We Are The Misfits

Who are the misfits? We are a team of Digital Media students at Stow College, Glasgow, Scotland.

The team was formed as part of the course Enterprise unit.

We are:

Phil Marshall.

Gyan Singh.

Maureen Homera.

Paul Ritchie.

Task 1: Anna Mary Hotchkis (1885-1984)

Anna Mary Hotchkis was a 20th Century Scottish painter. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art from 1906-1910. She also learned her trade in Munich and at Edinburgh College of Art under Robert Burns.

She lived in China from 1922-1937 and while teaching at the Yenchuing University, Peking. It was while there that she met an American artist by the name of Mary Mulliken, and the two women travelled wildly to very remote parts of China.

She painted in Watercolour, Oil and also did some woodblock printing, often alongside Dorothy Johnstone, May Brown, Cecile Walton and Jessie King in Kirkcudbright. They were collectively known as The Kirkcudbright Painters.

Task 2: Myles Birket Foster (1825-1899)

Foster - born in North Shields, England - was an illustrator and watercolourist of Victorian landscapes.

After moving to London as a child he became an apprentice wood engraver, however he soon transferred his style to Landscape Draughtmanship and worked for many important periodicals including Punch.

He would later become a member of the Royal Watercolour Society (RWS) and showed some 400 paintings at the Society's exhibitions.
Although best known for his paintings of rural England, he travelled extensively and painted along the banks of the Rhine, the Swiss Lakes and in Venice.

Foster normally signed his paintings with a 'B' woven into a larger 'F'.

Task 3: Badsworth Hunt

Badsworth - a village and civil parish in the city of Wakefield, Yorkshire, England - was the setting for this oil on board painting by George Anderson Short (1856-1945). Entitled 'Badsworth Hunt coming out at Cowick Park, Snaith 1922', the painting was recently sold at McTear's auction house in Glasgow, Scotland for 260 pounds.

The Badsworth Hunt itself is still very much alive. However the hunt due to take place on the 15th September 2008, was cancelled due to poor weather conditions.

Task 4: Oleography

Oleography - or Chromolithography - Is a method of making multi-coloured prints. The style evolved from Lithography and replaced the colouring of prints by hand. Eventually it would suffice as a replica of a real painting.

Depending on factors such as style, artistic skills and the number of colours present, it could take many months for an Oleograph to be completed.

Using a series of layers - much like we do in modern digital art - the artist would gradually build up his work, correcting errors and adding layers until the print looked as much like the original painting as possible.

Oleograph's are rare these days but when they do come up at auction, the American ones in particular can fetch many thousands of pounds, much more than Oil Paintings due to their rarity.

Task 5: Alfred Jacob Miller (1810-1874)

Alfred Jacob Miller, was born in Baltimore. Maryland, USA.

Miller, best known for capturing the wild west on canvas, was assigned by Capt. William Drummond Stewart of the British Army, to accompany him and his party on an expedition through the Rocky Mountains.

After the party had been robbed by a group of Pawnee Indians, Miller began recording all the people and incidents in his work.

Miller spent the next two years working for Capt. Stewart, who later returned to Scotland, but asked Miller to join him and help redecorate his castle. Miller spent two more years working for Stewart and upon completing his work, returned to his native Baltimore.

Now established, he found himself inundated with work. Many people wanted to sit for their portrait. He continued to paint scenes of the West, but never returned. Opting instead to live a quiet batchelor life with his sisters, and died peacefully in 1874.

The painting titled 'Woman at stile' is unlikely to have been painted by Alfred Jacob Miller - and more likely to have been painted by A. J. Miller - because the former was not known to have used oil on paper.

Task 6: Etching

Etching was an artistic process whereupon acid was used to cut into the unprotected parts of metal. In modern etching, other chemicals are used depending on the metal being used for the piece.

In basic etching, a waxy residue known as a ground, was placed on the metal surface, the artist then used his tools - most commonly a needle - to scratch away the wax thus leaving the bare metal exposed. Once the artist is happy with the work, the metal is placed in an acid bath - a mordant (from the French word for biting) - The acid then 'bites' into the metal, giving depth to the scores made by the artist.

The remaining wax is then washed off, and the piece is then inked all over. The ink is then cleaned from the surface leaving only the ink in the etching which the artist created.

The piece is then placed in a high-pressure printing press with a sheet of moistened paper, and the paper in turn sucks up the ink from the etching and creates the desired picture. Several hundred copies could be made before the etching shows any sign of wear.