Melissa Vandenberg and Jasper Johns

Melissa Vandenberg's project 'Middeland' focuses on American identity, specifically in central US states which are pressured from the West, East and South culturally. 

Her work echoes that of American artist Jasper Johns who's most famous collection of works 'Flag' uses the same concept, challenging the concept of American identity through recreating the American flag. Johns was an openly homosexual man at a time where gay men were extremely discriminated against in America. He, an unconventional image of an American man, recreated the American flag, a conventional image representing American ideology.

Jasper Johns - 'Flag' (1954-5)

Melissa Vandenberg - Middleland project

www.melissavandenberg.com

Diem Chau

An alphabet of animals carved from crayons by Diem Chau

Diem Chau is from Vietnam but went to America with her family as refugees in 1986. She is famous for creating figures out of crayons and pencils, carefully sculpting with tiny detail.

Henry Moore's sheep sketches

Henry Moore is an artist best known for his bronze sculptures which are scattered in locations across the world, however, little people know that he was also a talented sketcher and it is his delicate sheep sketches I am going to concentrate on in particular.

Moore lived in Much Hadham, a small village in East Hertforshire, and worked in a small studio overlooking a sheep field. He spent much of his time studying the sheep in his sketchbook, the way they moved, behaved and the shape of their bodies. Moore managed to capture the sheep's faces in very intricate detail, his method was to make a small, sharp noise to grab the sheep's attention so that they would turn to look at the source of the noise for several seconds, with a long, blank stare on their faces.

Moore was fascinated with the mother-child bond of animals, larger forms protecting smaller ones, a theme which is noticeable topic of interest in much of his work. Many of his sheep sketches are of ewes protecting their lambs, one may say a large influence on his artwork. Lord Clark (Civilisation and Landscape into Art) comments that Moore expressed 'a real affection' for his sheep subjects.

Moore sculpture at Kew Gardens, notice the similarities?

His sheep sketches are very accurate and first look solid in form when standing from a distance, yet when you get closer to the imagery you start to notice his style. Zig-zags and rushed ball point pen lines dominate the drawings, thicker and more panicked scratches where there is less light and softer yet still sudden and vigorous on the brighter parts of the scene. Moore also rarely started his sketches by outlining his sheep, but started shading straight away, a risky strategy especially with the use of ball point pen but nonetheless effective.

Moore rarely outlined his sketches before shading

Buy Henry Moore's sheep sketchbook here

Art and About (2)

Took my housemate Alicyja to the sky mirror after shopping today - it's near the Nottingham Playhouse

The mirror was designed by Anish Kapoor and was installed in 2001 - costing almost 1 million pounds! It was voted Nottingham's favourite landmark in 2007, beating the castle and the Robin Hood statue and other mirrors have since been installed in Brighton, St Petersburg, London and New York, Nottingham however was the first!