Unit 3: Process

Below is a collection of sketches, photographs, experiments, artworks, collages, materials and photoshop manipulation in order of their making, delving into and showing the techniques and materials that I have used / made recently in order to get to my gallery of final outcomes.

CONCERTINA BINDING

Taking Myself for a Walk, 251cm (w) x 17cm (h), mixed media on postcards bound with thread

Before these postcards had been bound into a concertina they were stuck down in six rows of four. I wanted them to be considered as a unit but ended up not liking them being stuck together and flat because of how much they differentiate in colour, pattern and texture. As one piece they were too much for my eyes to take in. However, I still wanted them to be together as they relate so much to one another as they were all made during my daily walks. In a tutorial with Geraint, he suggested book binding or concertina binding. I decided to bind them into a concertina using thread and a needle as I felt that it was the most effective way for them to be attached while also enabling me to view them individually.

HARMONIOUS AND COMPLEMENTARY COLOUR CLASSES / SYDENHAM GARDEN

My mum is a teacher for adults with learning disabilities and adults who are living with or recovering from poor mental health. She teaaches a range of classes from communication and numeracy, to creative writing, gardening and art. During the summer term of '24 my mum's art students were doing creative projects related to colour and my mum asked me to teach two of her classes. I did a lesson plan and decided that the focus of the classes I'd be teaching would be harmonious and complementary colours, then I created the worksheets above and photocopied enough for the thirty-nine students in total. As a starter activity the students identified colours via the colour wheel. I explained to the students what complementary and harmonious colours are, how they are identified and how complementary and harmonious colours differentiate from each other. The students picked two pairs of colours opposite to each other on the colour wheel (complementary) to draw onto their worksheet and then they picked three colours next to each other on the colour wheel (harmonious) to also draw onto the worksheet. With the harmonious and complementary colours the students picked they were encouraged to discuss the effects that the colours had on their eyes and how they made them feel with each other. The students agreed that complementary colours clash in tone and that harmonious colours are similar and have a calmer effect. I presented a list of artists and examples of their paintings that include either, or both, complementary and harmonius colours. To finish off the classes, the students, using either the complementary or harmonious colours they picked from the colour wheel, drew designs with patterns and shapes.

After the first art class I taught me and my mum joined forces in her next class, a gardening class. It had been arranged for the class to visit Sydenham Garden, a community garden that encourages all kinds of wildlife, grows a variety of plants and provides therapeutic sessions in horticulture for people with learning disabilities and mental health problems. Sarah, one of the workers, walked us around the garden, talking through projects such as the building of a hut and oven with handmade clay, the construction of the wildlife pond, troughs, beds and greenhouse, as well as telling us about all the plant and tree varieties they had around the garden. We also had a variety of herbal teas made from lemon verbena and mint leaves from the garden and took a closer look at some of the wildlife in the pond (Newts, Common Blue Damselfly and Red-veined darter).

SOME PHOTOS FROM THE VISIT (BELOW)

As we walked through the wildlife garden I was in a complete state of calm and transfixed by my surroundings. Myself, as well as the students were encouraged to interact with the plants and trees while we walked, we picked leaves, smelt flowers, touched the bark on the trunks of the trees. We interacted with nature similar to the way I interact with it on my daily walks in order to be transported away from the noise of the everyday, my thoughts, the city and other people. Over lunch and drinking tea, myself, the students and social workers discussed the effect of walking through nature and I noticed how nature spoke to / calmed the students who struggle to communicate verbally, wich made me realise just how powerful nature is and how much of a necessity it is for us.

I made connections of complementary colours with the mix of wildlife and natural forms such as a Red-veined darter which was resting on grass (these colours are depicted in postcard 13/06/24 III and Cutout I). Sarah also kindly let me take a leaf from a Phlomis Russeliana (Turkish sage) to use for a postcard (13/06/24 VI) as I found myself drawn to the plant, perhaps because it was one that I interacted with during our walk around the garden.

13/06/24 I, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), ink, pen and watercolour on card

13/06/24 II, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), pencil and charcoal on card

13/06/24 III, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), handmade clay, grass, acrylic and watercolour paint on card

13/06/24 IIII, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), ink on card

13/06/24 V, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), soil, stones, pencil and watercolour on card

(Left) 13/06/24 VI, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), leaf, oil pastel, pen, pencil and watercolour on card

(Right) A Digital Study of Phlomis Russeliana, digital painting via the Brushes app

I made Cutout I (above) using air-drying clay, ink, coloured pencil, pencil and watercolour. I also used my version of the soak stain technique which I haven't used since unit 1, where I soak fabric with watercolour on top of paper and wait for the fabric to dry before taking it off of the paper. The fabric leaves a stain / print of itself on the paper. The lines printed onto the paper reminded me of tree branches, and the clay of the front path that leads into Sydenham Garden, so I made the collages above by layering Cutout I with a photo I took of the entrance of Sydenham Garden. I tried a few different placements of the cutout and ended up liking the collage on the far right the most as the clay follows the path as if the cutout is not flat, like an optical illusion, and the lines from folds in the fabric merge accurately with the trees flowing over the path.

Study of a Wildflower Garden is a larger scale response to the postcards I made after the time I spent at Sydenham Garden and teaching my mum's art classes on complementary and harmonious colours. Similar to Cutout I, red and green appear next to each other (bottom left photograph and in the bottom right corner of top left photograph above) and harmonious green tones appear next to each other. I stuck down some of the fabric I used to print onto the paper for an additional shade of green. Gentle tones, finicky lines and shapes resemble the natural forms I saw while walking through Sydenham Garden.

Study of a Wildlife Garden, 112cm (w) x 76cm (h), mixed media on paper

CYANOTYPE PHOTOGRAPHY

During the crits at the Postgraduate Fine Art show, where my painting, Study of a Wildlife Garden, was being shown alongside Taking Myself For a Walk, Gavin mentioned how my depiction of the roots attached to the Phlomis Russeliana were not accurate to actual roots as I hadn't included a primary root or root cap, he asked if there was a reason for this but truthfully there wasn't as I as ore focused on the plant itself as I'd touched it's leaves and petals during my walk around Sydenham Garden. Gavin also suggested titling the postcards I've been making the date of the walk they'd been inspred by, similar to a diary, which I started doing after this as I consider the postcards to be a reflection /journalling of how I felt while walking through nature. After the crit I looked around in the neighbouring room which included photography student's work also installed for the degree show. I stumbled across some Cyanotype photography and was reminded of an exhibition at Dulwich Picture Gallery that I went to 2021 that was titled Unearthed Photography's roots.

04/07/24, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), watercolour and ink on card

In the above postcard I attempted to recreate the effect of a Cyanotype photograph by soaking fabric with blue watercolour on top of the card. Ultimately I decided to actually try making some Cyanotype photography using plants that I pulled up and leaves that I'd collected on my daily walks around the neighbourhood, at Hayes Reserve, my local park and in the gardens of Dulwich Picture Gallery on my way to do volunteering there.

PROCESS OF MY CYANOTYPE PHOTOGRAPHS BELOW

I coated paper and some fabric that I'd originally planned on using for soaking watercolour paint onto paper with a solution of iron salts from a cynotype pack gifted to me years ago after seeing Anna Atkins' Cyanotype photographs exhibited in Unearthed: Photography's Roots. Then I left the paper and fabric to dry in dark space. Once they were dry I gathered all of the plants / leaves etc. I started to make some photographs.

I placed the first piece of paper I'd soaked in the Cyanotype solution underneath direct sunlight before placing a plant's exposed roots onto the paper, then pressing it down with an acrylic sheet and leaving it for half an hour followed by soaking it in cool water. I found that the cyanotype photographs I left under direct sunlight came out faded (first row of photos below), so I tried developing them by placing a lamp upside down on top of the paper instead, which caused a much harsher outline of the resources I gathered (second row of photos below), and so for the rest of the photographs I developed I used the lamp instead of natural light.

As for the fabric pieces that I soaked in the cyanotype solution, after using all of the 10.5cm by 10.5cm sheets of paper, I was excited to start developing some photographs onto a different surface. I did the same thing with the paper, placing a resource I'd found on top of the fabric and then pressing it down with the acrylic sheet before putting a lamp directly over it. After being exposed I placed the first few into water for five minutes as recommended, which seemed to entirely erase the outline of the root / leaf / plant from the fabric (evidenced in third row of photos above), so instead I started to leave the fabric in the water after being developed for thirty seconds at the most which ended up making the photographs on fabric alot clearer (evidenced in the fourth row of photos above).

Overall, I am very glad that Gavin pointed out the inaccurate roots on my painting as I probably wouldn't have thought to make these Cyanotypes, it has unlocked a newfound appreciation for the plants and trees that I walk past everyday and I feel I have even more of a connection with my everyday walking routes. These cyanotype photographs are like a photographic version of the postcards I've been making and binding together in that I've made them using the resources that I've collected on walks in nature which have become a necessity for my mind and wellbeing. I'm thinking of making more cyanotypes and sewing them together also in the form of a concertina.

MY WALKS IN YORKSHIRE / MAKING CLAY AND GRASS PIGMENTS / SALT EXPERIMENT

View from Cloudberry Farm Lodge, 21cm (w) x 29.7cm (h), ink and watercolour on paper

(Left) Dick Edge Lane, 21cm (w) x 29.7cm (h), pencil and pen on paper

(Right) Scar Hole Lane, 21cm (w) x 29.7cm (h), pencil on paper

(Left) 08/08/24, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), pencil and pen on card

(Right) 08/08/24, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), pen and watercolour on card

For two weeks during the summer holiday I stayed in West Yorkshire at Cloudberry Farm Lodge with my family. It was very isolated and reminded me of what I feel like during my walks to escape from everything. I can imagine an alternate universe where there is no noise, other than noise caused by nature, or stress, when I am on my walks, but am aware that they have to end, so what felt like my daily walks constantly every day was very healing for me.

After making lots of Cyanotype photographs in replacement of my postcards, I began to miss making clay and pigments so I began to gather water from puddles on paths, soil and grass as there was no shortage of it for miles and miles. I wondered if the clay and pigments I made would be different colours / textures to ones I've made at home in London.

Clay I made in Yorkshire was very sticky and was easy to move around (photos below, top left and right), while clay I made during the spring in London from soil in Hayes Reserve got very dry very quickly and was tougher in general, and also to use / move around. As for the grass pigment I made in Yorkshire, it was very green due (photo below, second row on the right) to how much grass I picked which was also very healthy due to being quite high up altitude-wise, it was constantly damp while also having clear skies.

Salt Experiment, 36cm (w) x 30cm (h), salt and acrylic paint on paper

In previous artworks of mine I have sprinkled salt on top of acrylic paint as a means of creating a rough texture, not knowing the reaction it would have. Due to salt being a hygroscopic substance (absorbs moisture from it's surroundings), it sucks the moisture towards itself which causes paint to separate into interesting, often circular patterns. To remind myself of the effect i tried it again (Salt Experiment) while in Yorkshire as the appearance of salt granuals reminded me of the rough paths I found myelf walking on every day. The above experiment didn't quite work, perhaps because I used acrylic paint as it is supposed to work best with watercolour, so I mixed the salt with soil (photo above, middle left) I collected and sprinkled it on top of the grass pigment I made, which also didn't work as well as I wanted it to as it is very faint in all of the postcards below. As I have using ink alot recently due to being able to create detailed but expressive lines, I decided to use a dip pen the absorb the watery clay and pigment I made for similar effect in the postcards below.

05/08/24, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), handmade clay, pencil, grass pigment, watercolour and salt on card

12/08/24, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), handmade clay, watercolour, soil and salt on card

13/08/24, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), oil pastel, grass pigment, water, watercolour, pencil, soil and salt on card

13/08/24, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), handmade clay, pen, salt, acrylic paint and watercolour on card

14/08/24, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), handmade clay, grass pigment, water, pencil, watercolour and salt on card

On my walks in Yorkshire, yet again, I was fascinated by the dry stone walls. The connection I felt with them seemed deeper, perhaps because on this holiday I understood why I saw myself in them, as I've been described as a wall in the sense that I build a tough exterior by internalising my thoughts and feelings infront of other people alot. I couldn't get away from these walls as they are everywhere in Yorkshire, it was like they had a current as powerful as the ocean, everywhere there was a wall on my walks that reminded me of who I have become since being a carer for my grandad, and internalising my feelings towards my difficult relationship with him.

The Current of a Dry Stone Wall (digital collage), made using Brushes app

20/08/24, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), dried handmade clay, pen and watercolour on card

TAKING A WALL FOR A WALK (CONTINUED)

The Current of a Dry Stone Wall (Drawing), 31cm x 22cm (h), pencil and pen on paper

The Current of a Dry Stone Wall (Digital Drawing I)

The Current of a Dry Stone Wall (Digital Drawing II)

Since returning home from Yorkshire, I struggled to not think about how deep of a connection I had to those walls on my walks. I thought of them as if they had a strong current that keeps reeling me towards them and doesn't stop moving. Similar to unit 2, my drawings above of walls show movement as the stones start to expand away from the solid structure like tentacles.

During one of my daily walks I found an MDF fibreboard and took it home. I had only used wood, paper and canvas to stick clay down so I wondered if clay would be okay on MDF. I used air-drying clay (grey and white to create the effect of an ocean current in the form of a wall) as it is much more brittle than the clay I have made for my postcards, which is the effect that I wanted as the dry stone walls are constantly falling apart due to time and nature's power. I squashed some of the clay into lines that expand away from the confines of the board that further emphasise movement, similar to unit 2 but on a larger scale. I worked on the floor to have more control over the flat wall I was making.

The Current of a Dry Stone Wall, 74cm (w) x 52cm (h), air-drying clay on MDF Fibreboard

Wall Mobile I, 31cm (w) x 13cm (h), air-drying clay on paper

Wall Mobile II, 55cm (w) x 13cm (h), air-drying clay on paper

Wall Mobile III, 116cm (w) x 23cm (h), air-drying clay on paper

Due to this ongoing connection that I have with walls I added more clay pieces to the wall mobile I made in unit 2 which is now named Wall Mobile III. I made an additional two wall mobiles to take with me on a walk to my friend, Helen's alotment, where I'd previously draped the first wall mobile I made. I stuck with using paper to stick the clay to due to it's flexibility, but this time I attached string to the back of all three walls so that I could hang them from Helen's apple tree and leave them there overnight as well as move them around easier. I placed them in different ways but close together so that they appear to connect while nature winds around and through them. I also placed them against bark as in conversation with Esther, a fellow painting student, she thought that they were supposed to resemble bark due to the similar texture.

I walked back to Helen's alotment the next day and all three of the wall mobiles had fallen or broken in half. Wall Mobile I and II had fallen from the tree, breaking when colliding with the ground, while Wall Mobile III was still hanging from a branch but half of it had broken off. It looked like I had ripped them in half and chucked them onto the ground in anger due to being bound by the thought of identifying with walls. It had rained during the night that they'd been outside and the water seemed to soak the paper behind the clay, causing it to weaken and break. The scene reminded me of the scattered stones that had fallen from the dry stone walls in Yorkshire, again, a reminder of nature's power over manmade things.

Tracking My Movement, 143cm (w) x 44cm (h), soil on paper

Before I played around with the different placements of the wall mobiles I laid a sheet of paper down by Helen's tree to take photos of them, which then unintentionally tracked my movement via my footsteps while I moved the wall mobiles. I thought it was quite funny that I had captured my constant and erratic movements while I've been making walls, a static structure, because I have been comparing myself with them... a reminder that I am a human being. After that reminder I became angry that I have been letting these walls control me and stamped on my 'flat' clay piece, The Current of a Dry Stone Wall (photos below).

WALKING / GATHERING MATERIALS / MAKING MORE CLAY AND PIGMENTS

Above are a collection of some photos I have taken on my recent walking routes. I still walk around Hayes Reserve, Dulwich Picture Gallery's garden, my local park (Forster and Manor Park Gardens), around the block and to the local alotments as I find comfort in the familiarity of seeing trees, plants and paths I recognise.

I decided that I would take a different route one afternoon. I went to Crystal Palace Park, a place I am not so familiar with, but is recognisable in the sense that it includes exactly what all of my other routes do, nature and natural resources to collect. It is quite a busy park unlike my local ones, so I didn't quite get away from the noise of the everyday, but I did notice more complementary colours within nature, such as in the photos above of the red and green leaves... Forster park is very green, every tone there blends into each other which creates a calming atmsphere for me. I made another cutout (in the digital collages above) as I was reminded of the one I had made before (Cutout I) in response to wildlife and plants in Sydenham Garden. Both cutouts are inspired by the unique shapes from my surroundings that form and merge into blocks of colour while walking, emphasising my movement through nature.

Above is a digital collage of some of the photos I've taken from late May to mid October, a combination of the many different locations that I've walked through merged together to create one scene with a wall that I walked alongside in Yorkshire that represents me walking through my several routes over the last five months.

On my final walk before focusing on the written elements of the unit 3 deadline I collected soil and different kinds of leaves (green, yellow, brown / dead) and grass from Forster park before heading to Helen's alotment to collect a plastic bottle (I had left it there for three weeks) that I cut open for it to collect as much rain water as possible to use for making more clay, I also had left a small jug there too so that more rain would be caught (photos below, top right and left).

(Top left) Grass and rain water before being crushed / thoroughly mixed.

(Top right) Soil from the start of my walk and rain water before being thoroughly mixed to make clay.

(Bottom left) Grass pigment a few hours after being crushed / thoroughly mixed.

(Bottom right) Soil from the start of my walk and rain water a few hours after being thoroughly mixed to make clay.

(Left) Soil I collected from the end of my walk thoroughly mixed with rain water to make clay.

(Right) Dead / yellow leaves and rain water before being crushed / thoroughly mixed.

(Top left) Green leaves and rain water before being crushed and mixed thoroughtly.

(Top right) Dead / yellow leaves and rain water before being crushed and mixed thoroughly.

(Bottom left) Green leaf pigment a few hours after being crushed and mixed.

(Bottom right) Dead / yellow leaf pigment a few hours after being crushed and mixed.

20/10/24 I, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), handmade clay, acrylic paint, watercolour, grass pigment and salt on card.

(Left) 20/10/24 II, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), soil and handmade clay on card

(Right) 20/10/24 III, 11cm (w) x 17cm (h), leaves, handmade clay, pencil and grass pigment on card.

During my cross-pathway online platform presentation Sarah Woodfine suggested some more ways that I could present my postcards, such as speading them out to give the more space between each other. After placing the ones I've made during this unit digitally on a wall, I ultimately decided that I would prefer for them to be added to the Concertina that I bound together at the start of the unit, attaching them to previous entries I've made to further emphasise movement, the line of a wall, a journey of several diary entries in order of when they were made. I also enjoy the personal touch of hand sewing them together with a needle and thread.

Taking Myself for a Walk, 414cm (w) x 17cm (h), mixed media on paper

To finish off the unit / continue to develop after the unit, using the rest of the batches of clay I made using soil I gathered at the start and end of my last walk and pigments I made from grass, green leaves and dead / yellow leaves (testing pigments pictured above on the left), I decided to start creating expressive works that resemble shapes of the natural forms I came across during my walks as they merge and blur during my movement through nature as I walk. I mixed the clay I made from soil at the start and ending point of my walks to further emphasise movement, and additionally only used my hands to spread the clay and pigments to express my unity with nature while walking through it.

I created eleven of these horizontal paintings and have made a larger scale Concertina out of them (photos below) as I feel that it is a book layout that expresses movement effectively and they can continue to be added to, to make longer (a work in progress!)

Moving Through Nature (series), 62cm (w) x 43cm (h) (individually), handmade clay, leaves, twigs, grass pigment, green leaf pigment and dead / yellow leaf pigment on paper

Moving Through Nature (concertina), 682cm (w) x 43cm (h), handmade clay, leaves, twigs, grass pigment, green leaf pigment and dead / yellow leaf pigment on paper bound together with wool and a darling needle.