Current Work

Thirty Works - Third 10

I'm participating in 30/30, an exercise under which I have to produce a work of art each day for the whole of April. If I fail to submit something I get kicked out of the exercise.  It's said that more than 1,000 artists are doing it this year.
Each morning I'm given a brief.  Following it is optional, but I enjoy the process of trying to find a way of responding to it.
Here's the briefs and my responses for the final 10 days:

Day 21: Make a monochrome work

Negative of me, Peter Heywood, in a mirror

Title: White and Black

The focus here was on colour (or the lack of more than one) so I decided to take a picture of myself and invert the black and white.  This could be read as something to do with race, which it might be!

Day 22:  Do you have a guilty pleasure? Make a work from that

home made dice showing a double 6

Title: Just my Luck

What's the connection with the brief?

I sometimes say that I've had a lot of luck in my life - more than I deserve - and the answer that sometimes comes back is: "You make your own luck." So I made these 2 dice, showing double 6, and placed them with the materials and tools I used to create them. 

Day 23: Use wiki how to learn a new skill and make a work with it

time lapse video of ink experiments

Title: Ink Time Lapse

WikiHow is full of really mundane stuff so I decided to abandon using it and experiment with materials, perhaps learning a new skill in the process.
After a false start I hit on the idea of making a time lapse video of the interaction of different colour inks,  alcohol and detergent (see link above). I had to learn some new stuff about making time lapse videos using iMovie so I guess I fulfilled the brief.

Day 24: Could your work have another function? What would it be?

Cog as a work of art

Title: Cog

Perhaps I should have called this: "But is it art?"   The word "function" led me to think about Marcel Duchamp and his "ready-mades" - notably his urinal.  I decided to replicate this - take a functional object and display it in a context that implied it was a work of art.  I'd been dismantling a defunct lawn-mower with the idea of using parts to create automata.  One of the parts was this cog, which I found really attractive.  So I cleaned it up and placed it on a plinth - one of the dice I made on Wednesday with the spots removed.

Day 25: What is your work's alter ego?

Painting by Numbers

Title: Painting by Numbers

 My sister Sonia looked up the definition of alter ego, which can mean an opposite side of a personality such as  Clark Kent and his alter ego Superman, and suggested painting-by-numbers as the opposite of my art. All I had to do was find a subject matter that was equally irksome.

Day 26: Who or what inspires you?

Quote from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Title: The Answer

I wanted to find a way of expressing "life" as that's what inspires me.  I considered an image of the Earth from space and a video of Louis Armstrong singing "What a wonderful world" - too obvious.  I decided to go with 42 - the answer to "the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything" in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Day 27: Make a work to give to someone else

automaton caterpillar unfinished

Title: Caterpillar Automaton - Work in Progress

I tried to make a caterpillar automaton but ran into some problems and decided to submit what I'd done so far as work in progress.

Day 28: Write a review of one of your previous works

Automaton creating a moving wave

Title: Moving Wave

I "reviewed" my progress on yesterday's caterpillar automaton and decided metamorphosis was in order - I'd hit some technical snags and the caterpillar idea itself wasn't particularly innovative. So I reused parts of it to make this moving wave.  Quite pleased with the use of sheet of cardboard to enable me to keep all 40 "fingers" aligned.

Blow your socks off revise

Title: Blow Your Socks Off (Revised)

I also "reviewed" my "Blow Your Socks Off" automaton submitted on Day 15 of 30/30.  "Reviewed" -  I fitted fatter legs, made of card, over the thin bamboo ones, I changed the socks so they were foot shaped, and I took a slow motion video of the socks being blown off because that only last a split second.  I couldn't get over the issue of the feet stopping the socks coming off, so this is now "Blow your socks (and feet) off".

Day 29: Make a commitment

Commitments - contrast between good and bad ones

Title: Committed

I almost wimped out on creating this image because I wasn't sure my drawing skills were up to the task. Then I realised that the brief was calling on me to be brave. 

Not too happy with the proportions of the left hand nurse's arm - spent the evening wishing I hadn't been in such a hurry to submit it - but I'm pleased with the overall idea.

Day 30: Try making that work you've been wanting to make over the past month and never got round to making

Automaton - On a Roll

Title: On a Roll

I've been toying with making an automaton whose eyes follow a ball rolling to and fro in front of it - inspired by a piece called "Thinking" by Robert Race, an artist I like - he makes simple automata, often using found objects.

Got the ball rolling today - the eyes will have to come later.

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