otto Dix

self portrait 

   Otto Dix

German artist and Printmaker






      










Above is the Self Portait of Otto Dix, this print is very caricature like and I feel he looks stern and of importance with his expression. I'm not sure of his background and I'm really looking at the basic information with the work only.

Below is a print of a women (wife maybe) If you notice the softer appearance and more portrait like finish. I do like the bold hatching and marks left around the women's neck and chin. The contrast of light and dark work well without being to heavy.  Closing my eyes slightly I like how the light in her hair and cheek bone flow and this makes the area jump out. I do believe this artist to have a real understanding of how the tonal value can change the feel of mood of an image. The top one I notice the marks are more thicker/harsher and charcoal like, while the bottom image is soft light and angled to show where the light hits the top of her head and face.

mrs otto mueller

War Series

These prints are a lot darker and I find myself wanting to know much more. The images create a sense of terror and doom. Many images are a black/dark background to set a mood or a feel of a long night. This must be a good way of creating a deadly or dark sinister mood. Like the colour red being of danger or warning.






 

I'm not sure if this is a bad copy, but it looks like pointillism Does the burr make this effect I wonder? 

The above 3 look very different to the below image. The above remind me of the goya prints I looked at last year.

goya print

These prints (below) look like the same person but look at the different marks and feel. The line drawing style does give a sense of a torture person still but the dark one creates a world in which the viewer really has to look to understand what is going on. The more you look the more you find out. Look at the hand and how you can see each line the artist has gave to create tone and shadow, the cloth farbic has another level of work involved with regards to coverage and timing.  Maybe with the time in the acid bath (if thats what was used ) I dont like the way the flesh has been shown.  I feel it doesn't sit well with the overall image, to dark.

    



Here I noticed the the overlaying that gave greater marks to create dark/shade. You would of have to have studied and documented your finding to know which marks made what etc. The time in the acid and processes.

I think while we no longer do acid dipping and stuff, my own finding of doing etchings helps me appreciate the time and findings these artist have given.

I think I'd like to go back to doing a self portrait for my printmaking and try to do the different feels a mark can create. Last year I'd done the below images but while I was happy with the examples I dont think they gave a sense of eerieness.  I think that by looking at Dix, Goya and Dores etching I could try and be more confident with my outcome.

my background has no texture of feels of anything, something to consider maybe

I dont think by adding red as I did gave anything to my work! I now have a starting point and I'm excited to jump in to my finding. I think background helps to play a part in the overall look too.


Anyway more about artist.



I think Dix has really imersed himself into the stories of these horrors and tortures of gas and war. Many things were censored and wartime reporting was spared from its ghastly details. I don't think this artist could of just made up many of the details without researching the horrors. In a time that people were maybe

Erase that last bit............. upon reading the artist was in the war, as it turns out during the war, Dix kept a diary and a sketchbook with which he chronicled his experience. They provided material for a major work of fifty prints called simply, The War.

 Dix was profoundly affected by the war. He described a recurring nightmare in which he crawled through bombed out houses. His experience with war and its aftermath became a dominant theme in the art he produced after 1914. He had before the war been an apprentice for an landscape painter and in these years I'm sure he knew the importance of drawing and sketching. I think for him the art would of  been an escape and afterwards some kind of release. Powerful images and executed with a sense of calm amongst the chaotic stillness captured.



   



I enjoy how all these prints are so different but with each on as serious as the next, soldiers and men going to war, at war or dead.

Birdseye view

What I thought of doing with the theme birdseye view was to be high up or down low enough to be the bird itself. Did try and think of other more clever takes of birdseye view but in the end settled with these.. I really like the landscape ones in terms of what I could see. The mushrooms I just like taking pictures of these weird and wonderful alien things.

Reflections

Life Drawing 12/09/17

Life Drawing

Overall I'm getting better at the idea of shape and form. Taking time to actually draw is benefiting me so much the last few weeks and while some parts are sooooo wrong ha,  I'm beginning to find a style that lets me see and relay my findings of the form onto paper.  I stuck to pencil as I've been trying to get the ways shapes form and move correct. See one thing can be put down very wrong if you dont look correctly. The eye or my own eye can trick and sometimes makes angles appear differently than they are. It goes left and I draw right so to speak. 

Charcoal - working from a dark background and taking out light and adding depth, tone etc

look at that foot hahahaha 

Below I do feel I'm connecting to the idea and point I'm trying to capture, I think my painters eye is slowly starting to begin to see... proportions aren't right but the understanding is starting to sink in for me.

shadows really add to a drawing like this. grounding it

The shoulder and top breastbone I couldn't seem to make the angle curve right. this annoyed me as I wanted the depth and the sense of the distance between the two shoulders

lights are on.....but who's home? (e)

Buildings or something..........

Have you ever been driving and arrived at your destination without remembering how you got there as such?

Buildings or something along those lines were the thoughts we were to have when making these reliefs, I say something because my mind was not my own. My mind had been a blur of emotions, questions and disbelief, pain, shock and mind numbing emptyness. 

My aunt is ICU following the cancer treatment and her liver rupture, turns out the chances of her recovering for this is well - now slim very slim :(

So back to buildings  - well I did try and not think of anything and just make shapes, so things we had were card, glue, net, matchsticks, modroc, wool anything to hand really. 

I did some pattern stuff before I started, to which I never looked at again till the end, (see pencil drawing)

I couldnt help but see cells in the cross pieces of the card. 

thinking of the movement of a work without nothing it mind

just sticking whatever came to hand to be honest

what would happen if I stick my hand ??

why not?

Doing colour yesterday I took the thought of being able to make black from 3 colours (magenta, yellow, blue)  I had intended to coat the whole relief grey so I added white. again my mind wasn't really in it so not equal amounts as such. just a dollop of whatever will be...

As u can see the dominant colours seem to be more of the red and blue. I liked the dull sickly colour, yes it felt sickly like - well just my mood. I couldnt help but think now of the link and the part that looked like cells and my sickly colour, so I added an orange colour to show life and strength in the changing cells. The purple/grey mixed with the bright orange and I like the mixture together.

I can imagine cancer to be a strong colour, full of power and matter, thick pumping through the body taken down every spark it passes --------------/\/\/\/\/\/*\/\/\/\/\---------------------- maybe the light orange splats could be the silent killer the big C

Analogous colour here I think purple - orange -red then some blue. tones are dull and I think this makes me question if it is so? Dull tones makes a good sickly feel.......against bright colour of glove

inside the body the tunnels and streams in enters, leaving a sickly sticky passage

My ideas had began, I knew this wasn't what had been asked of me. I was asked not to think, just to do something about buildings!!! but for me this is the building of a picture of whats on my mind, stacking up, wondering, questioning, poisoning my attention. Looking for the sense of what is happening?

The blue for me, is the surgeons gloved hands, the red alarms and blood counts, growths and tears malignant being. 

my first plan doodle

The truth is this wasn't suppose to be anything to keep or be of purpose but I like that it has came out of me. Since this we have had more bad news, and while I don't intent making art about my situation I can't help but wonder what will come. If it does I will let it,.