Blanca Helga

I loved this translucent layered image by Blanca Helga this week, for me it evokes the autumn wind blowing the leaves and seed heads. 

Ikue Yoshii III

Today's last post celebrating the work of Ikue Yoshii. I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Ikue Yoshii II

My second post of the day showcasing Ikue Yoshii's work, here I really loved the linear diagram of how she makes her mobiles.

Ikue Yoshii I

I am amazed by the wonderful mobiles of Ikue Yoshii they are stunning and yet I can see their motifs and design so easily translated into graphics or adapted to shadow puppetry, wonderful.

Mayumi Watanabe

Mayumi Watanabe paints surreal paintings that are often anthropomorphic especially the hair. On Mayumi's subjects the hair is often a land of its own with tiny dwellings or it is a beast.  In fact Mayumi has published a book of drawings called Onomatohair dedicated to this mysterious world of hair.

Mizobuchji Miho

Mizobucji Miho's wonderful illustrations brought me many smiles last night, I hope they give you some smiles as well.

Machiko Kaede

Machiko Kaede is a Japanese illustrator from Osaka who's works are vibrant and colourful with lots of character.

Tomoyo Kawase

Tomoyo Kawase is a Japanese illustrator from Osaka who uses paper cut out illustrations to create delicate installations of her work.

Kosuke Ajiro

Today we are stepping into the surreal imagination of Kosuke Ajiron. The world that this Japanese illustrator creates is often underwater or populated by sea creatures. Kosuke Ajiron's portfolio has two and three dimensional work and you can see the influence of artists such as Hieronymous Bosch. Thank you

Collaboration, Invention and Fun

Yesterday  we had four visiting arts practitioners; Sabrina Shirazi , Annelies Henny, Josephine Joy and Rachael Clerke who are Clerke and Joy, to deliver a one day 'Affix' workshop to the creative arts students. 
There were students from across the disciplines of technical theatre, portfolio, theatre, product and furniture design and the plan was to encourage them to collaborate across creative genres in order to improvise and learn how to be creative thinkers without boundaries.
 It was a very inspiring and fun day and the students got a great deal out of the experience working with people they didn't know in ways that they are not necessarily used to. They used affixable shapes invented by Sabrina to articulate ideas, improvise and problem solve.  

Elizabeth Jonkers I

You can see the links and inspiration behind Elizabeth Jonker's works echoes of early Picasso, Klimpt and Berthe Morrisot and Gauguin in the compositions and styles. Elizabeth is a contemporary Dutch artist who paints from life or first hand observation, mainly still life and portraiture.

Dick Ket

Here to compliment the work of my students is a still life by Dick Ket (1902-1940) a Dutch painter who was born with a heart defect that unfortunately meant the he was very frail and died very young. His work due to the limitations of illness, was mainly still life and self portraits.

A week close to home

I seem to be having a week of blogging about things close to home and lots of student work, but I am constantly amazed and inspired by the work that students attempt, complete and achieve in my classes. 
Today a different group were working with collage, and the subject this time was white bowls and eggs (carefully carried in). The top two images are by Lorraine Soutar  with tiny, tiny pieces cut up to create the image. The bottom images are of Lee Hutton's work, who incorporated some lovely clear plastic reflections and lyrics from classical Scottish folk songs.

Meg Hitchcock

Incredibly intricate and painstaking work from paper artist Meg Hitchcock who's work 
like a recipe of wisdom pulls together the values and beauty in religious writings, mixing them into an interfaith mantra showing that they all have the same basic principles of good as their basis. As well as recomposing the literary element Meg also manages to arrange them in these incredible patterns.

"I weave together spiritual traditions by cutting up the text of holy books letter by letter and refiguring them to create passages from other holy books. I incorporate and 'cross pollinate' the sacred writings of all spiritual traditions, suggesting that all religions derive from the same source, and are sustained in the same unwavering faith." Meg Hitchcock