Portobello market yesterday

This man works on a stall there. I love him. I've added him to my collection, which I will one day draw. His dog stayed there the whole time I saw him.

Author project

I mentioned this project earlier but I will explain it better now.

We were given the brief: 'using the primary needs as the basis for further development you are asked to design and construct a wearable 1:1 scale, body

suit or costume.' We then had to wear it in a 'rebirth' on 4th march and explain it to the class and tutors.

I wanted to make mine adaptable. As one of my needs was escapism I needed it to be something that could change so I could escape. I looked into pods. I had a strong image in my head of what I wanted it to look like however when it came to making it, it didn't work at all. The images show some of my rough ideas and plans and what I wanted my costume to look like.

I looked at Lucy Orta and Erwin Wurms' work which helped me a bit.

I need to upload the photos of my costume but I need to take them first! I will get onto this.

New brief and Berlin

19th february. We got a new brief to have finished in 2 weeks. We have to make a 1:1 scale body suit. I will talk about this at a later post as I didn't think about it until I got back from Berlin.

Berlin- friday 22nd feb 08 to monday 25th feb 08.
We got set a brief to 'observe the city and the way it works, isolate a 'thread' of activity.'
I mainly took photos of things I liked so I could draw them when I got home.

22nd- We arrived at Hotel Transit (Mehringdamm tube,) dropped our bags off and then we went to the jewish museum (judisches museum berlin.)
23rd- we went to a flea market then to a nearby monument in a park. Then we went to the Bauhaus Archive which wasn't good at all. We went shopping to a vintage shop where they weigh what you buy. In the evening we went to bang bang club which was so bad. We ended up leaving, travelling to different places around berlin and ended up in a small bar until 6am. It was good but we had no sleep.
24th- we went to Berlins natural history museum and drew dinosaurs because I love them (I mentioned this before!) Then we went to Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, it was like Berlins version of the Tate Modern. I enjoyed these but we were really tired. We went to the Berlin Tower in the evening and on the way met 'Charles Xavier'. He was apparently a 'rapper' from America.He was bad. He told us he was the devil and he was going to corrupt our minds etc. He also told us his life history and how he was a drug dealer. We didn't talk back much but we videoed him. This was on the tube. We went up the berlin tower which was also bad as all we could see was our reflections in the oddly angled windows. I'm pleased we made the effort to go up it though. Then we met everyone in a nearby german pub.
25th- we went back to the area where the tower is to get rubbish souvenirs, went to an italian restaurant near to the hotel for lunch and then we flew home.

Life drawing and odd shoes

Mon 18th february, life drawing.
I signed up for life drawing a couple of weeks ago. It said start at 10.30 so I got there at 10.20 (early) but as I walked in the lady was talking about how 'illustrators are always late.' Apparently it started at 10. No one told me this. It made me uncomfortable and I felt embarassed in front of the class who were set up and ready to go.
As a result of being late I was put right next to her. Less than a metre away, looking up at her. I could literally only see her torso and side of her hair. I could just see some of her face if I moved around slightly. Also, she was clothed.
I got left to it so started drawing in my sketchbook with my usual pens. The lady came round after criticising everyone elses work to look at mine. I don't think she knew what to do with me. She looked and said 'I'll leave you to it.'
The group stopped for a break and I decided to leave as I had some work to do and I had already drawn the same part of her about 10 times.
As I got in I took my shoes off only to realise I'd been wearing odd shoes...
oh dear...
bit of a disaster really. Glad I went though.

Assessment feedback and V&A

14th february. Had my assessment feedback with Pete. I got:

Unit 1 - 77% (2-1)

Unit 2 - 85% (first)

So I'm happy with that!

I need to do more workshops though. Start doing more craft based work. Making objects etc. Do workshops to back this up...learn as much as possible etc.

Pete told me to go to the V&A museum to see Out of the ordinary:spectacular craft exhibition.

So I did...

15th february. Really nice exhibition. The website reads:

'Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft brings together the work of eight contemporary artists who place craft at the heart of their practice: Olu Amoda, Catherine Bertola, Annie Cattrell, Susan Collis, Naomi Filmer, Lu Shengzhong, Yoshihiro Suda and Anne Wilson.
Collectively these artists use a diverse range of traditional and new technologies, from carving, sewing, welding to animation and laser etching. Working with exceptional skill and attention to detail, they use ordinary materials - paper, thread, dust and nails - to make works that are both intricate and large in scale.'

I really liked the exhibition.

This is work by Annie Cattrell, Yoshihiro Suda and Susan Collis. The last image by Susan Collis was a dust sheet but the paint splatters were sewn. It was really nice as it looked just like an old dust sheet on the floor then when you got close to it you could see the stitching.

Author project

We were asked to 'make or gather imagery that describes our world.' From the material we gather we were asked to isolate our primary needs for survival.

It was to be imagery that describes my world, particularly relevant to myself. An attempt to try and capture everything.

It took me a long time to get into this project as it is so open. I didn't have a clue where to begin or what to focus on etc.

I started to think about my universe and how it can be broken down. I split it into my general universe and my personal universe. General was all about science, language, cultures etc and personal was about myself. 'Myself' was split into mental and physical which was then broken down again and again etc. From these I came up with my personal primary needs for survival. My first thoughts were.. laughing, mobility, remembering things, travel, question, communicate, loud and quiet, escape, record, fun, positive interactions. Then from these I came up with:

-Escapism. Need to escape everyday life- travel, dreams (when sleeping,) watching (people/cities at night/sky etc,) loud and positive atmospheres, being on my own, laughing.

-Memory. Need to remember- memories, reminders, calendars, photos, drawings, write, record, videos, people etc.

-Experiences. Need to experience- going places, traveling, trying new things, seeing anything and everything, doing anything.

I got a collection of photos which describe some of my universe and needs to show in our group talk as visual imagery.

I also thought about the human body as an object. How we 'charge' ourselves up etc, our equivalents.

I love London

Sunday 10th February. Me and my two friends Chloe and Sam went to the London eye to lie on the grass, have a picnic, knit, draw etc however when we got there we realised the sprinklers had recently been on. We were not impressed. Instead, we walked around looking at all the buskers and street performers. I loved it. We ended up walking round and through Trafalger Square. The Chinese New Year celebrations were happening. It was such a nice atmosphere. We had a really good day.

I thought I'd mention this as some of the people we saw out were such good characters. I always seem drawn to old people anyway. I think it's the detail in their faces or something but I love them. Anyway, these are some of the people I liked... This man was busking...

This man was watching a busker...it was windy...I love it...

This man was drinking at 11am and dancing with two old male buskers who loved life and couldn't dance.









I love them all. I aim to draw them soon.

Assessment

Thursday 7th february we had our first assessments. We had Pete and Geoff and therefore their tutees too.
I hated the build up to it. I'd done all the work and knew what I wanted to say etc but I get really nervous. As I was about 8th in the group I was worrying the whole way through everyone elses. As soon as I started it was fine. It was just the anticipation.
My leg however was not fine. It decided to shake furiously and uncontrollably. This wasn't good.

Museums and Lectures

On 29th jan I had an urge to draw a dinosaur. I mentioned this in one of my first posts, the drawing is on that post.
I woke up and the urge came, I got up and went to the natural history museum, drew one, looked round and left. Maybe I dreamt of one and thats why I had to go... Maybe I'm just odd.
I like dinosaurs. I like to draw dinosaurs.
I love the detail and structures of their skeletons. I don't think I would like to draw them if they weren't in skeletal form. It was a good trip.

We had a lecture by Jim Stoten. It was good.

Animation - Story project

Our next brief was to select a piece of music and produce some form of imagery or performance etc to go with it. I chose to do an animation. The song I chose was La Valse D'Amelie (piano version) by Yann Tiersen. It's taken from the film Amelie (which I love!)

I'd never done stop motion animation before so I hoped that what I was doing was right. I wasn't sure on how to time things and know when certain bits had to happen to respond to the music but I tried my best. I really enjoyed doing it but I think I became a bit obsessive. I'd like to do more things like this but with a bit more guidance.

I originally tried to use objects and parts of my kit (from a previous project) to animate the song. I was going to shoot it from above and lay the objects on the floor below but it didn't look very good and I couldn't keep the camera in the same position. It was a bit of a disaster. Then I thought about 2d images and about cutting up magazines so I had a go and it worked a lot better. I made most of the pieces and put blue tack on them all and stuck it all on my wall. It was really time consuming but I'm pleased with most of my animation. Some of it could be improved however.

Story project

In the canyons of your mind - Vivian Stanshall.
When you listen to this song more than 4 times it starts to grate on you.
We had to make a series of five books describing this song in different ways.
These were colour, type, narrative, draw, then the final one was to be based on one or more of the other excercises.
I didn't do much of these at uni as there were four songs we could've done which were therefore played on a loop. You had to wait for your song to come on before you could do much and before you knew it, it was done and you'd have to wait again. I found this really frustrating and found it hard to concentrate. As a result of this I youtubed the song at home and played it over and over until I finished all of my books.
I now know all the words. It's bad.

The images above show my books open and the envelope they go together in, the books when they are closed with the envelope and my part of my combination book which was colour and type.

I had a tutorial with Pete on 16th january. We talked through some of my work and about how I could add colour to my blind drawings if I wanted to. He told me some names of artists to look at, Bruno Munari being one of them. Pete lent me his book 'Bright minds, beautiful ideas' which featured Munari along side Charles and Ray Eames, Marti Guixe and Jurgen Bey. I found it really interesting to look through. Talking about the five people featured in the book, it said 'all share a number of characteristics that are of fundamental importance for design. They question everything and are capable of coupling fantasy, playfullness and investigation with vision'

A few parts stood out to me:

Munari said 'Making things complicated is easy, achieving simplicity is tough.'

Marti Guixes' functional tatoos (removeable); man map was a subway map you could fit on the palm of your hand and index finger ruler which is self explanitary.

Jurgen Beys questioning and analysing everything: 'In India, everything is covered in a fine dust. What's the purpose of dust? If I can puzzle out the answer to that, I've made a fortune.'

The next day we got asked to make slides for Geoffs magic lantern. A Gorrilaz song was split up and we all got a line each to make a slide for. My line was 'obscured, as it was, by great clouds'

Reporter continued and Timeout

We were also asked to do a written assignment related to the reporter project. The aim was to 'identify similarities/differences in thinking and making between your own practice and that of an established practioner.'

I chose to look at KayLynn Deveney, I had recently bought her 'Day-to-day life of Albert Hastings' book. She seemed to fit the brief well.

This image is one of hers. I love the colours in it and also the angle its been taken at and how close she is. I like how it shows her relationship with this woman (Edith) as its quite an intimate and intruding photo.

We also got an e-mail about Timeout magazine. They approached our course with 3 book reports. They asked us to illustrate one if we wanted to be considered for future live projects. I chose to do the 'portrait' one. There was a line in the report that read 'old american hippy living in the rural hills.' I liked the image it conjured in my head and decided to draw this.

Reporter project

Over the christmas holiday period we were asked to find and document a club. We had to do reportage work. Like a visual journalist on location. We were asked to produce 30/40 site based images and 10 A3 images.

The club we chose had to be local to where we would be over the holidays. I was going home to Nottingham so needed to find something there.

I decided to look for a club for old people. I originally looked for an old mans chess club or similar but I couldn't find anything suitable. I came across Kindred Spirits (part of Age Concern) on a 'club' website. Kindred Spirits aims to bring lonely people aged over 60 together. The members choose what events they want to go to etc. I emailed the club co-ordinator and eventually we made plans for when I could visit them.

The first day I went to their christmas party where they had a dinner, dance and carols. I sat in a corner and watched, drew, took photos, wrote things I could hear etc. The second day I went to the head office where a few of the members went for mince pies and carols. This was all the co-ordinator and I had planned but as some of the members were leaving, a lady called Mo came and asked me and my friend along to an unnoficial meet on christmas eve. We went to a local cafe on christmas eve and as it wasn't official it was really nice and relaxed and I felt I could talk to them more.

On the second and third days I asked a few members to draw me a picture. Ian drew a picture of me and Constance drew a picture of a house. It was nice to talk to them more and interact with them like this.

My main approach to the project was to show the members in my work rather than aspects about the club itself. I did this because without the members, the club wouldn’t exist, they are the club.

For my 10 A3 images, I decided to layer them to show the members and show the club. I drew a different member on different sheets of acetate or tracing paper. When the images are apart it shows the space around them and shows the loneliness a few of them spoke to me about. When they are put together it shows them as a club and how it brings them all together. The images weren’t as good as the originals as I had to copy them. This lost the quality of line but it showed my idea.

Object continued again

We had to choose our own domestic object and examine its potential as a communicative device. We had to think about possible uses etc. We also had to show connotations for that particular object.

I chose a teapot.

Here is a mixture of the two tasks in one image.

I tried to think of realistic uses for the teapot.

During this task, I was thinking of how Daniel Eatock works and started thinking about anything I could do. Tea is bought and sold in shops in teabags. Teabags make tea. I made a teapot out of teabags. Its function as a teapot would and wouldn't work... it would still create tea as the water would pass through however it would collapse and only be able to be used once etc. I really enjoyed sewing them all together and figuring out what to sew where etc. I'm pleased with the result.

I also bought some buttons from Deptford market. I love this place. I sorted them all out. I love doing this.

Object continued

We then had a one day project to do. We had to bring in the domestic objects we previously drew 50 times and arange everyones on a table to draw them.

From them, we had to draw a series of 10 images each conveying something different. The first image is for 'a beginning.' I drew what was there in front of me as it was the beginning of the day and the task.

The second image is for 'protected.'

We also had to make a collection of objects that linked together and then display them however we wanted. I chose red objects and I struggled on what to do to display them. I ended up taking photos of them all in every day life as replacements almost to whats already there. Then I lined all the images up connecting them through a 'line' that ran through them all.

Object

Object project. We all chose a piece of paper out of a plant pot, each with a domestic object written on it. I got comb. We had to draw the object at least 50 times. These are some examples of mine.

I thought about the function of a comb first. The first comb in the second photo is cut out of an image of hair as this is this reason combs exsist. The second I made a sturdy could be real life one. The third is taking the function away completely as it's still a comb but it's floppy and so not useful at all. The fourth I did kind of ambiguously; if you add a long strip down the edge it looks like a comb however if you extend the lines, it looks like hair.

Hunterian and Kemistry

28th November - Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons. I've posted the 3 images I drew there on this trip at the very beginning.

1st December - Me and Clo went to Kemistry gallery in Hoxton to see the Daniel Eatock exhibition. I think his work is really interesting. I enjoy looking on his website. I like his conceptual thinking and spontaneity.

On his website, he writes "I am interested in connections between image and language, titles, punch lines, miscommunication, subversions, open systems, contributions from others, seriality, collections, discovery and inventing."

It was lovely to see his work for real as I'd only seen it on his website previously.

Editorial and Poster

Using our kits we had to illustrate an editorial piece and a phrase for a poster.

The editorial piece I did was about loneliness and technology. It talked about how advances in technology have made personal communictions break down. It also mentioned a lady who died in her flat and her body wasn't found for 2 years. As this was so shocking, I wanted to illustrate it.

This was just a quick rough of my first thoughts. Then I though more about the whole article. As I was laying out my kit to create my images I photographed them however I couldn't get them to look good. The colours weren't right, the images became distorted, the lighting wasn't right as there were shadows everywhere etc. In the end I decided to photocopy the relevant objects and cut them all out by hand with a scalpel. It took ages but the image came out better for it. I don't like the image I created however.

For the poster, we chose a phrase or story etc out of a few. I chose ''Here lies the victim of an untied shoelace.' How it was worded made me think that someone had theoretically died so I made the tongue of the shoe into a coffin. I used my red objects as red reminds me of blood and death. I like how it looks but I would have to cut it out like with the editorial to make it more professional.

Sign project

We had to make a kit. 2D and 3D. Anything we wanted. We were told to anticipate scenarios we may be using it for. I chose to use found objects. Most of the objects (or parts of objects etc) were found on the floor around college and Camberwell.

This is most of my kit laid out, the photos not very good though. I need to do it again!