After reflecting on the News Art that I made in response to news headlines directly, I decided to be more subtle in the way I respond to the headlines. I decided to explore a more abstract way to express my feelings. What started my creating of News Art was the grief that I felt for the state of the world and my choice of using crows, inspired by the book ‘Grief is the thing with feathers’. So I returned to just painting some crow images as ideas came to me and not to overthink or be too deliberate.

METHOD

Without too much planning or thinking, I painted a few crows in flight using Chinese brush and ink in a free style Chinese painting approach. Then I held the painting up to the light:

Another painting done in the same way with a similar composition:

A more close-up view of a crow coming down for its prey with two others in the sky:

Since I had done quite a few of the crow paintings, I laid them out to see how they would look as a larger composition to get ideas on how to install these paintings as a group:

I finished by selecting two silhouette paintings that went well together and held them up to the light as one composition:

REFLECTIONS

I am pleased with the silhouette paintings. I like painting in Chinese free style. Some of the crow bodies were not quite right but overall the wings have worked out well. I feel they do give a sense of movement in flight. I am also happier with the more subtle and abstract approach to the news headlines selected. I also purposely chose the ‘ring of hands’ for the crows to fly through, like an escape route for them. We all need one of those at the moment!

Doing my newly discovered News Art has given me a reason to read the newspaper when I have felt inclined to avoid the news. Looking through the newspaper to pick out headlines to respond to has given me courage to face what’s happening in the world in a way that I didn’t expect.

LEARNING

I feel excited by my new discovery of making art in this way. I am gradually developing a process and as I get to know more about the newsprint material, I feel able to push things further such as how wet I could make it (very wet, surprisingly). I really like painting on the newspaper because it is not a blank canvas and the contents and images on each page give me so many ideas which is great.

One thing to bear in mind is that newsprint is not archival. This would be a problem if I continue to pursue this way of making. I need to look into ways to preserve the artwork especially if I’m thinking about showing these work at some point. Proper research is needed including asking specialists at CSM.

Overall, the main learning is to just keep making more work to explore this way of making. Ideas flood in as I make.

NEXT STEPS

Make more News Art!

Research ways to make News Art archival.