Ellen Montelius Photography

Artist Journals created by young children

2012-02-13T06:12:00.000-08:00

A recent art workshop with children explored and investigated artist journals.

The children created their own unique books using traditional and contemporary bookbinding techniques, marbleising, drawing, wax-resist painting and pop-up elements.

The children thoroughly enjoyed their books and were quite excited that they could continue to use them as a journal by adding more text and pictures into them.

Artist Journal with colourful page and interactive wheel.

Detail of wheel with window.

Artist Journal showing animated pop-up coil.

Beautifully mixed-media journal.

Selection of artist's journals

Comedy sketch writer in 1/60 of a second

2012-02-13T05:40:00.000-08:00

Scott Kingsnorth is a talented and very serious comedy sketch writer and yes, he is funny when you meet him. Photographing him on location in the 1950's Art Deco styled Lower Bar of the Assembly Hall turned out to be quite enjoyable.

Art Workshop at Trinity

2012-02-13T04:37:00.000-08:00

If you live in the Tunbridge Wells area and you have a child between

the ages of 9-11 who enjoys art, your child is welcome to join

the Art Workshop at Trinity.

Every Saturday for six weeks, your child will be encouraged to

explore and investigate art skills in observation, drawing,

painting and photography.

The cost is £85 per child including artist's sketchbook,

portfolio holder and the use of fine quality art materials.

For an application form please email.

Poet at the Poetry Society

2011-11-16T08:26:00.000-08:00

This month, Kent and Sussex Poetry Society's meeting welcomed poet, Clare Pollard to read from her recent book titled Changeling.

Art and Literature project

2011-11-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

I like to combine art and literature when creating art projects for young children. This week I read a short passage to primary school children from the book, Peter Pan by J M Barrie. I read the part about Peter Pan visiting the nursery with Tinker Bell to find his shadow. Barrie's acute childlike observations of the characters in the story make them seem absolutely real to a small child.

I used the story as a catalyst to introduce art elements of value (tone) and shape to the children. I used a torch to illuminate small toys placed on the work table and illustrated how different shadow shapes are created by raising or lowering the angle of the torch. We also talked about how our outdoor shadow lengthens or shortens depending on the time of day. Each child was asked to trace at least five different shadow shapes created by the torch shining light on the toys into his or her sketchbook. The shapes created by the shadows overlapped each other. At this stage of the process of work, I talked to the children about light and dark or value in drawings and I asked them to make a light to dark scale using a graphite pencil. Then I asked the children to choose from the scale different values of light or dark to colour in their shapes.

For the second part of the project I cut out black netting material into child sized 'shadows' and placed them inside origami folded envelopes for each child. I hid the envelopes in the classroom before the children arrived for the art workshop session and when they arrived we discussed the Peter Pan story again and I asked the children to look for their shadow just like the boy did in the story. Luckily, the children went one at a time to find their shadow because it would have been absolute chaos, they were so excited and jubilant with the idea. With their imaginations running wild they thoroughly enjoyed playing with the shadow, placing the shadows on the floor, chair or each other. The origami envelopes were then decorated using the marbleized technique with oil paints and a tray of water. Great fun was had by all and I have been told by one of the children that it was the best art workshop in his life.

'shadow' and marbleised origami envelope

Art in the Community

2011-11-06T10:46:00.000-08:00

Organising and leading art workshops is a challenging yet rewarding way to keep your art practice ebullient and creative. Collaborative art workshops involving museums and other specialists such as writers can also enhance and further develop your work as an artist.

My recent workshop was with Tunbridge Wells Museum and I was invited to work with a primary school in Kent. The museum gave me a brief to create a series of art activities that involved a response to the theme of Museums at Night and since my input was photography based techniques, I decided to do a photographic technique aptly named light graffiti that allows you to 'paint' with light. Every child who attended and participated in the project was recorded in the final photographic print and since the museum's gallery was quite large the over two metre wide print fit quite comfortably in the gallery.

Portrait in a gallery

2011-10-30T06:10:00.000-07:00

My recent portraits are of Nathaniel Hepburn, curator of the highly successful Mascalls Gallery in Kent. Nathaniel is also the creative writer and author of the book titled John Piper in Kent & Sussex. The current exhibition, 101 Self Portraits, from the Ruth Borchard Collection at Mascalls Gallery was an ideal setting for the portrait session. On entering the gallery many of the paintings are arranged sparingly to great effect, however most impressive is one wall that is covered floor to ceiling with beautiful portraits of artists.

I posed the curator in front of this wall of paintings to convey his connection with the art gallery. He appears twice in the photograph, one as an observer looking at the paintings to visually illustrate his passion at looking and thinking about art and the second pose is facing the viewer.

I used a simple lighting set-up that consisted of side-lighting as evidenced by the shadow on the floor.
The other portrait shows Nathaniel posing at the entrance of the gallery, a studio light is brightly lit behind him to create a rectangular frame of light. I also added a light above at an angle in front of him.

Creative Collaboration

2011-10-20T03:29:00.000-07:00

A successful collaboration with bespoke florist, Jane Will, entrepreneur of Flowers & Daughters, has resulted in a beautiful series of her ravishing and stunning flower arrangements. My objective was to illustrate her flowers in a light and style reminisced from European master still life paintings from the 16th and 17th century.
A visit to the National Gallery of Art in London was a valuable resource for me.
The simple and pared down lighting consisted of side studio lighting using a softbox and a white reflector card on the opposite side and another studio light pointing at the brick wall. Black card was used as a gobo to control light falling on different objects.

Jane lighting candle next to her glorious floral arrangement.

Portraits at the local Museum

2011-10-20T02:32:00.000-07:00

During my recent visit to Tunbridge Wells Museum, I took portraits of the some of the very dedicated members of staff. Each individual who works at the museum is passionate about sharing their extensive knowledge of the local collection. Despite the small size of the museum, the costume collection is one of the largest in the Southeast and it has the largest collection of Tunbridge Ware anywhere in the world. It contains many interesting collections of fine art, domestic items for social history enthusiasts and natural history specimens on display and in storage.

The portraits I took used a simple lighting set-up. A portable and collapsible softbox with flash allowed me to move effortlessly around the museum gallery without worrying about damaging or disturbing exhibition displays. I know that the people who work at the museum are very busy and it helped a great deal to use the portable lighting equipment. I could change the position and settings of the light quickly and easily.

Photography Exhibition at Trinity Gallery

2011-09-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

A recent exhibition at the Trinity Gallery in Tunbridge Wells, Kent showcased my portrait work and other Meejahub photographers during the Electric Lantern Festival. ELF was directed and programmed by talented filmmaker, Samuel Marlow.

I thoroughly enjoyed the events I attended, especially The Tunbridge Wells Movie Preview. The films were completed segments of an on-going production of the Tunbridge Wells Anthology, made by a collaboration between local professionals and first-time filmmakers. When it ended and the theatre house lights were switched on, I couldn't help notice that some of the members of the audience sitting next to me were the actors who appeared in the films. That doesn't happen to me everyday.

Two photographs exhibited in the Trinity Gallery and illustrated here are portraits of the writers, Susan Wicks and Mara Bergman. Their poetry was also displayed in the art gallery.

Susan Wicks, writer 2011

Mara Bergman, writer 2011