Ciara Kelly

Movement Project, exploring how wind forms, moves, and disrupts objects 🌬

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Movement Project Statement

For the project movement, I wanted to explore the idea of wind as a force that can shape, form, move and disturb objects around it.

As wind itself is not a tangible source, the only way we can see it is when it takes form in something such as a sheet or towel. Or, when it moves something such as clouds or gives momentum to another object, like a hairdryer or something falling from a height.

Wind can only exist through movement so therefore I thought it a very fitting theme for this project. I tried to show this through video proof, personification and sound.

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Wire Sculpture

Using wire I created a butterfly. I revisited one of the earlier concepts from my project for the inspiration on this, which was the idea of wind assisting animals to move through the sky.

I wanted to make the butterfly with curvature lines rather than very linear to show the spirals of movement of wind. I like how the spirals and the wings turned out greatly.

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Layered Painting

This piece is a good combinations of many different techniques and pieces I’ve done throughout this project. This portrait is in mixed media of acrylic paint and oil pastels. I took inspiration from Cecily Brown for this piece as she creates works on a massive scale and in multiple layers.

With the base layer, I decided to mimic the look of the acrylic pour I made but changed the colours to reflect those of the sky throughout the day such as sunrise and sunset. The clouds also share this colour palette, swirling with movement.

The face and hair is reference from the photos I took with a hairdryer of myself. I realised that the face was very harsh colours compared to the background so I left the tracing paper around the face on the layer of hair to mute the tones slightly more.

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Portrait Reference (Painting)

Using a hairdryer, I made a short video of my hair moving in the wind. This is the most simple form of the wind shaping and distrusting objects in my opinion as it is something we experience every day.

From this video, I was able to stop it at certain points and get stills to use as reference from this project. Focusing on the hair and how it was shaped I decided to print these pictures out and paste them into my sketchbook where I outlined them in different ways to show the expression and movement of the hair due to the wind.

I picked out my favourite photo and did a sketch of it in pencil and marker. Using the pencil to sketch the face, I found it made the hair stand out more as it is the main focus of the piece. I hope to develop this idea further into a painting.

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Gesture Drawing (Painting/Ceramics)

Using a towel as the subject matter, I began by taking a few photos outside in the wind as it formed the towel into different shapes. This created many dynamic forms that I used in drawing.

Using a mixture of charcoal, pen and pencil I sketched out these forms, paying attention to the creases and folds created by the wind in this experience.

I later printed out these photos and added them to my sketchbook.

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Artist Research

John Chamberlain sculpture Memo to Mozart

Lynda McCurdy paint sculpture Contraband.

This piece heavily inspired the paint pour piece I made on wind, but on a much smaller scale. The blend of the colours bleeding together looks so beautiful and careless. I like this technique as there is only so much that you can control such as the placement of the paint and the colours, but where they move and blend together is completely up to chance and gravity essentially.

Richard Serra instillation Cycle.

This monumental sculpture made of steel inspired a lot of the movement in the paper quilling piece I created of clouds. The spirals and interlooping line work looks almost as if they were just placed down like ribbons, as if a gust of wind would knock them over but they are in reality weatherproof sheets of industrial steel that are very permanent.

Jennifer McCurdy ceramic bowl Gilded Lotus Nest.

This ceramics piece is full of movement and helped me with the shape I wanted to create for my sculpture made of frozen baby wipes. The whipping moves of each strand of the ‘nest’ looks like a sheet being pulled by the wind and I wanted to emulate that movement in my own works.

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Wind Chime (Sculpture)

Using a macramé technique, I wrapped a few crystals I had with embroidery thread and hung them from this embroidery wheel to make a wind chime. I hung this from my window to have the wind knock off it and create the cracking noises. 🪨

Here is a short video I took of the wind rocking the wheel. You can hear the wind against the speaker as I took this video as well as the inconsistency of the clacking the crystals made.

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Frozen Sculpture

In an attempt to make a sculpture of wind, I layered several baby wipes onto each other and placed them in a freezer overnight. I tried to lay them so that once frozen, they appears to stand on their own and look like they were being pushed by the wind like a sheet on a line.

The different layers of wipes opened up the idea of moving light around the piece from different angles. Light can change the appearance of something like a sculpture so easily so I brought it against a black background and using a torch, I circled the sculpture to show this theory in practice.

These are a few stills of the piece in different lights. At this stage the wipes were starting to melt and droop back into their natural state but they still appealed to me in their stillness, the creases and curves.

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Paint Pour Timelapse

A timelapsed video of creating the paint pour of wind. I layered all the colours onto the page before spreading them around.

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Paint Pour

I revisited a technique I used in the previous project which was an acrylic paint pour. I wanted to redo this as it is an exercise full of movement, from pour the paint, to spiralling it around the page and the paint drying and settling.

Focusing on wind, it was hard to pick colours that would represent wind as it isn’t a tangible object, we cannot see it. So I settled on where you find wind as my tonal pallet of earthy tones.

These are a few stills and close ups of the final piece. I find the spirals and drips capture the chaotic and wild spirit of wind oerfect although appearing still. 🌬

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Gesture Drawing (Painting)

I used a small potted plant as my subject for this workshop because I loved the shape of it, the upwards curving stems encapsulated movement in a still form or me greatly.

We were asked to work in many different mediums so I started off with pencil, then transitioned in the same piece to pen work. I worked blind, not staring at the page but rather the subject matter, with my non dominant hand and in close up sections.

We also touched briefly on the figure and proportions associated to the body, how a persons head fits 7 times into their body at different key points, which I marked out just for reference. 🪴

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Ceramics

For ceramics, I made and painted this ashtray to try and show the movement of smoke in the wind. Making the mouth wide I hoped that the smoke would pool in the mouth and fall out with smoke from the incense.

I loved watching the way the smoke moved and swirled around the wind or folded over. 💨

In this video I was able to capture how to smoke rose and swayed in the wind in a wild and unsteady pattern, displaying the movement in a great way as it depicts the unpredictability of it. 💛

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Chain Reaction Workshop (Sculpture)

Yesterday morning I attended Mike Fox’s workshop on chain reaction movement. I spent the morning with his guidance making this short demonstration.

Throughout the video I tried out many different options to help the process run smoothly such as jenga blocks to domino off each other and hit the bottle, shorter ramps and a sellotape roll suspended and released to hit the bottle.

In the end I ended up with the ball being able to roll and turn on the button on the hairdryer. I attacked a small roll of paper to the hairdryer to show the movement of the wind more dramatically.

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Time lapse (Painting)

Continuing on from my cloud painting, I took a timelapsed video of the process of painting. As I stated, it was my first time using oil paints so my technique for this art form is not perfect, but I tried my best. I wanted to capture the simple movements of painting on its own, how in order to create something full of movement, you yourself don’t have to move much at all. ☁️

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Oil Painting

An oil painting of a cloud study I produced today. It was my first time working with oil paints so I found it quite challenging but I think the thickness of the paint worked well to create the texture of the clouds.

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Cloud Study (Painting/Ceramics)

I’ve stated looking into the form wind taken on clouds and their different formations. I did charcoal sketches of clouds in different forms and shapes.

Using paper, I cut out shapes of clouds and layered them on top of each other to create dimension. ☁️

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Cloud Artist References

Mia Pearlman- Clouded House / Inrush

John Constable - Cloud Study