting through the use of colour, shape, and line. The way he paints is akin to the look of ripped paper, which would create a pretty cool cloud effect as it, for the most part, is random and isn't that much of a controlled process.
Frank Auerbach
Frank Auerbach is a painter who specialises in creating beautiful and purposeful portraits and landscapes, with every brushstroke contributing to the overall grandeur of the image. He uses brushstrokes which are meaningful and necessary to the final artwork, scraping away and replacing paint to get it (aside from the colours, sometimes) as close to the real subject as possible.
These are some of the initial sketches for Auerbach's Primrose Hill. Starkly different from his usual work, these
are extremely rough and look as though they took about 2 minutes each. They're also quite informative for me as a way to draw clouds in abstract ways.
London Trip
These are some of the images that I took from the London trip; the point of the trip was to gather primary research that links to our theme of weather, and while it did help others, it didn't really help me at all, the only things I found that linked weather was this ore plate thing that looks like bolts of lightning or a river cutting through a canyon or valley of sorts.
The affect of clouds on the climate
The affects of climate change on the Earth's clouds are very apparent. As temperatures increase, lower level and less dense clouds are being formed. This happens because as the temperature increases, the air near the surface becomes drier, resulting in the cloud base rising and, subsequently, reducing the thickness of the cloud layer. Clouds also, in some ways, contribute to climate change as they store heat at night from the day's sunlight.
Presentation research
These are some exhibitions by Clyfford Still and Tom Hammick in which the artwork has been displayed in a clean and contemporary manner; their artwork, with and without frames, hanging off the wall. I would quite like to do something like this as, like I said, it is really clean.
Ethics and Sustainability
While plywood isn't the most sustainable (or ethically viable) wood (being engineered with glue),it can, however, be made in a way which is more environmentally friendly.
On average, around 75% of the tree's usable wood is turned into plywood. To achieve maximum sustainability it'd be a better for the figure to be closer to 100%, and to make sure that any waste by-products are reused.
Birch wood is one of the most popular, and most sustainable, types of wood that is used to make plywood as it's a very widespread tree and is grown in a lot of places in the UK.
But while other woods like cork don't, plywood requires some form of tree cutting, which is, obviously, a form of deforestation and contributes to the loss of natural habitats. Although, if the wood is sourced from a well-managed woodland instead of a wild forest, the process can continue without the need for long lasting environmental damage.
Since plywood is infused with chemically based glues, it is not 100% natural, resulting in it being incapable of biodegradation; on the other hand though, plywood can be recycled, but the woods must be separated from each other, shredded, and then repackaged to be reused.
The inks used on the other hand, aren't environmentally friendly at all, despite the official site declaring that they're "non-toxic". Being oil-based inks it's not hard to figure out why they're immediately detrimental to the environment, being a product of crude oils.