Origami, Cubism, Scrawny & Deaders

As previously blogged about, whilst recently in LA I visited LACMA and Getty museums and made a connection between Cubism and origami, the art of paper folding.  This may seem random, but it was an observation I made whilst there and it stuck with me.  I stated I would investigate it further and I have so I thought it pertinent to write an update.

I have been practising origami which officially makes me a folder, apparently.  My dragonfly and my cat are both recognisable, took a long time, but were enjoyable to make.  I have taken the idea much further in my head, though.  Adhering to my MA theme of Narratives in Clay, I have opted to use my imaginary cat, Scrawny as the basis of some research.  I have an established strong narrative with Scrawny which I can utilise to draw, research and build around three dimensionally in clay.  I’ve been enjoying the exploration greatly.

I have also tied in my past research on AI generated images and digital drawing as a means to generate images of what I have in my head.  For the AI aspect, I have used MS CoPilot, a new application to me and one I have found vastly better than the Bing image generator previously used.  CoPilot allows many refinements of the image until you can virtually get what you have previously only visualised by specifically asking for changes.  I’m still sat on the fence with AI image generating and have yet to make a judgement on approval.  What I will say is this, it saved me literally a day’s work last week to meticulously draw what I had up there in my head. It was the difference between having a drawing to work from or not, and it took me less than an hour.  That has to be useful to an artist, right?

Origami in the sense of my work is a loose connection and I’m using it far more abstractly.  I have no intentions of folding slabs of clay and making creatures.  I’m also not intent on making simply cats.  Scrawny is simply part of an exploratory process in building new techniques.  I shall see what transpires and where this takes me for the remainder of this next assessment.  Judgements can be made at the end of August!

Alongside this, I am also practising my drawing skills as directed at my last assessment.  I’ve tried several different techniques and media, but stuck to the A3 size as suggested.  I’ve settled on drawing loosely with a pen and ignoring mistakes. I’m not the best at drawing (far too little practice as I really don’t enjoy it), but I’m reasonable and can get my ideas across.  All of this said, I adore Deaders, my wee mouse who I drew as part of a narrative with Scrawny.  I suspect he could take on a whole narrative life of his own such is my love for him…  I have also scribbled down and few new rhymes to go with the new images of Scrawny which has also been enjoyable.

So, I am continuing with my folding, drawing, narratives and hand building, whilst researching Cubism and relevant artists, both painters and ceramicists.  I’m in the midst of a tonne of fun with a flea-riddled skinny black cat and a dead mouse, whilst living in dungarees.  Life is simply perfect sometimes.

The refining stages of AI image creation Concertina Cat, courtesy of MS CoPilot

The AI refinement process of Origami Cat courtesy of MS CoPilot

Drawing of Origami Cat made using Procreate

Origami Cat head maquette