As said in the previous blog, i'm really not a 3D person, which made the 3D Spatial rotation challenging. Today was the day of our crit, and, after a rocky beginning of forgetting to bring with me my two major pieces of A1 drawing, i looked at my work, and it was ill-ly presented and lacking a lot of documentation through photography and drawing etc. 
I had missed two vital days of the 3D rotation; one day being the first day we ventured into turning our drawings from 2D to 3D; therefore, i missed vital tutorial on how to go about this action, etc. With this day also being a friday, it meant i missed out on basic weekend work we were set, and to make matters worse, i ended up missing monday's lesson aswell, in which we were set a brand new project and had a whole day of experimentation to start us off. Without these two days, my projects were obviously incomplete and made for an uncomfortable presentation during my crit today; i was very harsh on myself, with my group being a lot more polite and reassuring, as well as giving me pointers as to how i could improve the work i had, which is always very useful.
The weekend is finally here, and is the time to prepare for the assessment next week; i'm slightly nervous, but at the same time confident in myself that i will provide a good body of work and will be able to narrow down my work with my given assessor to decide with specialisation i definitely belong to; i'm more than positive i'm right in thinking Fine Art, but i am looking forward to hearing what the assessor has to say. Eitherway, as soon as 3pm Tuesday comes around, roll on a few days of intoxication and sleeping in til 12pm. God bless those with a Surname beginning with a letter lower down in the alphabet than P. 


.x

Crossroads II

Before beginning the Chelsea Foundation course, I had it fixated in my head that I was going to specialise in Fine Art – I’ve always been one of those teenagers who can only really say they’ve done “Fine Art and nothing more”, so I was really excited to be exploring new areas but also positive that I’d end up sticking to my roots. I was right.

I always assumed that Fashion/Textiles and 3D Spatial would not be my forté, and as much as I put my all in to each rotation and tried to explore about with the different design ideas and techniques, I just felt that my projects were not as successful as they could have been; whether it was my execution or simply my way of over thinking everything I was creating, it just didn’t seem to work. I was happy with various drawings I made, mainly for the fact that I was able to give continuous line-drawing a go which I had never really done before, so despite Fashion/Textiles being the first rotation of the lot, I feel I settled in nice and quick to the routine of it all, which is what surprised me about 3D Spatial; It was my last rotation, yet i ended up feeling more lost than I did when I first began the rotations. It’s really out of my comfort zone being asked to design something and sticking to a brief; the thought of trying to invent a new usable object scared me somewhat and I think, by putting a brief in front of me, you’re actually giving me less of an idea as to what I could or should be doing.

Visual Communication was probably the most challenging of each of the rotations. At least with 3D Spatial, I had my excuse of not being a “3D person”; but with Visual Communication, it felt as though I was failing myself; I was struggling for ideas and pondered the brief heavily; I created some pieces I was pleased with, however these pieces carry a Fine Art touch to them. I think what I learnt more than anything from this rotation, as well as pairing it to 3D Spatial, is that I cannot work to a brief; I get far too self conscious about what I’m going to create and start worrying that it will not fit the briefs outlines and would end up with something simply “not good enough”.

That leads me on nicely to the fact that Fine Art makes me feel far more comfortable than any other area; I’m working for myself, and creating things that others may find aesthetically pleasing, or if not pleasing, they at least feel something. I like creating to give others a feeling or a thought of some sort, whether that thought is positive or negative, meaningful or meaningless. Some of my drawings I created throughout Fine Art did seem more so illustrative than anything, and I think this is an underlying part of my technique; I did find myself becoming very inspired by particular illustrative artists in Visual Communication, such as Ceri Amphlett. Lots of work I produce may point towards illustrative pathways, however, I challenged this view during the rotation by placing the paint next to my illustrations in a bold, heavy manner so that attention is drawn to the actual painted aspects of the piece. I think if I were to go into this specialization, I would happily experiment further, as well as perhaps trying out some pieces of animation or trying to develop my photography further.

Another reason as to why I think Fine Art suits me more than any other area is because I’m actually really passionate about it; there have been many sleepless nights of creating works for fun (which really does say a lot because I’m also incredibly passionate about my bed and sleeping in it for copious amounts of hours), and so I can for-see myself devoting a lot of time towards my work in the studios and out and about in the big city, picking up as much inspiration as physically possible. I think the best part of all is that I’m more excited about starting than anything, and surely if I’m that excited about pushing myself with masses upon masses of work, then I’m in for a very busy, imaginative and creative year and a happy step forward in my life as an artist.

.x

Okay, so it's been just over a week since the last post, and the Vis Com rotation has now finished. I really enjoyed the first week for the fact that, even though i struggled at first, i came up with a well-structured idea and i actually liked the outcome; something not very common with me, i normally end up hating my work, no matter what it is. The crit on Friday afternoon was useful and i got to look at other's narratives they had produced - some of which really impressed me.
I spent the weekend back home in Oxford - le boyf had a gig friday night so i went to watch him play, followed by a heavy pub session afterwards til the early hours. This was repeated saturday, but instead of it being a standard gig, it was OX4 festival, in which we ended up bumping into Matt Horne and sharing cheesecake, as well as joining in a stage invasion with BBC Oxford radio presenter Dave Gilyeat during Chad Valley. Beautiful, but very drunk / hungover times. 
The weekend severely affected the work produced on Monday. We had to develop upon ideas thought up on our Messages project in which we had to send a message from one person or object to another, without using words or making it at all obvious. I had several ideas floating about, but over the whole of Monday, nothing was coming to me.
Monday night i also had work, and as a result, i overslept Tuesday and felt exhausted all day. No ideas could come of this.
Wednesday i cracked on with more ideas, and came up with my Final Concept of Peter Pan, which i would then show on Friday for the final crit of the project. I ended up with some illustrative drawings of a woman, in some images she was playing with childrens toys or eating sweets associated with children, in others she was playing in the park or with other children. The last image showed her dressed as Peter Pan, and all of these seperate drawings were presented on pages of the 'Peter Pan' book, and presented in a work folder.
Obvious or not, my crit group seemed to understand that it was a worker, telling her boss that she didn't want to grow up. They did however refer to the worker as me, which is not strictly true, but i suppose the whole moving to London has made me realise what responsibilities i do have and would rather be without. 
Overall, this last week of Vis Com has really showed that it's not for me; the actual area itself is sound and some of the work produced can be amazing, but i really struggle working to briefs, as well as following what one tutor says, and then having to completely obliterate that idea due to what the next tutor says; they obviously all know what they're talking about, but i can't seem to puzzle any of the vis com tutors together to create a happy medium, and i don't like that kind of atmosphere where i'm always on edge as to whether what i'm doing is right. eurgh.


On wednesday, we had a talk by Dominic Wilcox; an artist i had already researched due to the Vis Com rotation, and it was very interesting to see him actually show us the work he had done and give his reasons behind it. I had looked at it all before online without really reading into it, thinking some ideas were good and others not so much, however actually listening to him deliver his reasons for what he had done, and the inspirational fact that he accepted he would create 'failures' through his project, really opened my eyes and warmed me to him as an artist. I really enjoyed Lecture Two and i'll be hoping for more artist talks in the near future.


It's finally Saturday, i've done the shopping, tidied round and somehow managed to bleach my hair with no help whatsoever. I intended for a sleep catch-up today but so far that has not necessarily happened, so another early night tonight followed by a day of 3d Prep & rest tomorrow.
Let's hope next week brings us better feelings than what Vis Com did, sad but true.


.x

It's been a very quick week over in the Visual Communication studio. To begin, i never made it into the studio for our first session on Monday due to the Underground strike. Nightmare. I heard it was a really fun day and intend on doing an independent catch-up on the task with random words i end up searching online. Should go okay, i just need to buy myself a sketchbook and i'll get on it. With the rotation change came the change of my day off through the week, and so i was back in College on Tuesday. In our Vis Com brief, we were told which materials to bring in with us, so i bought all i needed, yet i ended up completely lost; the tutors put a project to us that we were to begin and continue for the rest of the week; we had to form a narrative out of 13 random images we had bought in with us. There were titles given to us to help steer our narratives, but literally, we were just told to Go. I sat there for a good while just drawing, because i felt completely lost with what i could do with all my images (they were really very random indeed). I eventually got so bored that i opened up my colour supplement i bought in with me to scan for inspiration, but ouila, it was just what i needed; i found myself staring at an image of a very serious and partly scary-looking man, holding a whopping big knife, staring back at me. I ripped it out, and pairing that with the drawings of animals i began to create, i found myself a narrative and a title; "There are always other options." My narrative isn't based on my views but it's looking to the way other people look at things; people influence me, and having moved into halls of residence and sharing a kitchen with a Vegan, i thought my narrative seemed necessary. I ended up with three images by the end of Tuesday, which isn't so bad.

Wednesday was no longer a day off either, for i had my first Seminar. After getting into our small groups, we put our Summer Project Photos up on the walls, paired up, and discussed which ones we liked most of all and why. After doing this, we discussed John Berger and how there is a certain mismatch between seeing and looking; we are born with the sense of seeing, however it takes looking to understand what we actually see. With observation, there is a reciprocal relationship, and when looking at something, we bring with us our own experiences and opinions; it is never a neutral action. Not only did we talk about his views of seeing and looking, but we also talked about reproduced images, and how the reproduced versions make the original loose it's uniqueness or 'aura', however it does increase the value of the original, to some extent, making them priceless pieces.
This is the same for past art; art which is erased will always stay in memory and being able to see that piece would be looked upon now as an experience; for example, the 2009 Turner Prize Exhibition; the winner was a work of art all over the walls which have now been painted over, making the winning piece a fond memory which would have been an experience to be a part of.
Not all of the focus was on the John Berger book, but also Gregory Crewdson and our opinions on his work; i personally have looked at Crewdson before and had watched a documentary of him creating a certain photograph; as beautiful as it looked, i couldn't help but not like the whole idea of creating this mock scene; photographs should be memories of a moment, time or place, not a fake set thrown together and directed. However, the same could be argued with film; his photographs are just like stills of a film. The last point of discussion was the Edweard Muybridge exhibition at Tate Britain; in groups we discussed what we liked best out of his works, whether it was the earlier landscape works that appealed to us or whether it was his movement series of works. Other points mentioned were on why the rooms of the exhibition were different colour and what we thought about the layout of the exhibition. For a two hours-ish seminar, we covered a lot of ground. For the rest of the afternoon, i tried to create more images to be used in my narrative.

Here we are at Thursday; Independent Study Day. I've actually used this day very wisely today, for i've ended up staying in and actually cracking on with my narrative so much so that i believe it's finished; there's not many images, but it does bring across the basic message in the simplest form possible. Photographs will be put up after the crit day, which is tomorrow, in which the whole group will be putting their narratives up all around the room. It'll be really interesting to see what other people have done and to see just how creative everybody can get. Otherwise, today i've been researching more illustrators and copying some of their images into my notebook. I've come across some really interesting people, one illustrator in particular standing out to me is Ceri Amphlett; her work is beautiful, messy and damn-right quirky. I'll be looking to her as an influence with the rest of the work i produce on this rotation.
Vis-Com - so far, so good. i do miss David from Fine Art though - whadda darling.

safe .x

From where i last left off, we had another week of Fine Art among us, and already that week has whizzed round and finished. Over the last week, the studio time was very self-directed, in that everyone was just getting on with what they wanted to do and create. I really like this individualised self-study, as it allows us to focus on what we are passionate about doing and creates a completely vibrant spectrum of work around the room; all the work differed so much so that no matter what area of the studio you entered, you were seeing something different. Over the last week, i stuck to my bird idea in which i'd draw birds over abstract backgrounds, but i ended up using some photographs i had previously taken on a film camera which came out very strangely. I chose these certain photographs because they weren't clear about who or what was being focused on, and with the acetates placed on top, it created a very diverse piece. I also ended up adding the palette i used for each one to create a more painted-form instead of having the work look as though it was a piece of illustration.


This first photograph shows a variety of the work i produced over the second week of the Fine Art rotation. I kept a strong focus on the bird theme and didn't really venture from it, so i could push it to it's full potential in what i could have made.

This second photo shows my main pieces i was proud of; the random photograph ones. I chose to leave these ones on the wall for the Crit on friday. Sadly, the space they were positioned in got invaded by surrounding students also fighting for wall space, which ruined the effect of my work. However, when it comes to assessment, i'll find a wider space and keep the photographs very much separate from each other for a better effect.

Evidently, the camera on my phone had some paint on or something to make the photographs look steamy - soz, mate.

To conclude, Fine Art was a mint rotation in that the tutors were absolutely sound and helpful where possible and the fact we were able to do our own thing as well as learn along the way really opened my eyes to the possibilities that lie within that rotation. Being selected once again to have my work assessed has also made me feel really confident that this is where i belong. 

Next up, Vis Com; let's see what you've got.

.x