Art & Design Foundation Stage 1

Over the last few days I have been schmoozing with the local artistic talent, picking their brains and I guess 'networking'. I hate that word - it's so cold!  But it's great to chat to successful artists and makers and learn from them. At Abergavenny food festival there was a Made in Monmouthshire enclosure, so I popped in to admire the wares and chat to the makers. Made in Monmouthshire is an artist and makers co-operative based locally to me. Sarah Goodgame (aka Little Bird) Little Bird Sarah is actually the person who suggested I do the FAD in the first place, as she did it as a mature student a few years ago at Hereford. I contacted her to ask how best to approach galleries, and we got chatting from there. She suggested that I needed a confidence boost and that taking the Foundation Diploma had really helped her learn why she was doing the things that she did and how to analyse and write about it.  And here I am! In 3 weeks I have learned so much - she w...

Today we have been learning to paint in layers on photoshop. We were provided with a tutorial worksheet which we made our way through (with a lot of help from Dave in my case!) The image we had to work on was a line drawing of Captain Ahab & Moby Dick and we coloured it in using various methods and layers. We learned to use lots of different tools, but how much of it I will remember is another matter!  I made lots of notes and we still have access to the tutorial sheets, so I guess I just need to practice!

I have been developing my ideas over the weekend. So many idea's, so little time!  I have been working on my double page spread in my A2 book - last Tuesday afternoon, Kath had asked us to create a composition of shell drawings or anything else we wanted to draw relating to World of Water that would fill a double page spread of our A2 sketchbooks, including any wording or media we liked. The only stipulation was that the drawings were from observation, not imagination or photo's. I started with a shell in soft pastel that filled half of one page: I am happy with the textures I created, but it needs fattening up a bit - the proportions aren't quite right. I then continued to add a further 3 shells, each approximately half a page in size, overlapping each other in a little group: I needed a background to pull them together - my thoughts included a collage of paper images representing sand, I looked at magnified sand and thought I might draw in enlarged grains ...

Well what a crazy first 2 weeks it has been!  It's been full on, but I have loved every minute & can't wait to get back to it tomorrow. I haven't had much of a chance to keep up to date with my blog, so this post might be a little long - sorry. As I said in my previous post, our first project is titled World of Water. In class we have been experimenting with lots of techniques and mediums making observational drawings of shells and seaweed, however out of College I have been having a think about what World of Water means to me. Water has played a major part in my life. My favourite childhood memories are splashing in the sea at Woolacombe with my Dad and picnics and wild swimming by the ford in the river Arrow at Alcester with my friends. When I was angry, upset or needed to be alone, I would head down to my special place - a weeping willow tree over the river Avon in Bidford on Avon & sit under it, watching leaves drift by. My husband proposed on the Athabascar...

Welcome to my Art & Design Foundation Blog. This is where I will be keeping track of my work over the next year as I progress through the course. One of our first tasks is to find paintings we like by the following artists and research the materials, processes and techniques they have used to produce the work. The paintings I have chosen have taken into account our theme of World of Water (realism - abstract). The list of artists provided are as follows: Terry Setch Anselm Kiefer Roy Litchenstein ClaudeMonet J M W Turner Henri Matisse _________________________________________________________________________________ Terry Setch Terry Setch - Above & Below the Tide I have chosen this piece because of the intriguing layers of texture. It reminds me of the rocks around rock pools where the incoming and outgoing tide has created permanent layers of residues over centuries. The rust colour showing through brings warmth to the pieces and gives the feeling of bein...