David Hockney
For the first week of our artist journals we looked at, mid 20th century photographer and painter, David Hockney. Hockney is best known for his joiners in photography, which he created by accident when he was organising polaroid pictures of a house.
On the joiner from the left simply titled 'The Steering Wheel', we can see how Hockney has kept the realistic form of the steering wheel, however he has left some of the parts of the car missing making the steering wheel the main eye focus. I really like the warm tones of colour outside the steering wheel, it makes the atmosphere inside the car seem calming and soothing. There isn't anything I'd want to change about this joiner, however if I have to, I'd have the full form of the steering wheel in the joiner and not have the bottom right of it missing.
The joiner on the right simply titled 'Chair' we can see how Hockney has changed the form of the chair with the polaroids by having the front of the chair extend inwards, giving it a surrealistic visual. Just like the first joiner, I like the colours used in this one. The warm tones used in the scenery surrounding the chair compliments the cold, blue-ish tone of the chair, this alongside with the negative space surrounding the chair, makes it stand out a lot more than the steering wheel in the first joiner.
Although Hockney has produced some amazing pieces of paintings, such as his 'Antheriums' on the left, I think his photography is a lot more impressive. The visual layout of his joiners are unique because he uses real polaroids to create a collage of the one image, making it look uncanny at times. However, a lot of his paintings do tend to have some technique of surrealism, such as the colours used or the form of people/objects.
Using this photo on the right that I took of my friend, I thought it would be good to try and task myself with creating a collage in Hockney's style. Instead of fully editing the photo on photoshop, I decided to sketch over the image in the software Sketchbook to make the shapes in the image stand out, I then printed out numerous copies of the photo and assembled them back together to create a surrealistic atmosphere similar to Hockney's 'Chair'. The image below shows the piece I made.
