London Trip

On January 23rd, I went on a school trip with my A Level art class to London. I took a plethora of photos which you can see on this post. I printed the majority onto contact sheets and presented them in my sketchbook. I really enjoyed my time in London and I gained so much inspiration for my personal investigation and my City in a Box topic.

This photo is of my sketchbook page about Kara Walker's Fons Americanus Foutain in the Tate Modern Gallery. It was beautiful to see and was absolutely ginormous! It was cool that there was so many small aspects to the fountain and you had to walk the whole way round to spot every single little but deliberate detail. Although I personally don't like to sculpt myself, I can still appreciate the beauty of this fountain and how much hard work must've went into its creation.
The three smaller drawings are quick first hand observations I made.

 This next page is all about the National Gallery. I really love older paintings, especially portraits so being in this gallery and seeing paintings from some amazing artists up close was absolutely dreamy. On this page I have showcased a couple of brochures, pictures I took of the architecture and a few snaps of some paintings I loved. Currently, I am working on a small canvas using paint and thread to recreate the portrait of the lady that I have shown on this page.

Photos from my sketch book covering the trip to London. 

Personal investigation pages

This is the first completed page for my personal investigation. It's just a simple mood board with a few pictures I found online that gave me a few ideas on how to start my PI. I would love to add more to it and I have found so many more pictures and ideas however, I relied on using the schools printer and due to being out of school because of Covid-19, I haven't been able to print off any new pictures for my sketch book. What I will do is upload all the photos onto my laptop and create some sort of collage/online mood board so I can show you the sort of vibe/mood i'm aiming for in my PI.

This page isn't finished yet, but you can sort of see what my plan is for it. This is the beginning of my exploration into the Old Masters as they are a crucial part of my PI. These first two pages will be on Peter Paul Rubens and Sandro Botticelli. I am looking at one of their paintings each and hoping that I can learn some new techniques from them.

The above photo is the Birth of Venus which is the painting i will be interpreting by Botticelli.

The below photo is Samson and Delilah by Peter Paul Rubens which is the other artist i will be researching.

I found this picture on pinterest and it really intrigued me so I decided to paint it myself. I used a canvas board as my surface and used oil paint as my medium. I have another post about the process of this painting (https://aimeeshieldsart.blogspot.com/2020/05/painting-timelapse.html). I think what intrigued me most was the emotion I felt, you can see the amount of pain in this mans eyes. I hope that I will eventually find the original painting so I can read about its backstory but for now I will just interpret this picture my own way. The only thing I can think if as to why the man has a nail in his head, is that this picture is possibly religious? The blood pouring from his head makes me think this could possibly be a painting of Jesus as he wore a crown of thorns before his death. My painting may not be an exact copy of the reference however I am still made up with the outcome as I think it still conveys the same emotions, which to me is the most important factor.

Painting Time-lapse

Painting time-lapse.
Using oil paint on a canvas board.
This painting took quite a while to complete. I painted it over 2 different days. On the first day it didn't seem to be working out very well, the way the paint was mixing and turning out on the canvas just wasn't right so I stopped painting on day 1. This video was taken on the second day, which turned out a lot better. This was also my first time painting with oil. I enjoyed how easy it was to layer and blend the paints without stressing over how quick the paint is drying so I will definitely be using them again.