Ruscha Research and Recreation

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have chosen Ed Ruscha as my artist, after viewing his works at Tate Modern. As part of researching our artists, we were tasked to recreate 4 of their drawings, as well as print some of their artworks out to further explore their methods and ideas.

For my first drawing I used only pencil, as I wanted to explore my mark making abilities through the one simple medium. The original outline of the work went quite well, although what I really struggled with was the details and shading of the mountains behind the wording of the work. From this, you can see that my line work and shading is quite dodgy in some areas and I definitely didn’t hit the realistic feel I was aiming for. This also meant I really didn’t enjoy creating this as I felt that every time I tried to fix it I just made it worse, as realistic drawing is not my strength and found myself getting extremely frustrated. I think to combat this, I should have stuck to minimal outlines to convey the general idea of the mountain shape, rather than aiming for a fully shaded drawing. I also ended up with pencil marks all over my desk, so I would have to place something underneath my paper if I were to attempt to do this in the future.

Daily Planet (2003)
My pencil sketch of Ruscha’s work

For my next drawing, I used fine liner pens. I found this work easier to recreate as it was quite simple and I really liked the map feel it had to it. Using the fine liners, I used a different heaviness to achieve slightly thicker lines that reflect in Ruscha’s work and found this work to be quicker to achieve as well because of its minimalistic nature. I think what drew me to this particular work (other than the fact it was easy to draw!) was the conceptuality behind it of place and home and what it represented to the artist. This also inspired my shoe designs, that you will see in a later blog post.

Wilshire, Grant (2001)
My drawing of Ruscha’s work

For my third drawing, I used oil pastel and fine liner pens. I found this drawing to be the one that I enjoyed the most, as I have used oil pastels before and generally have quite a good and successful experience with them. I used the pastels at the top of the drawing as the ‘sky’ portion and created rough lines, trying not to focus too much on placement as I knew that would hinder my enjoyment of creating it. I liked the mixed media element of this drawing as I felt the ‘globe’ portion of the drawing can really be differentiated from the ‘sky’. You might notice I also accidentally inverted the colours of the globe as I began using the wrong colour on the wrong part of the drawing, but I just went with it and ended up with a drawing that I really like. Taking a slightly more relaxed approach to this artwork compared to the first one definitely helped me create a better work and also interact with the original artwork more positively.

Girls (1982)
My drawing of Ruscha’s work

For my final drawing, I once again went with mixed media but went way out of my comfort zone when it came to one of my mediums; ketchup. I wanted to try this as I had heard Ruscha has experimented with food and condiments before, (as well as blood but I thought that was a bit extreme) and found the experience to be enlightening, albeit quite unsuccessful. I started by lightly sketching out the linework in pencil and quite liked this, working with perspective and shape. I used watercolour pens for the first time for most of the drawing and found that it gave me a different effect to Ruscha’s work, as the colour was not as solidified and slightly different shades, but was not fussed by this as I enjoyed the experimentation. I also realised while I was adding colour to the drawing that my proportions were quite off and so my artwork is not a completely accurate depiction of the original. I then outlined the lines with a black fine liner and added the ketchup as the red part of the drawing. The ketchup as a medium was sticky, had quite an unsettling smell, and did not give me the colour I wanted, so I probably would not attempt to use it again, but found it intriguing that it could even be used as a medium at all.

Standard Study #3 (1963)
Progress photo of my drawing
Final drawing

Moving on to my 8 collage/ printed pages, I found this part of the task to be quite confusing and unclear. I would have liked to see some examples and a set purpose of what these pages were supposed to achieve, but in the end, I have interpreted these to be research pages for us to purely be able to examine out artist and fully understand them when moving forward with the design aspects of our unit. The biggest issue I had with this portion of the task was the printing, as I had limited access to a printer and even then, had to go through some dodgy prints first before achieving usable ones. To collage them, I used different papers (brown craft paper, black paper and parchment looking paper), as well as printed tape and cellophane. I kept these pages fairly simple, primarily keeping focus on Ruscha’s work.

As well as these 8 pages, I also created 4 more pages showing my sketches and the matching image of Ruscha’s work to compare them and further my research.

Overall, I found this task quite extensive and helpful to have a full breadth of understanding of my artist’s artworks and methods. I’m hoping I’ve conducted enough research to help me through this unit and look forward to see where this research will now take me through this new term.

References:

  • Ruscha, E. (1962) HONK [Acrylic paint on paper]. Tate, London. (Accessed 17 December 2020).
  • Ruscha, E. (1963) Standard Study #3 [Tempera and ink on paper]. Tate, London. (Accessed 16 December 2020).
  • Ruscha, E. (1976) ARTISTS WHO MAKE ‘PIECES’ [Pastel on paper]. Tate, London. (Accessed 17 December 2020).
  • Ruscha, E. (1982) Girls [Lithograph on paper]. Tate, London. (Accessed: 16 December 2020).
  • Ruscha, E. (1984) The Music from the Balconies [Oil paint on canvas]. Tate, London. (Accessed 17 December 2020).
  • Ruscha, E. (1988) Standing [Etching on paper]. Tate, London. (Accessed 17 December 2020).
  • Ruscha, E. (1993) The End #1 [Acrylic paint and graphite on board]. Tate, London. (Accessed 17 December 2020).
  • Ruscha, E. (1995) US [Mixografia technique on paper]. Tate, London. (Accessed 17 December 2020).
  • Ruscha, E. (1998) HOPE [Acrylic paint on paper]. Tate, London. (Accessed 17 December 2020).
  • Ruscha, E. (2001) Wilshire, Grant [Etching on paper]. Tate, London. (Accessed 15 December 2020).
  • Ruscha, E. (2003) Daily Planet [Acrylic paint on canvas]. Tate, London. (Accessed 15 December 2020).
  • Tate (2013) Ed Ruscha – The Tension of Words and Images | Artist Interview | TateShots. 23 May. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoNePbo9DD0 (Accessed: 17 December 2020)