Experementing with paint.

This sample is acrylic on paper, applied with a paintbrush. The paper is not a sturdy material to use as the weight of the impasto acrylic causes the paper to flop. Acrylic paint is really thick and dries really thick, it maintains its application of marks and directional brush strokes. The paint does not sink into a flat form, it dries exactly the way it is applied and I really like this gestural and expressive appearance acrylic paint has. This paint combined with the impasto technique wipes out realistic features and welcomes expressive textures, brush strokes and even colour as I have demonstrated  I love the colours mixing together, strokes of yellow green and brown harmoniously dragged around the painting together. There is a choice here of building up realistic tonal value to create a form, or abstract colours can be used in the form of expression.

I decided to do another impasto portrait using acrylic paint, but this time on wood. I under painted the piece with yellow ochre so the painting would keep the yellowy colour from the lighting in the picture I painted from. I used a palette knife to apply the paint  and in other areas I used a paintbrush. The wood I nailed to an easel to keep it still whilst I painted on it. I really like the wood as a surface to paint on as it is really sturdy and absorbent so thick impasto paintings in acrylic dry reasonably faster than on non absorbent materials like perspex and metal. Drying time was roughly 5 hours. Here, unlike the painting before, I blended earthy realistic colours to create gradual tonal value and the harsh shadows and highlights to define the eyes and the shadows on the child's face. The texture from the palette knife makes the painting appear and feel really harsh as the texture is heavily scratchy, almost like the child is cut up or carved, the sgraffito technique also works really well in combination with impasto as the two techniques contrast heavily with the thick paint enhancing the depth of the marks made from the sgraffito technique created with the end of the paintbrush which is perfect as it is blunt but strong to create sgraffito marks.

I experimented with paint to create a cheap substitute to acrylic. I applied the paint with my fingers which looks really fast and gestural. On a perspex surface I mixed emulsion paint with PVA glue to thicken it up and make it shiny. Of course this wasn't enough to thicken it up but it did dry really shiny and smooth. I mixed sand with the emulsion paint to give it texture and thickness. Emulsion paint is the green  paint seen in the picture, the blue is acrylic, I wanted to add sand to that to compare the end result with both paints. The result was that the sand mixed with acrylic was the same as sand with emulsion, however I mixed glue with the emulsion paint so the emulsion and sand dried shinier and slightly smoother than the acrylic and sand, I had to work with the perspex laid on the floor as the sand wouldn't stick to the perspex, it just kept falling off.

I then decided to mix something finer like really fine sawdust that I collected from the 3D room in college, the dust from silver birch wood. Its absorbing properties made the emulsion paint dry faster. I mixed the two together then poured and spread the mixture out on cardboard. The texture was made by a palette knife and to my surprise, the emulsion paint didn't flatten out it actually kept its texture from application. the cardboard was strong enough to stay put, but the mixture was applied really thickly and as a result was really heavy and dried like concrete giving the cardboard a really strong support.  but a bigger piece of card board would have to be laid on the floor until dry or perhaps hammered to the wall because it wouldn't be able to take the weight until dry. the texture when dried is really rough and ragged, actually as rough as the sand. It dried almost in the form of a rock! However I really don't like the thickness and the rough texture. It isn't like acrylic paint, it isn't as smooth or manipulative. I have no control over this emulsion paint mixed with sand or the emulsion paint/acrylic paint mixed with fine sawdust.

I did actually try and use the mixture of sawdust shavings and emulsion paint to paint a portrait on cardboard. However the shavings were harder to control, I was literally dragging and plonking bits of painted sawdust to create the painting. I prefer the finer sawdust as it actually works in the form of a paint mixture, thick and textured, but the sawdust shavings were extremely annoying and the dried painting had no desired texture at all. Lumpy and annoying, and I had no control over it. The colours I used however I quite like, you can see the beginning of the build up of tones of blues to create shadows and highlights. I used my fingers yet again to apply the paint as I can become closely involved in the painting, I really prefer using my fingers to paint with. This has also put an idea in my head, that it seems relevant to paint a person, someone's flesh and features with my own body. So I really feel that painting with my hands is interesting combined with the subject I have chosen to paint- portrait. However because fingers allow for not much detail, I will have to experiment on larger materials or  concentrate on one section of the face for a sample maybe...

I went back to using sand and emulsion paint to paint a portrait. Again I applied the paint with my fingers, smearing and starting to create tonal value with the colours. Because I really like the blue tones I decided to stick with this colour to use for the majority of the portrait. Adding black, purples, reds and greys I tried to show directional marks to create form alongside tonal value. I do really like the colours used and the face they are unrealistic. They are surreal, and they are really gestural and expressive. The texture of the dried painting is rough because of the sand, but I used less sand on this piece and I really like it not being as thick as previous paintings because it still has texture with the sand and I find it really easy to control but really interesting and equally as challenging as I have never tried this style before, so it was difficult to show tone and form through unrealistic colours. Also the red really contrasts with the cool blues and greens, which vibrates and moves against the rest of the portrait.

I began this painting using ink with a bamboo stick to draw the life model, making scratchy marks to suggest tone and shadow. Then I watered down blue acrylic paint and washed the entire page with the blue diluted acrylic paint. The blue became a theme of mine, maybe because of its stereotypical mood of sadness, but I really love the coolness of blue and the heat and strength of the red, both colours extremely contrasting, almost at war with each others differences. I began using the red as a shadow and the blue became the lighter areas, creating tone through the two primary colours. I used a piece of card to apply undiluted acrylic paint, smearing it on in the darker areas, but not too much. I diluted the red acrylic to use as faint washes of red to create tone. Then I worked back into the ink using a bamboo stick. The stick was tricky to use, but it stopped me from being too precise and being able to dilute the ink for blending, the bamboo stick added interesting scratchy marks to the painting that I really personally like. I had concentrated on shading for long enough after this point so I introduced white acrylic paint to my piece, smearing on highlights with a thick piece of card. This sample is interesting as there are drips of ink, drips of blue and red diluted acrylic paint and a contrast of thickly applied acrylic paint adding texture and harsh colour to the piece, and the soft diluted colours creating drips but no texture. This combination is really interesting and I have managed to create a really nice painting, investigating the dilution of acrylic paint and the thickness and texture of acrylic  Also I have combined impasto with watercolour and the 'drippy' technique of ink and watercolour.

I decided to just try emulsion paint on its own as I hadn't done already, again applying the paint with my fingers, I tried to build up tone using the colours, which I find really tricky. Building tone with unblended colour is something I am going to work on for my next emulsion painting. I painted on metal for this piece, and I really love how the paint glides smoothly against the metal. I have managed to create the form of the portrait using directional marks which forms the rounded shape of the cheeks, the eyes and the nose. I love the use of unblended colours, it really gives the portrait an edgy harsh appearance which is exactly what I want to achieve. I would like to use this style for my final painting.

I decided to try one last material, wood board as it is like cardboard and wood. I found the material too absorbent and I would have to apply the paint really thickly to move it around with my fingers. You can see evidently that I struggled to move the paint around the wood board with my fingers, I just couldn't work the colours into each other and create the tone as well as on the previous materials. Because I was going to be working bigger scale than this sample I would not get along with using this material to paint on with emulsion paint and as a result my final piece would suffer. I want to use cardboard as my final piece because metal and perspex is too smooth to work on and the paper is not sturdy enough to hold thick paint but cardboard is strong and not too absorbent. I experimented with colour here, moving away from blues and greens to something brighter like pink/purple and yellow. The colours are too bright, I really don't like the look of it and the proportion is not right because I am not used to working on a bigger scale. I will have to project the image of my sister onto my final piece before I start painting so I can draw the image perfectly onto the large cardboard to get the proportion right. II like how the yellow and purple vibrate against each other because the contrast so heavily  but the colours used ere are too happy and bright, I want to keep the colours cold and negative, exactly like the painting onto the metal. I love the cold and warm colours together. I don't like how the eyes are realistic colours and the face isn't, so I will paint the eyes the same purple I will use in the painting to create tone. But I love using my fingers as a tool to paint with, creating gestuaral marks which shape the facial features and create form.

Iain Simons

Based in Nottingham, Iain Simons is the director of Game City Festival, which he founded in 2006, where Richard Jacques performed a candle-lit piano recital of hit SEGA tunes. The main aim of this free event is to engage technology and culture, involving people in a screen based art, bringing video games to life, even by setting up scenes from games with the help from theatre designers. Game City involves a wide variety of professions in the creative industry such as musicians, designers, stage light technicians, theatre/costume designers to name but a few. "A lot of people think our event is basically a big arcade, but it's a lot more than that" he says, but you don't have to be interested in video games to come along to this event.
 He  is a very interesting man when it comes to his C.V. His first job was as piano player in a pub, which he goes on to advise that music is an extremely important skill to have in the game industry as a lot of musicians are needed in games. He then worked at McDonald's on the grill, he laughs, "well, the opportunity was there. And I was really fast." He landed at a theatre next, working as a casual technician which gained him some decent skills and an insight into production. In 1994 he graduated from university then took part in directing events and continued as a musician for a while. He basically continued to jump at any and every chance he got in the game and directing industry, performing, taking part in holding workshops and even wrote a few books, "just write a book. It doesn't even matter if it isn't any good, I have found that if you have written a book people suddenly start listening to you", Iain advises, "get involved in summer camps or theatre, you learn a lot more about production than anywhere else ." Iain began writing about video culture to a range of audiences in magazines and so on, and worked as a programmer and designer before becoming a part time lecturer as he realised it was time that he needed to make a steady income and get a bit of money behind him, later becoming a company director/creative director which gave him the essential skills for working as a game critic, event producer and of course, his current role as a festival director for Game City. Other projects Iain is working on is Game City Nights, Game City Prize, Woodthorpe Grange/ Takahashi Playground, National Video Game Archive and Save The Video Game

Iain's Advice For the Creative Industries:

1. When you first start out, you will have to 'volunteer' and do a fair amount of unpaid work for people. However, when you begin to gain experience and you can finally tell your contacts that you have wrote/been mentioned in a column for this magazine and that magazine, or produced a music video for this band, directed this and that event, performed here and there, designed the costume for this theatre production and so on...START CHARGING ASAP! It is very important to get paid for what you do as soon as possible, or you won't get anywhere very fast, because "if you are paid for something then you are a professional."
2. "Writing an invoice is not the same as being paid." You may still find yourself having to keep reminding the person or company to pay you, because at first, very rarely is it done and dusted when you send of an invoice.
3. "Look after your contacts." It is really important that you "keep them happy." These are the people who pay you," and talk about you to other useful people.
4. "People are surprisingly simple."
5. "Write a book. It makes you look valuable!"
6. "It's easier to apologise than to ask for permission." Just ask people, and if they turn your work down, ask another person. He says don't worry if you make a mistake or get turned down, "you might actually be surprised," he goes on to talk about his own experience on emailing the editor of a games magazine, he asked for permission to write a column in their magazine, and they were more than happy to let him.
7. "Be nice. It really is that  simple. Don't get drunk and write something horrible about your contacts, as tempting as it is, you must protect your contacts. They are everything."
8. "Get good at apologising." then it will be so much easier when you make a mistake.
9. "Most people are frightened in case they fail." fear of failure will get in the way of your success, you might be surprised if you just try, "but prepare yourself to fail." 
10. He advises to always share your ideas, "they are the most valuable thing," even if you think your idea sounds stupid, "not everyone else can have the ideas you're having."

Take a look at Game City!!!

Philippe Pasqua



Philipine 2010

Philippe Pasqua was born in 1965 in Grasse, France and began painting at the age of 18. He is a contemporary self-taught painter and sculptor, based in Paris painting huge scale pieces on canvas of nudes and portraits of adults and children that he has known for a long time, or only just met. His sculptures are created from materials such as human skulls and dried butterflies. All of his works seem to highlight the ugliness or the pain behind a person. He has an incredible distinct technique with his medium of oil paint, applying layer upon layer of unrealistic colour, pasting on frantic brush strokes of harsh colour and building up intense shadows. In fact, he concentrates so closely on the face to the point of the exclusion of detail, which immediately cuts you. This style goes hand in hand with his selection of subjects, painting disabled individuals, the blind, down's syndrome sufferers, and transsexual candidates. Pasqua clearly captures what is most vulnerable on his canvas, magnifying obscenity and a struggle. He paints the tension between what can be shown and what can be 'tolerated'. Perhaps to show what is socially repressed or concealed. He wants to disturb and shock the viewer, and through the use of representing the human figure with the intensity of colour and expressionism, that is exactly what he has done. We can feel the tension. The mood, the emotion and the suffering.  The damage done. And the pieces are so large that they can't possibly be ignored, which only accentuates the agony.  Because when I look at the portrait of 'Philipine', I feel vulnerable. I can almost feel the pain spilling from the darkness of her eyes and I almost believe it is my fault. Her eyes look down on me unforgivably  but powerlessly. The blue and and the red contrast so harshly suggesting her sadness and her torment, where as the red dragged and splattered against the coldness of the blue makes the portrait excruciating. It hurts. It is so sharp and emotionally intense that it physically hurts, almost, because the slicing brush strokes are dancing with raw brutality, wounding the viewer.

Pasqua in his studio, Paris.