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.