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