alexanderbuzzard

[alexanderbuzzard]

For my newest project i’ve decided to base my study on something i’ve always been passionate about since I was a child and that in cars. more importantly combustion engine cars and why I think the new wave of electric cars will kill my passion. I want to try and show how the development of the electric car is taking away what a lot of people love cars for. Whether it be the sound or the design and ive slowly pierced together some evidence on how electric cars have changed the way we see cars in the modern day.

[alexanderbuzzard]

This is by far my favourite print, this was also going to be the beginning of my final pieces. I was originally going to create one large print however I found that with the amount of work I was making I wanted to make three final designs of the same piece. These would be 3 completely different compositions of the same drawing and I had hoped with a bit more time I would be able to make those pieces.

My favourite part of this piece is definitely how bold the image is as this piece is of the main hallway. It is quite an intimidating piece as it looks as if the viewer is looking up towards the ceiling. His makes the piece seem powerful and bold. Another part that I really like is the way i’ve been able to create shadow in parts of the piece, this is a step up from all the other designs i’ve made as they all seem flat with barely any depth. I’ve also been using crosshatch as one of my main shading techniques if this piece.

Whereas some parts of this piece I feel could still be improved on as there is quite a lot of negative space where shading could have been added, I also wish I had put the same amount of shading in the right hand side as I did on the left. Overall I had hoped with a bit more time I would have been able to create more pieces based on this design as it is definitely my strongest piece in my opinion.

[alexanderbuzzard]

This piece shows the metal frames along the roof, this was a design I made with the intention of it being much more of an abstract piece compared to the other ones. One thing I do really like about this pieces is the smudging effect I left on the paper the reason I like this is because it gives the piece texture and more shade as without this it would just be blank. My favourite part of this life is the bold outlines, I was able to achieve this by using a ballpoint pen and pushing down very hard on the paper. This then leaves a very harsh black mark. However something I feel I need to improve on is the consistency of my lines. This is because I found it extremely difficult to keep my hand from shaking as it’s something i’ve always struggled with in my drawings. I also wish I had added one other colour I believe this would make the piece pop.

[alexanderbuzzard]

At the very beginning of this project I was constantly changing my mind on what I wanted to focus on, this made my project carry over a few months this is all due to me losing the motivation to want to continue working during the lockdown. At first everything was ok, but I found as I was getting further into the project mine didn’t seem to go anywhere and I was always struggling to make work as I had no inspiration to want to work.

My first idea for a project was to do abstract art I originally wanted to look into surrealism and cubism however my interest for this subject fizzled out as Iwas struggling to be creative during the lockdown as I would normally find inspiration when i’m out and about and generally I seem to do more work when I have a positive mindset rather than being trapped in my house struggling to find something to put towards my work.

I quickly went on from doing abstract work to then wanting to focus on my love for drawing, as this has been something I've always gone back to as this is where my passion for art began. While still focusing on my drawing I was finding myself getting bored of not being able to draw as well as I used to. This made my confidence low. Although after I had a 1-1 I had come to the realisation that I should be working on something that I can improve on and not something that i’ve practised many times before, but something that i’ve recently found myself enjoying which is printing.

I’ve really enjoyed the past month and a half of being constantly in the print workshop making work and learning about new techniques and ways of printing. This recently has become an eye opening experience for me as it is now my favourite things to do and is something I definitely want to continue working on. I have also enjoyed the workshops we have been doing in class, my favourite of these was definitely the live action drawing session we did, this is because it was something i’d never tried before and it pushed me to be creative and use my imagination.

However for this project i’ve definitely not taken as much inspiration from the artists that i’ve researched this is due to the fact that I have been so focused on producing work rather than developing my research, this is something that I hope next year when I start my 3 year Art and Design course I can advance my techniques. One of my favourite parts of this project has been creating techniques as this is something I've done a lot of. I’ve also been experimenting with different materials such as different kinds of papers and what surfaces do the inks work best on. I've also been using different mediums such as; pen, graphite, pencils and palette knives. The palette knives are some of my favourite things to use when printing as loads of sharp marks can be made.

Next year I would also like to experiment with different print techniques as i’ve only used a few for this course and I would like to enhance my skills in printing. This year I've super enjoyed the course but I have found it difficult to focus sometimes. Furthermore another technique I've enjoyed experimenting with has been rubbing. Even though it’s very simple, I've been able to make some really beautiful pieces just from using charcoal and some pencils. I have also been developing my ability to mix the inks I was using. I found it very similar to oil paints as the inks I was using were oil based. I would use a palette knife to mix the colours up and create different tones for my prints.

Another thing I would like to improve upon next year would be my initial ideas as during this project i’ve struggled with coming up with a project that I could keep focused on and not want to change the theme. I also need to be able to think of a brief much quicker and easier as for this it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. If I could have chosen a theme much quicker and decided on it sooner I could have produced a lot more work.

Overall I think this project has been a success as just over a month or two ago I was struggling for any reason to continue doing work as my motivation had completely disappeared and now i’ve been enjoying making work and enjoying going into uni knowing that i’m on the right track.

[alexanderbuzzard]

Valenti Angelo was born in 1897 and died in 1982, he was an Italian-born U.S. artist, active as an illustrator. As a printmaker his favorite medium was linoleum. Some of Angelo’s illustrations are the epitome of midcentury modern style.

http://www.graemecrouch.co.uk/valenti-angelo/

https://nydamprintsblackandwhite.blogspot.com/2014/02/block-prints-by-angelo.html?m=1

[alexanderbuzzard]

The last two prints I made very recently using brown and yellow oil based printing inks, with these pieces I made marks all over the page to see if I could make the effect pop more on the ink.

[alexanderbuzzard]

This piece is based of the same image as the last however this piece is a bit messy as the big square of brown covers most of the design as I used to much in on the lino when I was printing.

[alexanderbuzzard]

Prints based on a pattern I found in the school of art on one of the walls, this image has detail and shows depths with the dark blues in the corner becoming lighter nearer the drawing. The brown crosshatch prints over the blue were added just to make the pieces seem more abstract.

[alexanderbuzzard]

This image is made using oil based lino inks where i rolled some ink onto my table then splaced a piece of paper onto the ink and used different mark making techniques suck as dotting, crosshatch, flicking, smudging, circular scribbles and broken crosshatch l.

[alexanderbuzzard]

Printing techniques using lino, with these pieces I used a forest green as I wanted to mix up my work a bit as recently all of my work has been in black. I do prefer to work with just black as I finish it easier to create depth in my work.

[alexanderbuzzard]

This is one of my pieces I made months ago and it became lost this was part of my old project of drawing, however this is probably my favourite charcoal piece i’ve ever done as using cardboard as my paper became a challenge as the texture of the cardboard changes in different areas, this made making some lines nearly impossible to draw. This can be seen at the bottom right corner where I ripped the cardboard up to create a different texture. This piece is based on the staircase towards the basement of the building on the way to the mens toilets. I tried using different drawing techniques in this piece using a charcoal stick, these include dotting, flicking, pushing down hard on the cardboard to create big thick black bold outlines. Another part of this piece that i like is the smudging effect around the drawing, this was made by my hand when I was drawing over the piece this is something Ive always struggled with and it can be seen in my prints. Another thing I wish I added would be some colour as I believe this would bring more life to my piece and make it vibrant.

[alexanderbuzzard]

Henri Matisse image link

https://www.lempertz.com/en/catalogues/artist-index/detail/matisse-henri.html

[alexanderbuzzard]

While I’ve been printing I have been inspired by some of the work of henri matisse and his print work. When using a brush and palette knives to paint with the inks I wanted to create a simple design for my own self portrait. This included large amounts of contrast between the lines around my face and the space between them.

[alexanderbuzzard]

This is my original staircase sketch

[alexanderbuzzard]

My brief:

Creating visual printmaking designs of the school of art, using an array of different printing methods.

Using print and drawing techniques I want to create multiple prints using oil based inks. These prints will be all based upon my theme of the school of art. I’m interested in the architecture of the building and how parts of ot remind me of gothic architecture. This is something I want to explore, as recently i’ve been looking into architecture and the buildings I see around birmingham.

[alexanderbuzzard]

More rubbing drawings the left image is made using oil based ink and the right is a floor rubbing drawing with graphite pencils.

[alexanderbuzzard]

print work using black oil based ink