painting

Moving pattern – 16mm cameraless animation

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I’m always looking for other ways to explore my pattern ideas and have been keen to consider options for film making to explore sequential narratives. Animation processes fit well with the work I’ve been doing with pattern evolution I have been testing across pages of books over the years.

Having been a fan of Len Lye’s paintings on film from the 1930s, including A Colour Box from 1935 commissioned to promote the General Post Office I was pleased to be able to attend a workshop in Norwich to to spend a few hours working on strips of 16mm film to make my own experimental animation. We were shown some examples of other people’s films and could then explore the process ourselves. The workshop was led by Jacob Watkinson and was hosted by The Holloway in Norwich.

We were given strips of clear 16mm film I was able to use pens, paint, rubber stamps and Letraset on, as well as pre-exposed film with archive films that we could scratch away the black with a scalpel beautifully. I know it’s obvious to say, but 16mm is tiny, and I’d forgotten my glasses, so that added to the issue of seeing what I was working on! It’s a tiny space to include anything too complex and I was unsure initially how many times to repeat motifs and at what pace to move motifs across the film, but I just had a go and tried not to be too precious. 

Once we’d all had a chance to work on several pieces Jacob spliced the pieces of film together and we ended the session with a screening of everybody’s efforts – it was great to see individual approaches with the same processes and the outcomes have certainly got me thinking about taking my pattern evolution ideas in this direction again. The image below shows some stills from the film I made – all 20 seconds of it! Len Lye’s films are brilliantly paired with music so maybe I need to think about that too – but I’m not sure today’s Post Office will be knocking on my door anytime soon!

If you want to read more about Len Lye this article from the Tate is a good one.

colour mixing nature

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Back in March I began a new series of colour of works on paper that were simply about mixing and matching colour, evolving hues through the process of painting individual swatches to build the narrative in a sequence, as if a technical exercise at art school. You can read about those pieces here.

KFarley_grass_gouacheI’ve continued to gather pieces from nature on the walks I’ve been on this summer and have continued with the process of mixing colour and so I thought I’d share some here.

KFarley_wheat_gouache

I’m doing this simply as I love to make colour, and really enjoy working with the gouache paint for its colour qualities. The process occupies my mind, suggests potential avenues for future work and connects me with nature through the mementoes I make. The seasons change and the colours alter, but the swatches hold memories in the process of mixing, and I can almost smell the dry heat of the corn, and the cool shade of the wood where I found the Jay feather.

qrf

 

evolving colour in the making

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A walk in the Spring sunshine gave impetus to a very simple and mindful exercise back in the studio; to make the colour of the landscape. A sprig of willow contains so many different colours. Those colour qualities will alter as the clouds skud across the sky casting shadows, and as the sun ripens the buds.

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With paints at the ready I knew it wasn’t about making the one colour, but the narrative of generating colour as my process of journeying from one to the next. I wanted to paint each of the swatches of colour I mixed as I evolved the paint story, observing and recording the subtleties of the change in hues. Selecting a limited number of tubes of gouache to begin made it more interesting. To start I selected the dominant colour I was aiming for, and had a little piece of nature with me as reference. I developed the swatches of colour, selecting one, and then another hue to achieve, step by step, slowly and patiently filling the page.

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Gouache is a beautiful paint and this exercise reminded me of a wonderful morning teaching colour mixing to BA1 Textile Design students earlier this year. Getting the right amount of water, ensuring the colours are cleanly mixed, and then making that one painted line flat and even – it all takes practice.

KFarley_ytubes_colour_1500_KFI was lucky enough to have excellent colour teaching during my time at art school and consider myself strong at seeing and achieving the right colour mix. At uni I remembering saying to the print technician “it’s nearly right, I’m happy with it”, and she’d say, “Kate, it’s not what you set out to make, keep going until you get there!” I thank her for teaching me that persistence and these days my students know I’m particular (a preferred word to fussy!) when it comes to colour. Getting the colour right is so important and you may as well enjoy the journey to get it right. Textile products sit alongside fashion and interior items made from other materials, and the colours need to match / coordinate, so quitting before you get the right colour may be a sales / employment disaster too!

Interestingly, some of my current students were discussing my approach to colour recently and one shared that I’m not keen on black outlines around shapes in print designs. Another one commented that they hadn’t heard that, but would keep it in mind. I jumped in to defend the comment I’d originally made – a black outline is too obvious, unquestioning, the default, rather like Times New Roman black typeface when you open Microsoft Word. Too easy. I ask students and designers to think about whether the black line is the best for the design. If you think of all the other colours you can use, I think you may find another and better alternative!

At the end of this colour mixing time I am left with souvenirs of the process, memories of the walk and beautiful colour. This is real colour away from the back lit screen I too often see colour from. I shall do this again.

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