Typography Portraits

Stumbled upon the exciting world of typography recently and am finding, in the words of Depeche Mode, that  I 'just can't get enough'. My adventures into creating my own experimental versions have so far  resulted in a lego ABC, a garden photography collection and a cute little alphabet built from deconstructed miniature pegs. However, these are all rather fumbly and fun  but not particularly considered. I'm just getting my teeth into it though so watch this space for improvements!

Check this article out- it's a thorough description of the considerations the designer has worked through in creating a unique yet usable typeface called 'Tundra'. It's such a complex art- form and one I somehow haven't paid much attention to before.  

http://ilovetypography.com/2011/10/05/the-making-of-ff-tundra/#more-11046 

Also catching my eye are typography portraits- there's too many favorites to post here so  I've chosen just a few to get the tastebuds tingling.

Artists and systems of measurement

A 'think-about' artists who famously used systems of measurement in their work.

Albrecht Durer: (1471-1528)

This German painter, theorist and printmaker is noted for his theories involving principles of mathematics, perspective and proportions. Invented the 'Durer grid'.

Euan Euglow: (Late 20th Century)
Famed for his figurative paintings incorporating distinctive measuring marks, Euglow is the best known student of William  Coldstream.

Chuck Close:
Often uses visual gridden formats in his large scale photoreal portraits. His pieces are labour intensive incorporating processes of painting, woodblock, reduction block, scribble and etching.

Sol le Witt:
'Conceptualist' - Famed for his wall drawings- and deceptively simple geometric sculptures and drawings. Plans for drawings submitted that cannot always be carried out!

Still Life drawing using a grid, and then a concertina book!

Using a 'Durer' grid I drew a still life arrangement of plants, a jug and rope. I made an initial line drawing onto a measured grid of a ratio 5 x 7 . I then added tonal values to the picture. Using the durer grid is beneficial as it provides a managable guide to proportions and foreshortening, and there's potential to easily transform scale,  perspective or proportions by altering it's dimensions.

 The drawing was then photocopied and reversed negative/positive to create a black and white printed image of the picture. This was then cut and folded to create a concertina book , which I then arranged on the surface of the table to create a new still life object .

From this new  still life object I made a line drawing with pencil and light shding before then filling in the marks made in the photocopied mage of my original drawing with black watercolour, charcoal and pencil.

Fragmented evidence of overlooked ephemera

Candy Jernigan:

Obsessively documented her existance! Manifested  the idea of 'proof of life,'  documenting evidence of her journey through life. Collected memorabilia including detritus of  food she consumed, coke tabs, bugs, empty cigarette packs, scraps of doodles and drawings- and other odd things. She presented them in notebooks and journals that recontextualize the every-day.

 

 Mark Dion:

Collecting , organising and exhibiting objects in curiosity cabinets. "Examines the way dominent ideologies and public institutions shape our understanding of history, knowledge and the natural world."

 

Susan Hiller:

Installations/ Video / Photography / Performance / Writing

Cornelia Parker:

Installation artist and sculptor. 'Cold Dark matter' was an exploded shed, blown up by the army and suspended the fragments as if 'suspending the process in time'. In the centre was a light which cast shadows around the walls of the room. 

Peter Blake:

The English 'pop' artist who is best known for designing the famous sleeve for the Beatles album 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'. Works across media- collage, scultpure, engraving, printmaking and graphics. He was of the british pop artist generation including David Hockney, Richard Hamilton and Patric Caulfield.

Eva Hesse:
Pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass and plastics. A natural feel for materials and command of composition. 'Where does painting end and drawing begin?'

Manipulating surfaces and new ways with mark - making

Lucio Fontana:

Interested in spacialism, abstractism and using new technologies, Fontana questioned traditionsof art on a flat surface and realises the time had come for fine artists to be producing images of a 3D and 4D format.

 "Matter should be transformed into energy  in order to invade space in a dynamic form"

He asaulted the surfaces of his canvas', slashing and making holes in itor sticking random shapes onto the surface.

Implied Line: a line in a work that is subtlety perceived by the viewer but has no physical form.

Sian Bowen: 

Primary medium is drawing using papers that are embedded with a history of their own - wallpaper from a lighthouse, letters, documents and oiling or smokimng these papers to embue them with depth. 

Caroline Broadhead:

Makes textiles and sculptural installations.

'Dress with Holes'

Plays with the object, uses the dress as a metaphor , and looks into people, their belongings and their shadows- and making the shadow an artistic element in itself.

Machiko Agano :
Japanese master weaving artist, makes elaborate woven structures to be installed in specific places.
'Translucent coloured materials to portray delicate natural emotions allows characteristica of the surrounding space to penetrate and reflect the work.'

Masa Kobayashi:
Creates installations using natural and manmade materials.

Andy Goldsworthy:
Enviromental sculptor, uses natural surroundings, seasons and weather, leaves, grasses, stones, wood, sand , clay, ice and snow. Uses photographs to document his work.

Walter de Maria:
Contemporary Art/ Minimalism/ Earth Art
Occupied with Earth's relationship with the universe. Creates situations where landscape and nature, light and weather become intense experiences.

Let there be Light

Taking a bit of time here to think about the different ways artists have used light in their work- focusing on  Christian Boltanski, Julie Mehretu,  Dan Flavin, James Turrell, J.M.W Turner, Francisco Goya and Rembrandt.


Christian Bollanski

'Theatre'

In 1986 Christian Bollanski began making assemblages of objects with light effects He chose items that were embedded with huge emotional power and staged them in books, collections, archives and exhibitions. These items were relics of the past. that explored memory, the artist's personal memories and beyond that to the history of humanity itself.



Julie Mehretu
Mehretu uses all types of imagery including comic books, graffitti, baroque engravings, japanese calligraphy. layered up to create a  kind of language of her own. The pieces are often on an enormous scale, yet with miniature details. These minute marks implying an  individual  story in an infinate universe. Her paintings and drawings reference mapping and respond to  to elements of space and light. 

Dan Flavin
Flavin utilises flourescent lights of varied lengths and colours to create unique light scultpures that  inhabit the space  in which they are installed. They wash walls with colour and although  abstract, they encompass an endless  range of emotion.

Francisco Goya
"I see only forms that are lit up and forms that are not. There is only light and shadow."

The innovative spanish 'Romantisim' painter used his areas  of light and dark to  encourage  the  viewer to respond to his imagery in  the way he wants us to.  Those who Goya believed were 'good'  were shown in  the light and them 'bad guys' were in the shade!


Michelangelo
Mikey famously mixed his colours with both black and white, to maximise the contrasts, achieving a vivid depth of  shading.


Rembrandt
The artist attracted  his  viewer's attention to key areas of composition with a strongly focused light source. He famously used  'chiarascuro'  to   add a certain depth, harmony and drama to his paintings.

James Turnell
Turnell is primarily concerned with light and space as a tool to explore man's place in the universe!
He descibes the response to viewing his light pieces as  "like the thoughts that come when looking into a fire"

J.M.W.Turner
We can't think about artists use of light without thinking about our Turner can we. He was obsessed  the science of light and colour, and  'wasn't known as 'The painter of light'  for nothing! Turner generally used a central light source in each of his paintings that enriched  the most beautiful, contemplative and acomplished landscape paintings of all time.

Some observational drawing and measurement

Photographs I took of a natural object - I think it's some kind of dried seed pod? This unidentified object was used to then inspire aset  of still life drawings using a range of media. Here though, the 3D object is made into a 2D image.

Some of the drawings I made of the object, on a small scale using a grid.

I then made a more sustained drawing by scaling up grid sections of my original drawings to 18cm squares and rearranging them into a composition- interpreting the original small 3D object into a large scale 2D object.