goodbye chelsea.

hello whatever's next.


http://alyssa-phelan.tumblr.com/

eval.

             A feeling of uncertainty was present throughout the majority of my project, despite the research I had carried out; my project was to document my time in London, take photographs, and play around with cinematic imagery to make my work bolder; I had observed, drawn from and thought about a variety of films, and had used up at least seven rolls of 36-exposure film before I knew my main focus. My methods for what works would turn out successfully were “trial and error”.

I began by documenting where I had travelled, and social situations I would find myself in. I kept a log to keep a note of where I had been and my thoughts at the time. After a talk with tutors, I realized my work was far too broad and it needed a focus to have continuity between each painting. From there, I have focused on the reason I moved to London: the vibrancy of the city. I create loud, messy paintings, and I wanted to link this in with the experience I have had. I began to take photographs embarking on specific journeys around busy areas, most being by foot.

The methods I used for creating the paintings were not far out of my comfort zone, the main variant between each one being the material I was painting onto: either canvas, cardboard or wood. I prefer my paintings’ waxy texture when working on wood, however quite a few of the canvas paintings had been successful. Each painting would consist of composing the photograph(s), surrounding and layering these with oil bar, and then drawing and painting onto acetate to top them off. The resulting painting would be a glimpse of the urban fabric; the gestural abstract paintwork, the use of colours and shapes interact with each other and the sharpness of the photograph, showing human interaction and movement I had come across.

            Influences from other artists have helped shape my work; I feel I have drawn a lot from Merlin James, Dawn Mellor, and Willem De Kooning stylistically.  

            I didn’t refer to my action plan much throughout the project, because I knew in my mind what I would need to do after each step, as well as there being different obstacles that could change specific dates, for instance, if I could only afford so much film to be developed in one week.

            Overall, I have learnt that it’s better to try to focus on a stable idea from a week of thorough research, allowing more time for that idea to develop further, rather than working on broad ideas for a lengthy time. I will improve upon this in later work for the fact that I have grown in confidence and I have a better idea about which of my works turn out more successful. All in all, I’m very proud of my FMP work, it being my strongest collection of work yet, and I cannot wait to grow from this point. 

some new work;

It's been over a month since i last posted, which is pretty awful, but a lot has come up. We've ofcourse had this FMP business unloaded to us which has got everyone working on overtime. As well as this, i've had a few visits from friends, a visit from the boyf and then a trip back to Oxford to spend time with him. My mac broke which was a massive bugger and got me to points of boredom i haven't reached in a long long time. Interviews here and there, and a couple of rejections later, here i am. Basically two more weeks of college left. Two weeks of Foundation. Mental.


My FMP started out as a plan to just gather things i've taken and experienced from my time in London and whop it on a canvas; it's very important to me as living in London was my dream and i've finally done it. These canvases are thought out ofcourse; i struggle to explain why i make certain marks, but i know which marks i should make and i have a good idea on what i think looks good in my head. Putting that across to the tutors, however, is another matter. On Monday i was told i need to stop talking bollocks and change my subject matter from being all over the place to one specific subject/focus. In this case, i've decided to document the journeys i take daily. Always carrying a camera, i shoot things that catch my eye and try to record what and who i see. I don't know how i can explain this in an exciting thrilling way but surely my work should be doing the talking anyway, rather than myself. 
I understand an artist needs to have a sense of what their doing and get used to talking about works, but these artists are usually interviewed and asked specific questions; when i get stood in a corridor with my work lined up for everyone to see and just get stared at by my tutors and expected to talk, i stutter, panic and literally no words or nothing exciting can come out. Knowing this, i have my Chelsea interview in about a month from now and i'm literally bricking myself and holding no real hope that i'll get in just due to my sheer lack of confidence when talking about what's infront of me. I can't tell you why i find a certain composition interesting, or why certain colours happen to stand out and appeal to me. 
If i don't get in to chelsea, my only real option i'd want to take is a gap year to work full time and do art in any spare time i have. BA is so appealing because you're just left to your own devices to experiment, a lot like foundation, but it's a continuation of this, and that's really what i need to develop and take my work further. The fact i may not get in because i can't talk is incredibly unfair and it's really bummed and stressed me out.
That last paragraph turned into a bit of a rant, really.
Anyway, the FMP is now on journeys and i'm hoping i have a good collection of work by the 31st. 


PowBYE .x

hello. i just realised i hadn't posted any of the few pictures i took whilst at the ICA gallery the other week.

so here are some;

a film containing birds. 9 minutes with an outdoor abandoned feast. guess what happens.

i liked this sculpture piece.

this work resembles the work of Peter James Carrington. I adore Carrington and similarly adore this.

Cute little random postcards. i diiiig. i can't collage.

so that sums that up. 

I also haven't noted what i've done socially as of late. I went to see Metronomy at Heaven the other week, that was pretty nang. I ate shitloads of takeout; i feel pretty fat now. I also bombed my FMP and ended up feeling coldy and fluey and wanting the fuck out of London so i could see maaa mandem.

Went down last thursday and spent the whole past weekend back in Oxford. I basically lived at my boyfriends house the whole time, we watched films and listened to music, went out for a meal with his fam and had the most beautiful valentines day together ever imaginable. I cannot stress in enough words how happy and content i am with everything and how much i truly love him.

Back up to London for assessment; has been a rushed day, and after taking all my work from the past few weeks without it even being looked at, i left with my head up after receiving a very healthy pass with probability of it being a Merit by the end of the year. Tomorrow i have to really think about my FMP ideas and go out and take photographs, look out for little things people do not normally see. I also have to further artist research and probably watch a few films.

...Which reminds me! Watched 'Let the Right One In' the other night, a swedish film following the story of a young bullied boy who falls in love with a Vampire. Sounds like your corny 'twighlight-esque' sort of story, but this was actually very good and very moving with some beautiful cinematography.

Roiiiight. think i've updated this enough. 

buying the new Radiohead LP this coming saturday so i'm going to be immersed in that record for a good while which will put on a large delay to blogging. .x

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Forgot to add to the second last blog; a trip to the Saatchi Gallery with my darling pal Ellie took place! We were going to hit the East End but after doing some intense portfolio prep and the fact i had to rush home before work meant that we just stayed at Saatchi, which was interesting enough; there were many artists that shared links to my work; i plan to read and research these artists through at a later date.

 Tis a spacious beautiful gallery.

Artists who inspired: Dan Perfect, Nicholas Hatful, Ansel Krut, Robert Fry, Gabriel Hartley, Nicholas Byrne (for using Plexiglass), Carla Busthil, Richard Wilson.

more good news.

kingston have decided to give me an interview after i sent them a portfolio full of a level because i had so little faith in the first batch of my foundation work.
this must be karma being kind. x

Some photographs for portfolio;

safe .x

Hello world, it's been a good while since i've last written. I'm really awful at keeping up to date with this thing, but that's mainly because i have my own art journal which i basically put all this sorta stuff, and more, into anyway. Though that's also failing to inspire me at the moment. I'm just so bugged down with portfolio stuff. 
So, quick update since my last entry; Thankfully that last week i wrote into my blog went nice and quickly, finishing off our projects and basically i had a fair bit planned in order to help pass the time til my next trip down to Oxford. The rent bastards are still having a good old nag at me, so the fact that when i couldn't pay second terms rent, an escape to Oxford felt more than satisfactory. I ended up hitching it on down on the 25th, had to come back up for one measley shift at work on the 28th, and then retreat to spend the weekend down there up til Monday 31st. Was the first time seeing Leo in three weeks, which sounds like nothing but truly took forever to pass. Had such a lovely time as per usual, coming back to London was rather heartbreaking once again. However! Has been a busy week this week too, which always keeps me going! Monday 31st i had my shift back at work, plus college in which people began looking at their portfolios and we got our FMP briefing, which, admittedly, scared me shitless. I'm just so blank as to where to take my work further. I kinda do work randomly rather than working through development, which sounds as though it makes no sense, but it seems to be the way i work. I'm random, what can i say. 
Tuesday i made my way in to college to shoot all my work and get some sort of action plan drawn up for the rest of the week. Sadly, this action plan has not worked out as well as hoped, due to the slowness of delivery and the fact Davey isn't in college today. I do however have all my photographs ready for portfolio, so it's just a matter of mounting it all now and then whizzing my Goldsmiths application off asap. Going to do it Monday night i reckon, get it out the way and that. Tuesday night i also had a gig booked at Heaven to see Metronomy, in which i got pretty wasted and danced myself silly. Good thing that i can remember the night though, was pretty mint. Wednesday was spent feeling knackered and sorry for myself after a busy past weekend/start to the week, and a day in which i could begin cracking on with my Valentines pressie for Leo. Thursday was spent waiting on these prints from photobox; shame they never came, cause they're usually spot on at delivering quick. Today i managed to finish off Leo's pressie so i can finally focus on what this FMP is going to be, and get everything written up and ready for the week after next. I want to finish my current sketchbook this weekend with lots and lots of drawing, possibly some photography, as well as finish up my journal book so i can make a complete commitment to this FMP; i want my work to turn out as best as it possibly can. We'll see how it all works out. 
This weekend i also plan on just going out and seeing London, shooting as many photos as physically possible in as little time as possible. I'm also going to relax, unwind, and bleach my head. 
I also have to seriously get rid of my serious recent addiction to Doritos. I don't even like crisps, for fuck sake! 

I believe cinema to be an art form, reasonably modern and an incredibly popular atmosphere to watch moving image, or ‘film’. It has developed into a very mainstream business, with films constantly being churned out to the masses, however there are opportunities to watch some of the old greats that have been released; ‘Une Femme Est Une Femme’ is one of them.

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard, and filmed in Paris, France, it is a highly successful Comedy/Drama, and, despite there being no songs throughout the film, it is also regarded as a Musical. Coming in at just under 90 minutes long, starlet of the film ‘Angela’ seduces and engages us; ‘Angela’ is a Parisian stripper who wants a baby immediately, however her boyfriend ‘Émile’ isn’t quite so keen on the idea. Throughout all the bickering, Angela decides if she’s not going to get this baby from Émile, then she’ll have to try his best friend Alfred Lubitsch instead.

The characters put before us become very loveable one by one; Angela being our favourite purely for her beauty and the way she dances before us. She charms the entire audience, looking deeply into the lens, winking and letting out a cheeky smile upon every opportunity. Émile and Alfred are both admired more-so for their convincing friendship, providing us with incredibly humorous jokes and looks to the camera. This being said, as Humans we are all exceptionally open to voyeurism; watching people go about their daily lives and their interactions with other people comes as immensely interesting to us, so just overlooking the characters relationships keeps us absolutely engrossed.

Godard has also done an exceptional job at directing these characters. The positioning, the setting, the costumes, and the exact moments chosen in which the characters interact with the camera have all been thought-out and all blend together to form a perfect, and for it’s time, modern piece of film. The actual filming itself also contains some cinematic techniques, such as wide camera pans from side to side, varieties of shot/musical edit, and ofcourse that voyeuristic touch to make the film that little bit more of a personal insight into the characters lives. ‘Une Femme Est Une Femme’ is Godards first colour film, and contains that inspirational quality to make you want to go out and begin making films too.

I, as a young artist, look to this movie for inspiration and ideas; I now want to especially focus on my orientation of images, and how I could position some of my drawings or paintings in an eye-catching format. It’s also made me realize how much I love the 60s Parisian culture; it’s incredibly free-spirited and 'ideal'.

           

‘Une Femme Est Une Femme’ is a beautiful piece of cinema, and leaves you with a feelings of exploration, intrepidness and happiness; it lifts all negativity, despite longing to live a life like that of Angela, which sadly I don’t think is as possible or atleast as easy these days. 

It's been a long time since last posting; in my last week of being at college, i wasn't so much at college but instead working on the christmas project from my flat, and doing all sorts of pre-christmassy things, such as meeting up with friends and celebrating. I also had Leo up for a short while which was really really lovely, we went christmas shopping together and just overall had a lovely time snuggled in the warmth :o)
Christmas holidays were mint, despite the absolute mass of hours i had to spend in my first week at Waitrose. Was nice to serve the old customers i used to see many times, but nonetheless were the days far too draggy. Plus i got a filthy flu off some fucker which hit me on the 27th.
Christmas day was spent with the family, basically everyday thereafter was spent with my darling, including New Years, in which he decided to lowe all plans and stay in and look after me. :o)


Back in London from the 5th. It took about a week to actually sort my life out and get back into some sort of routine. Being back at work is no fun but it'll be nice to get some money in again. Also being back at college has been lovely, as much as i didn't really touch any form of work over christmas, it's nice to get creating again and getting back into the habit of just drawing and making. I ended up choosing the figurative project, and worked on images of my friends i had previously taken;

New project now, entitled 'Noise'. The brief suggests we look into different cultural magazines and such to do painting/drawing studies from. I have chosen 'Heat', merely for it's take on celebrating celebrity culture. I feel this will probably lead me into some sort of project focusing on socialites and different pieces of media which may interest me and inspire me to create more. As much as i haven't done so much to begin with, i'm sure the rest of the project will motivate me into getting plenty of work done and i could create some really interesting pieces.


The past couple of Wednesdays have also been cinema days in which CCW meet to watch some artsy fartsy films. This week was 'The Long Goodbye' and the previous week was 'Slacker'; out of the two, my favourite being 'Slacker' due to some of the topics and issues raised in conversation; it was interesting to listen to but not something i'd necessarily choose to re-watch. This next week, we also have a gallery visit after to attend which could be interesting. I'll post more about each film and my thoughts after then, as well as an update as to how this project is going. It's sunday and i'm too sleepy to really even think...


my sleeping pattern needs to sort it's fucking life out.

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

First of all, listen to this; 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQBDsNiCCNM
so so mint.



anyway, here we are at Tuesday in the second week of the Fine Art rotation. Last week was pretty iffy in that, although i had ideas from Reading week, i sorta didn't know where to begin..? I found myself sat there watching everyone else immerse themselves into their projects for long bursts of time. After a slight bit of guidance, i left to go buy some things from a Vintage shop which i could place with other objects i owned to create some sort of composition i could paint from. After having done this numerous times, i ended up exploring the idea of looking into other people's personal spaces, and so ended up collecting photographs of people's rooms and painting them. That's all well and good, but i ended up finding myself a little bored. When i do paint and create images, i like to have a certain idea behind it; all my work is normally fairly narrative rather than just coming up from nothing. Due to this, i ended up getting some floorboards and painting a sorta 'murder' discovery piece of them, in which one by one you see parts of a crime scene; one floorboard contains blood, the next contains a razor, etcetera etcetera. I continued this idea and ended up creating a Domestic Violence group of images; they don't necessarily need to be interpreted in that way, but that was my main focus behind it. Yes, i like to be grim.
Despite my efforts, as this week has begun, i was told to focus less on the ideas behind it but instead just focus on creating these paintily images of compositions i have placed together, in which case i have continued to do so, using the tabletops around the studio as a background and placing objects on top. I'm reasonably happy with the way these images are turning out, however, i would have liked to have had an idea formed behind it, however, if people dig it then i guess it's all gravy. 

Tomorrow i have a Goldsmiths open day to attend which will be interesting; for the rest of the day i plan to attempt to fill my sketchbook up slightly more and see if i can come up with some sort of idea for my final piece, for i do not know exactly what i'm going to present on friday. Otherwise, sleeping is vital and perhaps making a start on my Ucas Application.
Roll on Friday, it's payday. need more acrylic. yeyeyyeyeyeyyeee.


.x

6th November 2010: this is the end of the introduction, and finally, the Chelsea course is going to be kicking off. I did choose to do a foundation for the fact that i wanted to go through the rotation process and learn new things, see what areas i would take to, etcetera, but i've ended up with a clear pass at assessment and going in to where i thought i'd be best off; Fine Art. It seemed the Fine Art tutors and the Assessment tutor both agreed with me on this. This morning we had the briefing for our first project before 'Reading Week' takes place; it's basically going to be a half-term style week in which a lot of students chose to do as little work as physically possible and just mellow out after the busy start to the year we just experienced. I immediately think that i'm going to do this, but i'm really not; i'm so psyched to be starting the Fine Art specialisation, and already, like a little geek, i have all my kit ready to begin and as soon as i got back to the flat today, i started researching artists, and brainstorming ideas in my mind to think of the best possible way to attack this project. This week is going to be a week off to relax, unwind, spend some time with friends and family, but i'm also going to really expand my mind in order to try and come up with the most interesting approach to the project. I really can't wait to properly begin, my life at Chelsea is officially starting, and from this point, i never want it to end.


:o) .x

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