An introduction to colour (Part four)

Day four

Local colour

Looking at local colour allowed students to test out their new mixing skills. In order to make sure there was a direct link between the sessions undertaken in the studio and what they would do outside, a particular set of colour relationships were to be explored. After all this was Leeds in Autumn; cold, dark and overcast. It was unlikely there would be fantastic saturated colour experiences on offer, so students were directed to those ubiquitous patches of drab that at that time seemed to swathe the city. The 70s were it seems to me much greyer. There had been power-cuts and gloom seemed to penetrate everywhere. As you entered the college in those days a single light bulb would be used to cast a yellow glow over the Vernon Street hallway, a space now suffused with cool designer lighting.

The students are told to take their paints, palettes, drawing boards and paper out into the streets of Leeds and to find situations where small amounts of highly saturated colour could be found surrounded by large amounts of different neutrals.  Sometimes we would ask them to use paper frames to help with selection and to ‘abstract’ the colour from the busy world of happening life. This meant that we could get them to look at abstract strips of colour. A strip might start with the greyed out orange of a brick-wall, continue over a yellow grey Yorkshire stone pavement, move over the sharp yellow of a painted no parking line into the cool black-blue of a newly tarmacked road. We were also asking students to look at shadows, so there might be the violet shadow of a road sign breaking into the grey orange of the wall, or edging into the yellow grey pavement.

After a morning of attempting to paint these moments of urban beauty, the afternoon was often spent adjusting these to give more control and depth of application. A glaze might be used to deal with a shadow and compared to a straight mix. These images were never very large. Probably on average A4 or smaller, each A1 sheet would have a few selected images. Perhaps two strips of neutral colours and a square patch of grey with a red hot spot.

Looking back now its interesting think that we never thought twice about sending students out with great cumbersome drawing boards. When I went back to work on foundation this year to do some drawing, all the students were working directly in notebooks or on A4 sheets. In the 70s and 80s this would be seen as an avoidance of the problem and unprofessional. Because it was difficult, we would at other times get students to develop painting and drawing kits for outside work. 

(At some point I will look at the importance of trips and going out to work at places such as Meanwood Valley, Buckden, Otley Chevin or Newly Quarry)

It was about this time of course that imperial sizes were being replaced by metric. I can’t remember exactly which year but it seemed that one year all the student lockers were fine and the next they were too small and portfolios wouldn’t fit. Imperial portfolios would fit under an average sized student’s arm, but the new metric A1 size was too big for that and students really struggled with them, the idea of having a handle set just below the top not coming into fashion for a few years. As always with change it takes a few years for people to work out how to adapt to it. For several years when these new sizes came in we had to adapt. We developed a welded handle that could be fitted under the base of these new large portfolios, a single length that would go under one side and fold over to make a handle on the other side. The square section was then wrapped in cloth to make a handle. The welding shed was in the yard between the Vernon Street and Rossington Street buildings and seemed to be Patrick’s own private space. There was probably more brazing done though than welding, (always oxyacetylene gas welding, never electric arc) brazing was much more aesthetic. The warm colours of the brass rods were perfect for what we wanted, Patrick inducted me into the welding shed by if I remember teaching me to braze together some small measuring devices I was then making. I digress yet again I’m afraid.

Sometimes of course it would rain and if so we were restricted to the studios. We would set a similar problem, but this time perhaps we would look at tints. The studios had white walls, there was white paper everywhere and each type of paper was a different white, the neon lighting systems were slightly warm toned and with the large windows letting in daylight you could easily spend an afternoon watching two different types of pale tints moving across a curve of white cartridge paper.

In order to facilitate this we would get students to quickly create white paper forms over the walls and floors before they began the task of colour selection. Mixing tints would get us involved with discussing the uses of different types of white. Lead white was still used then and we preferred it for this session, zinc white was translucent and better for glazing. Flake white becomes transparent with age and is stiffer in the mix. If a student had to choose an alternative to lead we would suggest titanium white, it had less of a yellow tendency. Zinc white had traditionally been used for highlights because it dried very slowly and so worked well in the top layers of a painting, but because of its transparent nature you would often mix in lead white or similar to give it body. These arcane conversations would soon disappear with the introduction of standardised colours. I’m very aware that when I walk into the present day Fine Art studios it’s obvious that the student painters have never had this type of exposure to mixing and thinking about paint. It’s often handled with a crude sensibility as if applying emulsion for the house wall. Getting control of an exact tint and mixing colours for colour theory related reasons is a rarity, it is more likely that the reasons for colour choice will be conceptually driven. I sometimes feel like a dinosaur talking to young painters about how their colours can be made to move and shift by adjusting various contrasts.

We didn’t always use paint to mix colour with and oil pastels provided us with a cleaner and easier way in. We used them to have a go at all of the above mixing and then in one specific session based on colour/light observation, which was always done outside on sunny days, they would come into their own.

Turner was still very influential and in particular the way that when he used paint he dissolved the world into light. It felt at that time as if he was far more important than the Impressionists and that they had simply followed in his footsteps.

After looking at Turner and Monet in particular, students would be asked to develop a scan type gaze across any given area. They were not to focus on edges, they had to practice ‘seeing’ the whole light/colour mix. Then using the oil pastels, and lots of extra white ones, they would recreate the experience as if a shaft of light was moving diagonally down through the image. All the marks would take the same direction, the colour drawing knitting itself into the surface, white flecks binding these images together as the blurred shapes of whatever was out there came slowly into being. Staff would repeat constantly, “Remember it’s not what it is, it’s where it is and how does one patch of colour change as it meets another”.  This was a really hard thing to do. You had to be a very good draftsman that knew how to locate things quickly, so that as you developed the colour surface actual underlying proportions and relationships were maintained. If not all you managed to get were sloping distorted shapes of messy colour with lines running through that made it look as if it was raining. When these coloured drawings did work they could be stunning, but this was a rarity and in my mind often achieved by students destined to become illustrators and not painters. Oil pastels were another medium that seemed to go out of fashion, I don’t see them around much anymore; perhaps they were replaced by oil sticks.

There was once an attempt to use pointalist techniques and students were sent out to build up surfaces of coloured dots in response to selected views of the city, From what I remember it was a disaster, the scale was all wrong, the control not there, students were trying to copy an image in their heads of all those Seurat paintings they had seen in reproductions, so nothing fresh or discovered anew was done, just cheap Montmartre copies.

An introduction to colour (Part three)

Day three

The college library had a well-thumbed copy of Itten’s ‘The Elements of Colour’. The students were introduced to this as a ‘bible’ that they should take out and learn from. Sometimes we would start the day in the lecture theatre looking at colour, often using the examples Itten used himself. The advantage was that students could get to see that although we were working with colour using basic abstract shapes, it could be applied to figurative work just as easily. This allowed me to spend some time focused on my own interest, the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald; there are passages of colour in that image that I have never been able to get over, it contains colour ideas I still use to this day. Looking at pictures of other art with foundation students was rarely about historical fact, (this did depend who was doing the looking, if it was Glynn, this was different, but he was dealing with art history and contextual studies) you could think from the way the images were talked about that they were painted yesterday. This was art appreciation rather than art history. There was no sociological or anthropological unpicking of the images, simply looking at them and talking about form and colour. Meaning was restricted to how ‘life’ and ‘energy’ was given and maintained. These paintings were seen as repositories of visual wonder, their worth being that they were constructed to be seen ‘in the moment of now’, their form being such that it eradicated the past tense. We would look at Georges de La Tour to examine contrast of saturation. De La Tour often had a sharp bright light moment in his work and large passages of dark neutrals. There would be much debate over his work as to whether or not the artist was relying on tone or colour to give energy to the image. Gradually we would work our way through examples of Itten’s seven contrasts, of hue, temperature, saturation, tone, extension as well as complementary and simultaneous contrast. Often finishing with Pontormo’s Visitation, an image of reds and greens being pushed together to create an electric moment of immanence which would of course be spoken of as the artist recreating in colour the moment of immaculate conception.

Back in the studio we returned to mixing chromatic greys. Using the complementary mixing systems from the day before a series of grey surfaces were made and left over dinner to dry so that they could be cut into pieces. In the meantime the bags of colours were re-examined for ranges of colour and sorted in different ways. For instance we might look at saturation or tonal value.

The afternoon was spent making a combination of collaged and painted responses to Itten’s colour structures. These would range from a simple placing of a neutral into a field of a warm and then placing the exact same neutral into a similar sized field of cool colour in order to effect a temperature change, to very painterly approaches, often looking at colour expansion. How much of a particular yellow on a soft pink-white was needed before it said ‘yellow’ and how much of the same yellow was needed when it was pushed up next to a light green? This same yellow would then go up against a dark violet and it might find itself reduced to a very thin line. It was important that these structures were ‘organic’ and ‘found’ because colour needed to breath and needed to be watched carefully. It was seen as a fickle beast that could easily become dormant if you didn’t constantly keep kicking it back into life.

All of the seven contrasts would be played with, but individual students might spend much more time on one than another. There might be reference to different shapes having different energies, such as the square being stable and at rest, the triangle more spiritual or intellectual and the circle being in motion, but it was argued it would be the forms between forms, those shapes that were neither one nor the other that would be the ones to look for, as these had far more chance of maintaining a life energy.

Again at the end of the session there would be a ‘crit’ different staff pointing out various things working in different ways. Colin would be looking for subtle tonal variations, in particular he loved to find students exploring the mustard shades within yellow, or the lilac tints of violet. Gavin was fascinated by proportion and extension and Patrick just seemed to love greens. I was pretty happy with most things, I was like a kid in a toyshop and probably if asked would say my main enjoyment was putting the slide show together. I have always been fascinated by how the same issues come up over and over again. I still have a tingle of recognition when I look at a drawing from 30,000 years ago and know that somehow, ‘I was there!’

(See also the posts ‘Discords at 8 o’clock’ and ‘The hawk and the handsaw’)

An introduction to colour (Part two)

Day two: Mixing colour

One of the main changes to art college life is the smell. When I started all the studios smelt of a combination of turpentine and cigarettes. Both of which have been eradicated. First of all came the smoking ban, I think that came in round about 1990 and the use of turps was gradually removed by the rise of health and safety officers, and  I must admit, the smells also went away due to better ventilation systems being installed.

Returning to day two. If we go back to the 1970s all the students would be asked to use oil paint. Gradually this would change, Colin introduced Liquitex in about 1980, we also started to use gouache and eventually switched over to using acrylics permanently. I did though always prefer oils and still do for this sort of work. So I shall therefore imagine this is a foundation session from about 1978.

Students are asked to squeeze out a small amount of red (or other primary). They would be asked, “What sort is it? Is it a warm red or a cool red?”

The staff would wonder about picking out paint issues such as how a particular vermilion could be quite scarlet in hue and compare this to a much more blue shade of cadmium red. A particular Holbein Chinese Vermilion, might be compared to a Napthol red, qualities of colour saturation and considerations as to differences between student oil colours and professional artists colours are made. Alizarin crimsons are looked at as good transparencies but poor surface mixes, it’s pointed out that other reds can be added to help the mix and move the colour away from its cool tendency. The problem was that we were not supplying the colour. Every student would have a different set of paints. This though was also an advantage. It meant that the reality of colour mixing was something all students would face right from the beginning. The first problem was the common language of colour. You just had to get used to it. Scarlets were supposed to be strong warm reds, vermilions were orange reds, cadmium reds perhaps closer to a mid–red.  However every manufacturer had their own idea of what these things were, and you had to get your head round what vermillion hue might be as opposed to vermillion. Scarlet red was however something else. This shifting mess of language variation was then converted into something more meaningful by asking students to go back to the previous day’s activity and to look at the colour and make a decision as to where it sat within the colour wheel. Mid red, or orange red or violet red. Then of course to decide how far off mid-red this colour was. A tiny fraction or so far away it could almost be an orange.

I really liked the fact that so much discussion was going on, but I’m also aware some students were bored and later as oil was phased out, the course would simply buy in a basic set of colours and that would be that, every student would be made equal.

At some point colour mixing would begin. Task one was to achieve a mid red (or other chosen primary). Once you had made your thoughts clear about the red you were starting with, you could adjust it. An orange tinted vermillion could be sent back towards mid red by adding a tiny amount of violet, a cool scarlet might have a touch of yellow added to it. Once the primary mix was established its complementary would be mixed. So if we started with red a mid-green needed to be made.  Again lots of talk about colours would go on. What was for instance, an olive green, was it a green or really a dark yellow? This would allow us to introduce the issue of mixing with black. Some students would be able to demonstrate in their mixes that yellow had been reduced to olive green by being mixed with black. We would tend to argue that the black was actually a very dark blue; these conversations again making students more aware of the complexity.

Students would make notes in pencil alongside their colour mixes, which were usually done using palette knives. This would lead to talk on how to mix paint properly, (no streaks allowed, mixes must be opaque, so lakes would have to have other colours added to them) and of course there was the issue of grounds. Patrick’s favourite quick fix was to rub margarine into the paper with a rag. It was probably fine for these sessions, but we would also let students mix on un-primed scraps of paper as well so that they could see the difference in tonal and colour value once the ground had sucked out the warm oil. This was all very organic. Mixes would spread over the paper forming natural clusters of related colours, each mix slightly different; again these would get talked about as if they were images in their own right. Each student producing different dynamics from these mixes, some making tiny neat squares, others messy patches, some working out from the centre, others starting on the left and working to the right, moving from top to bottom etc.  It was important to allow for this other element to enter the situation as it was part of the diagnostic element of the course. Years later I returned to do some work in foundation and everyone had to put their mixes into measured grids. By then however student numbers had reached about two hundred and those conversations Patrick would start about the nature of British Racing Green had become impossible.

At some point in the morning everyone was supposed to have mixed these two colours. The next stage was to set about mixing the found primaries and their complementaries again, but this time in enough quantity to start making other mixes. This itself took some time; even though students had made notes on the mixes, remixing larger quantities was hard, it wasn’t just a case of remixing proportionally larger amounts, mixing would always need to be optically judged, in particular tonal value changed due to the fact that larger amounts were perceived differently due to the continuing change in visual context.

Once mixed, the colours were gradually added to each other. Tiny amounts of mid red to mid green, tiny amounts of mid green to mid red.  Students would have to watch the mix carefully, it should stay on mid. Of course the colours gradually moved into the neutrals as they negated each other, but these neutrals were very different as you examined each student’s individual worksheet. We would put these sheets up and read from the pencil notes. Winsor and Newton Artists’ Oil colour would produce far less ‘greying out’ and you could get much closer to a black mix than with using cheap student grade paints. We would point out how whiting added to cheap paint mixes made them ‘pale out’.

By the end of the day students should have produced six mixes (blue/orange, orange/blue, red/green, green/red, yellow/violet and violet/yellow. (It might seem perverse to make students do both blue to orange and orange to blue mixes but doing this really got them to understand pigment staining power.)

The organic nature of the shapes that would be made by the different colour mixes would help students illustrate the pigment staining power. For instance, some pigments, such as Prussian blue had enormous staining power, a tiny amount would effect a change on another pigment, whilst others, such as yellow had to work hard to effect change.  Therefore as mixes were made patches of colours emerged with smaller or larger qualities of pigment that had been used for the mixing. More yellow needed than Prussian blue etc.

Finally the neutrals were compared. These were seen as vital colours that could be used in various ways to bring back life and movement into a coloured surface.

The quality of a blue/orange mix would be examined. Often the cool aspect of a blue/orange neutral would be picked out in comparison to the green/red mix which seemed to stay warmer. (In theory they should be the same, but in reality paints have limitations and it was these limitations that were of interest to us). The issue was, look carefully, you might expect one thing to happen, but because of the chemical consistency of the paint and different manufacturer’s individual grinding techniques (the toothpaste quality that comes from over grinding), unexpected things will occur. The job of the painter is to look and respond.

Finally we would have some pigment in powder form available and students could get small amounts of it to add into their mixes. They would be asked to look at the ‘bite’ and ‘tooth’ of the mix as well as the opaqueness and covering power. Hopefully they also achieved better neutral mixes, some students if I can remember rightly sometimes managing to get mixes very close to actual black.

At a later time during the course if students went on to specialise in painting they would get an introduction to grounds and under-painting etc. but at this point it was useful to see who just loved moving the stuff around and mixing it.

Because I was running a print area, I used to have glass and stone grinding slabs, oils and powder pigments, so I used to get heavily involved with this, students coming to me, often with Patrick in tow, to have extra 'oomph' added to their mix by grinding in pure pigment. Patrick would just test it for 'tooth' once ground, "a little more oil I think" or "it's still too much like toothpaste". 

An introduction to colour (Part one)

Each year on the foundation course we would rethink how colour could be introduced. Therefore there is a somewhat blurred image in my head as to how we did this. However I’ve tried to pick out what I can remember as a typical series of sessions. They might be in the wrong order, or we may well have done these things in different orders at different times.

Preparing for the first week.

Students would be asked to start collecting colour. They were to collect paper, cloth etc. that could be stuck down and to collect large and small areas of it. They were also asked to categorise their collections into the three paint primaries and their secondary mixes. These six collections had to be brought into college on the first day of colour week one. We would also ask students to choose clothing based on these same divisions. So they had to decide if they were red, orange, yellow etc. and dress accordingly. (Nb. Sometimes students would be given an individual colour to collect, tutorial group one would get red etc.)  

Day one:

Usually this would start by getting the students to move around in colour groups. Initially collecting them together by colour, we could point out how fashion was dictating preference. At that time lots of students seemed to wear blue denim, jeans were always blue then and denim shirts were common. It seems an age ago and colour selection now would of course be totally different, but this was the point we were making. I’m not sure if this ever really got through to the students though, because clothes selection is perhaps too emotionally close to home when you are that age and you don’t really want to think about the fact that all your choices are being shaped and determined by factors outside your control. 

The next stage would be to start trying to identify certain colours, students would be asked, “is that really a dark blue, should it really be classified as a violet?” Blacks and neutrals in particular were interrogated, “is that coat a green-black or a blue-black?”, “what type of grey is that?” If certain decisions were changed then students might have to join other groups, the idea being that as you start looking more carefully you start changing opinions and forming new ideas as to what things might be.

We might ask them to start looking for one particular colour, red for instance. To tune their eyes to that alone and scan the room. This was an attempt to heighten an awareness of how attention to something changes our perception, the introduction of the observer into the situation we would point out changes everything. In particular as we are going to deal with issues about light, the fact that light could be seen to behave sometimes as a particle, and at other times as a wave, was a favourite paradox and this would be an excuse to start talking about duality and the nature of attention. By looking for things, it was pointed out, we also create things.

After several different games we would reconvene and start doing things with the collected colour. Usually the students would be asked to use an A1 cartridge sheet as a background to an initial investigation of their colour resources. The first task might be to find a mid red; a red that was not moving towards either orange or violet; then to do the same with the other two primaries and finally to compare their results with a neighbour. This would take some time. Lots of questioning and debate as to where that middle was and finally of course this mid set of primaries, would never be the same as your neighbours. Nothing was stuck down at this point, students were moving around approximately one inch square bits of coloured paper.

The next step would be to get the students to stare at these selected mid primaries one at a time. First the blue. Staring with unfocused eyes for approximately two minutes at the square would induce a halo effect consisting of its optical opposite, a glowing orange. Once students could make that happen, (for some it took a bit of practice) they had to work out how to control this optical opposite by slowly directing it across and around the large sheet of white paper and then out into the room. They would be asked to consider this optical glow and ask if it was really a yellow orange and if so, was the blue they were looking at really a blue/violet?

(Some sessions would then go on to look at mixing a paint equivalent to the optical glow, but not this one)

The next part of the session, which by now might be the afternoon, dependent on how much talking the staff were doing, was a stick and paste session. Students would be asked to consider their collections. Did they think they had enough green or red etc to cover a full page? Hopefully there were enough collections to go round and bolster people dealing with let’s say violet which was always a tricky colour to collect. Before doing anything with these colours there would often be conversations as to where they were coming from. For instance lots of violets seemed to come from chocolate bars, food packaging was rarely blue but cleaning products could be.  It was a first introduction to the cultural and emotional significance of colour, but we were at this stage wanting a focus on the control and awareness of colour. The first bit of fixing would be to choose a mid primary or secondary and put it down as an indicator. The sheet would now be for instance a green or red sheet and students would now start sticking greens or reds or whatever colour they had chosen onto the sheet. However they were not to transgress boundaries. When did  red become an orange and when did a violet become a blue? When did a cool yellow become a green or a warm violet (purple) a red.? Again lots of looking and questioning as the sheets evolved. Of course what would happen was that what might initially read as a warm violet, might cool or warm even further by contrast with other types of violet colours. Colour was to be seen as something only to be found in context with its surroundings, a fact that we would look at on the next day.

At the end of the day as always there would be a crit. Each of the colour objects would go up and they would now be treated as images in their own right. Consideration as to energy pulse and rhythm would come from how light passages moved into dark. Clustering of certain types of colour could lead to certain eye movements or overall tonal value might give one image an emotional charge or drama. The colour feeling tone would be sounded of a mustard dominated yellow and compared with a baby blue pastel toned indigo shifting towards violet. The drama of one image, contrasted to the calm, soft floating quality of another. We could point out how by simply restricting themselves to one colour each, they had still been able to create a wide range of visual meanings and that colour was also dependent on compositional dynamics, quality, quantity and context.  Some students would have started with a large torn out colour from a poster perhaps and all the other pieces might be much smaller and clustered around the edges of this first selection, some students were methodical and organised their colours into similar sizes, some had moved through tonal sequences other created dramatic tonal contrast, some forms were organically grown others much more geometric. Torn edges would be compared to cut ones, subtle changes to abrupt ones. These various possibilities were picked out and then other issues such as surface would come in. A preponderance of dots perhaps (large screen printed posters etc) or a shininess or matt quality, all would be part of the visual read. The import thing was that these were being taken seriously as images and not just seen as colour exercises.

At the end of the day we would remind students they would also need their paints and a palette for the following morning.

Even choice of palette could be cause for argument. Should it be white or glass? Should it be linked to the underpainting? The answer was to of course use glass, you could slip a bit of colour underneath if you needed to mix in relation to the context the colour would eventually find itself within. 

Strategies and processes

I found the handout I mentioned in the last post, so here it is:

 

Fine Art Level 4 Strategies and processes

Strategies and processes can be used as a way of initially brainstorming around a situation you are faced with. Remember these are not answers to a problem, they are simply ways of opening out possible issues that have not been thought about before and they may therefore lead to innovative solutions.

Typical strategies and processes that can be used:

• Editing.  Filtering, selecting and choosing. Paring away until a new form or structure is revealed.

• Masking. Covering, editing out or selectively obscuring elements in order to change meaning.

• Priority. When dealing with multiple elements, to prioritise certain information over others. Changing expected or accepted priorities.

• Focusing. Zooming in or out in order to pick out previously insignificant details and elevating them to a new status, or loosing details in order to focus on the general.

• Dissolving. Eliminating the differences between concepts or objects so that similarities can be highlighted. Mixing things together so that the original components can’t be identified.

·  Freeze-frame. To stop motion. To examine one particular moment. Time selection.

• Stochastic processes. A scattering of events in a semi-random manner. The use of a random component within a selective process.

• Iteration. Repeating whatever is being done in as many ways as possible and selecting only those outcomes that most closely match the goal. Repeat the process.

• Uncovering. The removal or excavation of layers in order to discover what lies beneath.

• Minimise. Subtracting elements. Condensing. Miniaturise. Shorten, lighten. Omit. Understate.

• Modelling. Create small models of individual elements or a model of the whole thing under investigation. Simplify everything, remove details. Work like a railway modeller or systems analyst, shift focus as new frames of reference are revealed.

• Chop down/destroy. Brutal elimination of everything except the base elements. Destruction can be the start of creation.

• Improvisation. The interaction between intentionality and chance. Exploring the possible permutations of existing relationships. Usually associated with skills derived from jazz and related musical techniques, these can be opened up to any other structured activity.

• Interaction. The interaction between two or more processes or products to create new forms. The ability to transform something by acting upon it with a force or process that is determined by the creator.

• Combination. Simple combination of two different objects, ideas – complex combinations of processes or systems.

• Diffusion. Spreading the object or behaviour out beyond its original territory or accepted domain into new areas.

• Mapping. Identifying connections between two different sets of information. Using symbolic notation to re-visualise complex information. A mind-map would come under this heading.

• Repetition. Looping, creating multiples, changing by force of accumulation.

• Copying. Mimicking, re-producing etc. Working with type and token. Examining the gap between the copy and the original. For example: The gradual degradation of photocopies of photocopies, the impossibility of re-creating nature as seen in the myth of Pygmalion.

• Gameplay. Inventing a set of rules that determines how things will look/operate/behave.

• Adaptation. Adapting one thing to enable it to do or become something else. Modification. Change meaning.

• Substitution. Who or what else instead? Other ingredients, materials, processes, approaches, places etc.

• Apply the rules/language/culture developed for one thing to something else.  For example the logic of football to the development of an exhibition of work. Does the exhibition catalogue become like a football programme? Does the choice of a painting’s colours depend on whether we are playing home or away?

• Linking. Physical investigation of how two or more elements can be linked together. For instance looking at how elastic bands can physically bring together a range of different non related objects, or investigations into the visual properties of knots, seams, tapes, glues, binding materials etc. and what they can join to.

• Metonyms and metaphors. Either making one thing stand in for another or linking something to something else that it is not normally associated with.

• Changing the context. Removing the object or concept from one context and putting it into another. This may change the use value or render original meanings associated with the concept redundant. Alternatively the context itself may be questioned as to its original function/value.

• Artificial restrictions. Restricting the normally available materials, space, people, language, receptors etc., in order to challenge the ability to operate or achieve a goal.

• Real life conflict. Pitching people into a reality shift by forcing them to move out of their comfort zone. Times of severe duress, war, economic meltdown etc. are an extreme example of this. Displacement by moving into another society, to escape the complicity of one’s own culture. Disorientation by removing the ability to use certain senses, the siting of work in controlled environments. Perhaps doing art-work in a busy street that you would normally undertake in a studio environment.

• Interpretation. Changing the ‘reading’ of an event, object or situation. Taking another position in relation to the experience. For example looking at what is missing rather than what is present. A new allegory can alter the way that language represents experience. Applying the ‘reading’ of one situation to a totally different one.

• Establishing a norm. A reference point or set of points that can be used to establish a new set of relationships. For example a grid can be used to rationalise differences and establish a set of hierarchies. Producing a ‘set’ of objects that have a ‘family of resemblance’ and introducing an ‘outsider’. Only working with objects that have a certain quality. (Made of plastic, or blue, or under 10mm tall, or touched by the Pope, or made in Leeds etc.)

• Scale. Changes in scale imply changes in relationship. Also changes in size, numbers and mass may also be used to move from micro to macro readings.

• Shuffling/Randomisation/Permutations. Creating unforeseen juxtapositions. Rearrange.

• Collecting and categorising. Any collection of objects, ideas etc. can be categorised in different ways. Each categorical concept will provide unique associations and unforeseen links.

• Translation or transcription. To represent something in another language. Verbal to visual, or from stone to paper. This may involve interpretation. For example interpreting the structure of a meeting as a music score, saying the same thing in semaphore or Braille. Looking at the way translation changes meaning. For example if we translate an English word into French, the French word into Chinese, the Chinese into Spanish, the Spanish into……. etc. and then finally translate back into English. What will have happened with the shift in meanings?  

• Reversal/Inversion. To identify the opposite of something.  Turn upside down, transpose cause and effect. Start working on something one way up or in a particular manner using certain conventions, then change things. Now work in response to the new situation. A sideways view of a painting of a street may look like a person, a performance using responses to your body could become a film responding to a building.

• Competition. To set up a situation where differing concepts/ideas are put into competition. Identifying the strengths and weaknesses and building on them in order to evolve a winner. Evolutionary theory as strategy.

• Documentation. Recording and storing as a means of ordering and controlling. Surveillance as control. Documentation as a replacement or substitution for art/life.

·    Jokes. To use the strategies of humour to create unforeseen connections. For example the use of parody to invoke a style for ironic intent, or to set up a situation designed to bring out the humour in an apparently ‘serious’ environment. To tell jokes in new ways. To make something so poor, so awful that it becomes funny.

• Collaboration. The use of others to create meaning. An acknowledgement of the role of the observer/receiver of information. Using other people to carry out your instructions, the Chinese whispers approach. Working in a team, rather than as an individual.

• Resistance. Working against the grain. Going the wrong way. Taking a political stance. Writing a manifesto that directs your practice. Writing an anti-manifesto. Doing things in ways that seem totally useless or the worst way of approaching the situation.

There are of course many others. As you gain experience you will find strategies that work for you. Some writers leave half finished sentences on their word processor when they go to bed, knowing the half formed idea will impel them into inventive action as soon as they resume work the next day. As a professional you will never be allowed to say ‘I’ve got no ideas’, it’s your job to be able to come up with something, no matter how you are feeling. Therefore you need to find strategies that will work for you.

BA Fine Art: From thinking to doing

One of the problems that has to be overcome with all students is that they can think too much. Thinking is OK but it has to lead somewhere, so this set of stages were looked at and then developed as a handout to help students think about where they were. Most importantly this was seen as a circular process.

BA Fine Art: From thinking to doing

Formative stage

The formative stage of creative thinking is often linked to the application of various processes that enable us to ‘think’ about existing things differently. This should enable us to develop ‘novel’ or ‘unusual’ approaches. Approaches such as brainstorming, producing mind maps, listing, forming random word associations etc. may be useful as starting points.  A set of typical approaches is available in the handout ‘Towards Constructing Praxis’.

Evaluative 1^st stage

Deciding on which idea to pursue is often harder than coming up with ideas. There are however several ways that processes of evaluation can be developed.

1. The crit. The crit is a good way of getting other people to comment and advise on how to go forward. Other people are often better than yourself at spotting the best ideas. Their objectivity is sometimes hard to take as you have often invested more in some ideas than others, but time and involvement do not necessarily make the best results. Typical approaches to a crit. are available as a handout and these can also be used to develop self-evaluation strategies.
2. Self-evaluation. If you are to self-evaluate it’s a good idea to set yourself some rules. This can help you focus on the differing issues that could impel a work forward. The main issue is that you need to be able to define a practical way forward. This usually means that you will need to make things and the process of making then starts to inform the idea with a physical existence. You will have to assess how the nature of the medium used, (plaster, clay, paint, lino, collage, video, photography etc. etc.), invests the idea with its presence. Making art implies that physical objects, videos, photographs etc. all embody concepts and these concepts are derived out of a combination of historical models, contemporary practices and the nature of the specific medium.

Developmental

At this stage the most valuable thing you can do is make variations. The more you make the more you are able to discover potential and find surprises. Again the more systematic you are the better. For instance you may make variations of:

1. formal issues; changes in composition, lighting, scale, proportion, colour, texture, size, tonality etc.
2. context; changes in relationship, position, shifting of meaning etc.
3. method; film it, make it, cast a shadow of it, perform it, write it out, construct a diagram of it, print it, dig a hole for it etc.
4. process; people and relationships, systems thinking, epistemic actions* modelling**, etc. again the processes listed in the handout can be useful as a prompt.

*the concept of epistemic actions (Kirsh & Maglio, 1994) are actions that do not traverse the problem space toward the goal but facilitate subsequent problem solving by changing the actor's cognitive state

**modelling; a simplification of reality intended to promote understanding

Evaluative 2^nd stage

This time the evaluation process can focus more on how things are done. Is it the right material, scale, process, context etc.

It may be an evaluation of a series of variations and a decision made as to which one works and which doesn’t. Why this is, is again a useful question to ask. Once this is decided upon, this may become the starting point for the next series of objects, paintings, videos, web-sites etc.

Again the crits and self-evaluation processes can be informed by a series of questions prompted by supporting handouts.

At this stage you may want to try out writing a rationale. This could involve you tracing back through the process you have taken so far.

Remember. These processes are prompts and the reality of any situation is that the indefinable mixture between intuition, emotional attachment and logic will ensure that everyone goes through this process differently and that there is no right way.

More reading or looking at other artists may help as this point. However be careful not to let theory get in the way. The ideal state to reach is that of ‘praxis’, where theory and practice are welded together.

Developmental 2^nd stage

How effective is the work? How can it be refined to maximise its potential? At this stage you should be thinking of ‘professional’ issues such as ‘finish’. How well should it be made? Should the object be manufactured or have a hand-made quality? Should film/computer footage be projected, on TV screen, shown within a specially made environment? Who is the audience and how can you present to them? How can you fund/build to the necessary scale/obtain the necessary technical equipment? Who else needs to be involved? Is the work about what you thought it was about or is it really about something else? As a fine artist you are not working to someone else’s brief and can shift emphasis or direction at will. It is whether or not it is interesting to you and whether or not there is potential to make an original statement. At this stage you may want to respond to crits but you have to balance what the others may say with how you see the resolution of your own ‘vision’. There is an issue over the ‘rhetoric’ that you are using to impel the work forward and the language that is evolving. Again you may want to develop your rationale to try and aid others in ‘entering’ into a dialogue with the work.

Evaluation 3^rd stage (Developing ideas towards the next piece)

Where and how should this work be presented? How can you maximise its potential? Should there be just one item on show, should there be several or a multitude? How can you move on? Which aspects of the work are potential development areas? How are thoughts about the presentation helping to open out potential for the work? What needs crafting to a higher resolution in future? Should it be bigger/smaller next time? What concepts were not fully fleshed out? Where were the interesting moments on the journey? Was I ambitious enough? Remember that being an artist is not about producing one offs. Work is part of a constant process and a new body of work usually starts before the old body is finished. In fact you are often still in the position of showing or presenting one body of work, whilst developing others. There is no clear starting or stopping point.

Third stage evaluation often then leads directly onto a new Formative stage

The process can therefore start all over again

Remember the old adage:

If I hear it I forget it

If I see it I remember it

If I do it I know it

I must look out some of the handouts. In particular the one on processes, students have found that quite useful and it would of course make more sense of this last post.