This week my goal was to refine my experiments as well as make bigger decisions about the structure of my project. To do this I’ve begun researching artists more related to my current experiment.
Emma Kay
Emma Kay is a British artist born in 1961 who test the effects of subjectivity on our memory. Some of her works include writing the bible from memory and drawing a map of the world from her memory also (picture on the left). I find the ideas and practice behind her work really fascinating as it shows how our own perspectives and self history has a strong influence on not only the world around us but the creative process itself.
Michael Nobbs
Michael Nobbs was diagnosed with ME/CFS, a chronic illness that severely limits how much he can do each day. With this he began drawing little things in his day which brings him some happiness, teaching us to l appreciate how creativity can grow and develop in our life. He currently runs a website/ podcast called “grow gently” in which he discusses these ideas as well as his book released in 2013 called “drawing your life”
Workshop
For this week we began our workshop discussing “null island” an island that doesn’t exist yet has been visited thousands of times online. We also got to know our own sweet potato which we examined and thought about how it relates to “null island”, it personally interested me that this man-made place has such an attraction whereas the sweet potato is one of the worlds most underrated foods. Sweet potatoes are not only easy and cheap to grow but they have a brilliant carbon footprint and many uses. My initial response was to pick up my pencil and begin tracing around the sweet potato, this led to a creation of complex overlapping patterns. Once I went home I spent time with my sweet potato planting it in water to grow vines, I want to study its growth journey however I’m unsure how this could translate into a practical group project within the time frame. Due to this I continued looking at my complex drawing from the workshop and wondered how I could evolve the piece, that’s when I decided I wanted to paint the different areas of the drawing using the colours of the sweet potato.
Looking forward i begin thinking about where i could go with this piece in relation to a group project, could i make multiple paintings? How would i relate this to “null island”? How can this idea get bigger and stronger? The piece is still unfinished and took several hours already so i have to also think about time management.
My experiments
To develop my experiments I went over my sketches with biro pens to make them more detailing and striking as well as adding little labels as to what it is I was trying to remember. So I have been continuing with this throughout my week as before. I have made some choices about my project, I now know ill be working solo and continue filling the book. I might possibly start doing more than one drawing a day (depending on the day) to make sure I fill the book and not leave any blank pages at the end. Below I have photos of my work from this week.
