Noel Kerns

Noel Kerns is an American photographer. He takes pictures in the night, mostly of abandoned buildings and uses lights to make his pictures look unusual an like they were painted. He says "I love the calm and tranquility of a peaceful night scene". 

This particular photo is from his Industrial Decay album and it is called Swift Revisited. It relates back to my definition of urban and what I want to do with this project which is look at more aged buildings and architecture compared to modern architecture. It is quite different to Lowry's work as it shows a different side to urban but the idea of industrialism is present in both artists work. The colours and lights are much more interesting and I would like to use this aspect throughout my artwork.

He uses strobe lights and flash lights in an unusual way. This is how he explains it:

"The lighting effects in my photos are produced by the careful application of the lighting devices mentioned above, often with colored gels placed in front of the light source to create the color effects. Those of us who shoot this "light-painting" style of night photography take a great deal of pride in the fact that the lighting effects we produce are created in real-time, while the shutter is open, NOT after the fact in Photoshop or some other post-production software. What you see in my images is an accurate portrayal of the scene that presented itself in the field."

Cutting out shapes from some white card I made a few building-like shapes to create an interesting composition. I took picture of them, making sure that the camera was angled so it looks upwards toward the sky to create perspective.

I added some lights around the shapes so it looks illuminated, like Kerns pictures.

I then went on Photoshop and edited the pictures I took. By doing this I could make the buildings stand out more and completely change colours and brightness. I also combined new detail to the building to show that old/new contrast.

I then painted one of the pictures I edited using Photoshop with acrylic paint, using a range of colours and mixing skills.

I made a collage of all the screen prints I have done and also some newspaper. Using a minimal amount of colours like grey, black and brown linked back to Lowry. 

Using the collage I made I cut out some more building-like shapes and created a new composition. After taking some pictures of it I shined some lights on it to create some dimension. I then went on Photoshop and edited the pictures I took, this made some of the details more distinct.

Siverwood

This is the original one where I drew some buildings on tracing paper with an ink pen, which is what Silverwood did. I used some of the collage I did earlier and placed it under the tracings. This linked the two artists work together as I combined the most minimal amount of colour with the ink drawings.

I then went onto Photoshop and adjusted the contrast and brightness to make different effects. I increased the saturation and hue to get these particular colours. This could help with painting because it would increase the range of colours I could use.

On this one I made the building at the front brighter so it stands out more as it is a newer building. The one at the back is older so I made it more dull and it really helps to show the contrast with new and old. The colours also remind me of Lowry's work which are very minimal.

Sarah Silverwood

Sarah Silverwood

Artist from Birmingham University 

Uses tracing paper and layers her work

Her work is different from Lowry's in many ways. For example, Silverwood uses simple materials like an ink pen, Tippex, and tracing paper where as Lowry would use oil paints.  However, they are similar in some aspects such as colour. Both artists use a limited palette of and their work seems to be dreary. Another example is that they both use low horizon lines. The two artists like to use the city but look at two different aspects of the city. Silverwood concentrates on the more retail and newer side of the city whereas, Lowry looked at the more industrial side of the city. Both portrayals are realistic but Silverwoods view on the city is more popular and what people actually want to see.

Living City

I did similar drawings using tracing paper and even putting the tracing paper on top of something else to make it look more like Silverwood's work. I used Tippex to create the clouds and make some building stand out more than others.

Sarah Silverwood is an artist from Forest of Dean who studied at the Birmingham City University in fine art. She concentrates on looking at the 'relationship between humans and architecture' In an interview with Flaneur she said that drawing was an obsession for her whole life. She started by drawing for comics but then started drawing landscapes and architecture in Birmingham. She has a particular technique where she would take pictures and trace from them onto some tracing paper. She would then collage onto the tracing paper, sometimes painting onto it, and stick it onto something like cardboard. She doesn't really mind if her work is scruffy or messy. She said that she: 'spent some time in the Birmingham history galleries, discovering the importance of Birmingham's industrial past'. This may have inspired some of her current work. She was influenced mostly by comics but her mother and father also played a part. 

 I made a model out of some of the screen prints but cutting out oblong shapes, paying more attention to composition. On the first one I used different layers of tracing paper and drew on some birds with an ink pen, making them look as if they were flying in circles rather than just in one direction. I used the tracing paper to create some dimension. Some of the birds look like they are flying in front of the buildings and some behind the buildings.

In the second picture I used acrylic paint to create the sunset. I made a triangle composition to make it look  Instead of using tracing paper and drawing birds I kept it very simple. I did some silhouettes of some buildings in the background and used the rule of triangles in the composition. I used these particular colours to characterise the day sky and the sky at dusk.

"When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight."

(Written by Mary Elizabeth Frye in 1932)
This is a part of a poem that reminded me of the first picture of the buildings with the birds drawn on traced on with an ink pen. I drew the birds in 'circled flight' and this part of the poem reminded of my work.

I took a picture while on the school field. All of a sudden the birds that normally sit on the field flew up into the sky. This instantly reminded me of the poem above and I decided I wanted to use a part of it in my final piece. So, I edited it on Photoshop to make it look more gloomy and create silhouettes. 

  

Lowry

Lowry was an artist who was born in 1887. He painted things that he saw but used imagination most of the time. Some of the places he painted are actual places that he had traveled to. He also painted people that looked like 'matchstick men'. 

L.S.Lowry 

Industrial Landscape

I think the painting seems to be about industry. The building look like something you would see if you lived in a very industrial city, the kind of places Lowry would often visit. I think that Lowry drew whatever he saw. It is mostly from him imagination, but some of the places in this painting are real places (the Stockport Viaduct in the distance). The subject matter is treated realistically because Lowry liked painting things as he saw them. It doesn't look as if anything is happening in the painting but you can see the people going about their own business. Due to this the painting does look much more realistic. An article by Angela Levin in the Daily Mail said: 'Many of the drawings appear to contain some element of force, or even violence. Certainly, they pose questions. Were they, perhaps, his way of getting back at a mother who exerted a vice-like grip over him throughout his life, or even at women in general?' I think that his drawings don't create a violent feel but a lonely one. He had never gotten married or never even had a girlfriend. After is mother died he realised he had no family left and no motivation. His main aim throughout life was to impress his mother and now that she had gone he had nothing else to drive him. I think the people in the picture represent how he was feeling, lonely. They seem to be going about their business which was what he did day to day. Overall, Lowry had never married or had a girlfriend and spent his life thinking he had failed his mother.

Lowry has used 6 main colours to create this dull, drained and blackened city. The colours are quite harmonious in the fact that they all create a gloomy atmosphere in the painting. The colours seem to merge together in the horizon of the painting and fade slightly. It goes from the bustling industry in the foreground to calmness in the background. There isn't a specific composition in the picture; each shape is placed in a random place. This could be because it was painted over a long period of time and from imagination.

Lowry used oil paints and ordinary paint brushes to create this melancholy piece of work. He started his painting by looking at the buildings around him and thinking about how he could put them in a painting. He would sit on a train and let it take him to different places where he would start painting any random building. I definitely think Lowry improvised while painting as he said that his paintings are ‘Made up; part real and part imaginary’.

The houses at the foreground definitely are there to make the viewer feel as if they are being welcomed into the busy world Lowry has painted. It captures life and the hectic lives the ‘matchstick’ men lead. The fact that he worked as a rent collector for most of his life may have inspired how he drew the busy people as that may have been how he had seen them in the past.The painting is noisy and you can almost hear the thriving factories and chattering people.  

The one that I did using oil paints. I took one section of Industrial Landscape.

I used dark colours such as brown, black and grey and did a screen print onto a plain piece of card. I then tore the paper so it creates an uneven line like a horizon. I then tried tearing some shapes into it so it creates an effect. The low horizon reminds me of Lowry's work.

Urban

ur·ban

  [ur-buhn] 

adjective

1.

of, pertaining to, or designating a city or town.

2.

living in a city.

3.

characteristic of or accustomed to cities; citified: He is an urban type.

Urban, to me, how the environment and cities have changed and how the different types of people in them have adapted.

The aspect of urban I am most interested in is change in architecture. This means looking at buildings now and how they looked like decades ago. I want to look at industrial places and compare them to the new places in Birmingham.