Julie's Art Blog

Sally Mann, born 1951, is an American photographer who is widely known for her black and white photographs, at first of her young children, then later of landscapes suggesting decay and death. I found some of her photos of people quite disturbing however I selected these two landscapes as they are of trees and water, both things I enjoy photographing. The top one is reminiscent of the trees covering the driveway into Harestanes, a photo I took last week as the autumn leaves were beautiful. The shape of the trees is the focus here and the black and white helps the viewer focus on that, whereas I will keep my photo in colour as the focus is the colour of the leaves. The bottom photo is a real exercise in dark and light with the centre feature being the churning river. I take numerous photos of water in its different forms and  this photo challenges me to consider altering the natural state of my landscape/water photos and changing their colour or exposure etc.

Rembrandt Harmenszoen van Rijn (1606-1669) was a Dutch draughtsman, painter and printmaker. His reputation as the greatest etcher in the history of the medium was established in his lifetime and has not been questioned since. I have selected two of his 27 self portraits which he etched. Both were done in 1630 and the top one is a self portrait of him smiling, and the bottom is a self portrait of him frowning. These two etchings caught my eye as whenever I do a self portrait I am frowning in concentration and the one time I tried to draw myself smiling, I looked ridiculous, which I thought was just like Rembrandt! I love the freedom of his marks in both these etchings. There are lots of scribbly type marks placed in the right place to make very effective pictures. For darker areas he just makes more marks. I am surprised to find pictures like these in the 17th century, they seem very modern and in some ways they seem like elaborate doodles. I also like them as I feel that the st...

Two of these photos have been taken of windows, one single glazing and the other double which I presume accounts for the sort of double image of the above photo. One shows the reflection of the red sky on the road home however the actual photo did not reflect the red of the sky although it did of the road. I have tweaked it a bit but the actual sky was a lot pinker so a bit disappointing. I have shown the moonlight reflecting off the clouds. I was just driving to pick up children so just had my phone with me. As I have had to zoom a bit it has broken up a little but I still thought it worth putting in. You can see my reflection on the taps however I just really liked the shine on them.

 One primary influence that led to Cubism was the representation of the three dimensional form in the late works of Paul Cezanne. The Salon d'Automne displayed works of Cezanne over the years 1904-7. Cezanne wanted to solidify art (he felt the impressionist movement was too un-solid). He liked structure and had an analytical approach to representing the subject. He created the third dimension by tonality as can be seen in his painting above - Quarry Bibemus 1898-1900 - where the dark shadows give it a three dimensional appearance. The Cubism movement happened in the early 20th century which was a time of social change with the industrial revolution progressing, photography was developing and urban settlements were growing. Picasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was considered a proto-Cubist work and by 1911 Picasso was recognised by many as the inventor of Cubism. In Cubist artwork objects are analysed, broken up and reassembled into an abstract form. Instead...

Pablo Picasso - 1881-1973 Picasso was a 25 year old Spanish immigrant to France when he painted this picture. It refers to the prostitutes he visited in Avignon. He did hundreds of preparatory drawings and paintings over a six month period prior to painting the final work on a 8ftx7ft canvas. The figures are very unconventional in that their shoulders, hips and limbs are depicted in angular lines and flat geometric shapes. e.g their breasts are either cubic shapes or half circles. Their faces are sharp edged and simplified. Their eyes are very big and high up on the head. The women's thighs are wider than their waists, one's foot is disproportionally big, one woman appears to have a black face on a white body and two of the women have African masks on. The setting is fairly indistinct with what appears to be red and white drapes done in an angular and fragmented way. The tone implies fabric rather than the shapes. It is a cramped space where the women are still posing ...

I had the benefit of a lovely sunny morning when taking these photos which gave the contrast of bright light and dark shadows. The sun didn't reach into the compost bin so I made it as vibrant as possible. The bottom apple is in pinhole mode which brings out incredible detail - this is perhaps my favourite photo of the group. With the flower photo I struggled to get the dead seed head to stand out as the live white flower behind was hogging the picture. The best effect was inverting it which had the result of making the live flower look dead and the seed head look more alive. The three apples were given the pop art treatment which did get rid of unwanted background colours. The wheelbarrow has been made to look more nostalgic by antique black and white and belies the true messy state of my garden!

Pable Picasso (1881-1973) made many linocuts from the end of 1950's to the early 60's. The two picture above were made in 1962 when he was 80 years old! The first one is called Large Woman S Head with Decorated Hat, and the second one is called "Picador Goading Bull with Matador". He used a progressive process of linocutting. He cut, printed and cleaned just one piece of lino over and over again to gradually build up an image and create the finished article. The first one seems really Cubist with different planes of the face showing. The second one would be unidentifiable, to me, if it didn't have a title! However I like the boldness of the two pictures and I like the contrast between light and dark. I like the curves of the second one. Both would go on my wall!

David Hockney (born 1937) is considered one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. The two above pictures are both etchings. The first is one of the series of Illustrations for Six Fairy Tales for the Brothers Grimm. It is called "A black cat leaping" done in 1969. It shows the instant before a mauling as a huge black cat leaps on its human prey. The person shows no emotion or fear to the extent I wonder whether the cat is stuffed and mounted on a wall. I personally dont see anything in the subject to like however I do like the wallpaper. I  fact, I am not a great fan of David Hockney's etchings (I far prefer his paintings). However I selected the second one - Four flowers in a vase, 1998 - as I did quite like it. I like flowers and I like the way he used a honeycomb effect in the flower heads. I prefer my vases of flowers done in colour!

For these five photos I essentially tried out different applications of B&W. I tended to increase the contrast first and exaggerate the blacks and whites within the colour photo before experimenting with the range of Black and Whites. I used no artifical light, the sun was very strong and lower in the sky so cast great shadows. I didn't use black and white much before as my photos tended to be landscapes with small people in them. And I like colour. However I think when you are trying to create art rather than memories the black and white mode comes into its own. Certainly my sons look a lot better in black and white than colour, on this occasion at least!

I have only selected one photo which has the literal meaning of the word balance and that is the coin on the glass. I like the shadows and the gold colour however the main reason I like it is that it reflects a moment of time when the whole family were sitting round the table getting involved in my homework! My favourite photo is the coffee cup which I think quite striking. However this would have worked better if the pattern on top of the latte hadn't been spoilt. I wasn't quick enough. I haven't altered the photo of the fish in the aquarium as the actual colour was lovely. It is hard to get a photo exactly in focus through glass, but I think it is sharp enough for enjoyment. I altered the rhinos quite a bit to try to get better definition to make the photo more interesting. I have probably gone too far so it looks a bit artificial however it was quite flat when I started. I was disappointed that these were modern beach huts rather than old ones however ...

Ruth Ander is a contemporary printmaker who works in the Bristol area. I decided to look at her work as she is the sister-in-law of a friend. She makes monoprints using oil paints and paper. She rolls oil paints onto glass, manipulates it, then she places paper over the top and applies pressure by hand. She repeats to create the level of colour and depth she wants. The first picture is called Storm 1. I love big seas and skies with light contrasting with grey clouds. I imagine this picture reflects more what the artist was feeling rather than seeing, which is what I would like to achieve. The second is called Venice 1. It is very simple and atmospheric and in contrast to other pictures of Venice I Have seen which may have been more from the Renaissance era.

Albrecht Durer 1471-1528 The top picture is called the Rhinocerous and it is a woodcut he made in 1515. He created this image from a written description and a sketch - he had not seen a rhino before in real life. It looks like a rhino on first glance, but if you look closer you see the scales on the leg and the extra horn. He had been told it was an armoured animal and he drew armour which had similarities to men's armour with the etchings that can be found on men's armour. The end result is a real fantasy piece which looks like a rhino! This picture is appealing to me also as it is not religious. The second picture is called the Cannon and it is an etching made in 1518. Although it does have a cannon in the foreground I see this primarily as a landscape with masses of details and depth expressed by black and white marks. I particularly like the stripey sky and the tree trunk.

Andre Derain (1880-1954) was a French artist, painter and sculptor. Along with Matisse, he is considered the father of Fauvism. Fauvism can be classified as an extreme development of Van Gogh's Post Impressionism fused with the pointillism of Seurat and Signac. Other influences of Fauvism were Gaughin whose employment of areas of saturated colour strongly influenced Derain's work. Fauvism is recognised by wild brush strokes and vivid colours with the subject matter having a degree of simplification and abstraction. Derain met Matisse in 1898 and they worked together through the summer of 1905 in the Mediterranean village of Collioures. With the above picture Derain employs the large scale pointillist technique which was called Divisionism (separation of colours) and here is is particularly effective in showing how the water is moving in the sunlight. In this painting he uses a lot of the complementary colours blue and orange. I would describe the colours  as quite nautic...

Henri Matisse,1869-1954, was a French artist known for his use of colour. In 1896 he was introduced to Impressionism and Van Gogh by John Russell, an Australian painter, which led to him completely changing his style. In particular, he changed his palette from earth colours to bold colours. He said Russell explained colour theory to him. Colour theory is the practical guidance to colour mixing and the visual effects of specific colour combination. Matisse was also inspired by Cezanne's sense of pictorial structure and colour. Matisse's fondness for bright and expressive colours became more pronounced after he spent the summer of 1904 painting in St Tropez with two neo-impressionist colleagues, one was Signac, the pointillist. In 1905 he spent the summer with Andre Derain at Collioure in the south of France where he painted many views. His paintings at this time were characterised by flat shapes and controlled lines, while using pointillism in a less vigorous way th...