It's been a little while since last posting. I've contributed to our latest project 'Movement in Time and Space' with great difficulty, as well as going on a Goldsmiths open day, a Bethnal Green gallery crawl, and watching lots and lots of Peep Show.
I feel with the last project that i'm not loose enough with my ideas; as much as i hate briefs, i stick to them far too close-mindedly; i need to really let go and experiment with possible ideas that could be taken from it rather than sticking to a strict formulae. I've been using oil bars very often lately; they are fun to use but i do not feel i get the same effect as i do with oil pastels; as soon as i've finished an image with oil pastel, no matter how intimidating it is to make, i am always happy with the outcome, whereas with the oil bars, i've always been slightly questioning of my work; i'm not really that happy with it and i do not feel my ideas have been portrayed effectively.
I ended up watching 'Helvetica' and 'The Mona Lisa Curse' over the past few weeks aswell, in which i have learnt of prices of art and popularity and actual importance of public appeal in design. Both didn't so much teach me facts about Art/Design history, but instead opened my eyes to the public view on art; the overuse of the Helvetica font in how we see it absolutely everywhere, as well as the constant reproduction of the Mona Lisa image, now resulting in it not living up to our expectations in real life; it's simply an image we look at and move on from, though thought upon being a stunning portrait.
Eitherway, it's our last week of college before christmas, and we were given our mini project over the weekend. I spent yesterday wandering around elephant and castle and drawing the sights and sounds onto cardboard with oil bars; i will send these in the post for the project, but i may try and squeeze in a couple of paper images made from oil pastel, displaying sights and sounds of the grotty place in which i live.
Despite still having a week left, i shant be in any other days; there are two studio days left, but i have christmas things to prepare for and a visitor, however, in my spare time i wish to continuously draw and try and route out my actual style, as i'm fed up of looking around seeing such successful work surrounding my attempts at trying to make something good that really, really isn't.
The christmas holidays have taken far too long to come round, but i'm looking forward to having the relaxing time with family and re-realising just what i'm missing from my London home; January is going to be a very dark, depressing month, and i forsee getting a lot of use out of this.
Merry Christmas everyone, see you in the new year.
.x
