Not Long to Go...

Right – not long to go…… Today I’ve ordered 200 business cards with 8 different designs on the back and 120 post cards with 3 designs (each representing the 3 projects I’ve done this year). I used MOO, they really good – so far ;o) They should be delivered by 18/05 and hopefully will look good.

The sound to go with the main piece is done and is quite depressing and I believe quite interesting. Phil has been great, working with him on this was a pleasure and very productive – so thank you again. Paul seems to like it, and pointed out the obvious – as the recording is quite long (4.50mins as far as I remember) I’ll need to have a seating arranged for the listeners. I’m still to work out what to do with that.

The main piece (painting/print) is nearly done. I think one more day and it’ll be finito. Hopefully the tutors will like it, they haven’t seen it yet…

Here are some sections to give you an idea on what’s happening with:

I received some small samples of Japanese paper from John Purcell (www.johnpurcell.net). I’m using them to create small mono prints which will be a part of the Overpopulation project.

I’m still to make a few silk screens for my previous project, I think they will be done this week as well. And I need to collate stuff for PDP.

And the Statement of Assessment – need to start working on that as well… these next few days will be rather busy.

A quick update

The Easter Weekend is here I don't feel I have done nearly as much as I needed to.
The painitng/print is going ok - I managed to work on it for 2 days in the past 3 weeks due to holidays...
I have loads to do and trying to get Comms4 done as well...joy.

I'm also so skint that thinking about buying Japanese paper for £178 is simply not going to happen.
Not very happy about it but such is life.I'm trying to get some creative jobs organised for the summer, so
fingers crossed something will pop up from all the searches and networking I'm doing.

I got into North Glasgow, so now I have a headache trying to decide if Stirling Uni should be the one I get my Honours from or North Glasgow....Don't even want to think about it anymore...

I went to Pam Smy's illustration talk this Tuesday which was great. Very inspirational. I feel I have tons to do...

Final Project - Belated Update

I have been thinking, researching and working on the final project for a few weeks now and this is a bit of a belated update.

The main concept is Overpopulation and how it affects everything around us.

I was able to work in the science lab at the college and tried to film yeast culture growth, but unfortunately it’s been a bit of a fiasco. They just refused to grow… however, I still managed to get a few interesting photos out of the experiment, so it wasn’t a complete disaster. The photos inspired me to produce some monotype prints.

I also played about with an idea of using jelly babies, possibly filling up a large jar with them etc. I made some vacuum/heat molds with them. I may do some castings of them, possibly with glass, just to experiment. The shapes really remind me of frog spawn I’ve been watching, looks very strangely related.

So far it looks like my main piece is going to be a painting/prints on a large MDF board.  I’ve made a lino cut stamps for the piece, however it isn’t very flexible and doesn’t print so well when used as a stamp. I therefore made a vac/heat mold and now making a latex version of the stamps. I really hope they work….

I’m also looking at overlaying prints of them on large sheets of tracing paper and stacking them one behind the other to create a multiple effect as well. It’s all about multiplicity and using the printing process really supports the concept of this work.

I’m also working on a sound piece which will reflect the main painting/print. It’s a dialogue I wrote, which starts of very happily but further on gets darker, louder and violent. It’s a work in progress just now but it’s going very well. Phil who is helping me with the editing seems to like it too which is good. I made quite a few recordings of my classmates, other students and some lecturers. At first I was a bit worried if they would be up for it, but they all got very emotional and expressive, and liked this new experience. The voices/sounds are overlapping further on and it does make a person feel quite upset and unsettled, which is exactly what I’m aiming for.

I’ve also finished my steel plate for the Charlatan brief. It’s looking good, I’m quite happy with it. I’m still working on screen prints, which are details of photographs I took while I was melting metals on the plate. I’m really enjoying screen printing, great fun.

My business cards are ready to get printed, so I think I’ll get those done in the next week or so. I think I might get some greeting card size cards done as well.

I bought a few frames, most of them for the prints of illustrations of similes for my 1^st project. Just need to frame them now. I’m also hoping, (time permitting) to get a few more of the prints done before the show.

Final Project - "Human Subconscious Need for Self-destruction for the Greater Good."

The topic I would like to explore in the final project is: “What effects is overpopulation having on our world. What happens next?”

The world’s population is now more than 6.8 billion and continues to grow by 83 million people per year.  During the last half-century, the world’s population more than doubled. Between 1960 and 2010, the world population rose from 3 billion to 6.8 billion. In other words, there has been more growth in population in the last fifty years than the previous 2 million years that humans have existed. Currently the rate of population increase is 1.2% per year, which means the planet’s human population is on a trajectory to double again in 58 years. This extreme growth in human population is brutally challenging the Earth and its resources.  We are starting to pay our debt already in the forms of widespread diseases, shortages of water and food supply and destructive weather caused by climate change. We need to seriously consider how fragile our ecosystem is and how difficult it is to rebuild the balance that took billions of years to create. For the sake of preserving our planet’s more and more fragile eco system and the future of our offspring; are we able to make a conscious decision of not reproducing in such high numbers?

(http://www.populationmedia.org/issues/population/)

Theory: “In the life cycle we like to think we are at the top of the food chain. But is there something bigger (putting God aside) than us (our planet itself possibly) that is forcing us to think and act self-destructively, because it has a need to regenerate? So in any way we think, act, plan, if it’s developing drugs to cure diseases and prolonging our life, genetically growing human parts to save lives, inventing new ways of growing and producing more food, water desalination; ultimately we are overpopulating the carrying mass we stand on and heading for self-destruction .”

My main aim is to record people’s reactions on this very real, current and scary topic, mainly their opinion on human reproduction and to find out if we are able to make choices that could affect our children’s future.

Methods, Materials, Equipment and Processes: (describe what materials, methods, equipment and processes you intend to use)

I am hoping to produce a large painting incorporating multiple prints to signify the reproduction/multiplication on a grand scale. I will be working with paper, possibly plaster, paint and lino, woodcut or colograph prints.

There is a possibility of producing a video which would be projected onto the painting. However as I have no experience of video production, looking at the time constraints, this option may end up not being used.

I am also considering involving the viewers in making drastic decisions

(probably under a cloak of anonymity) that would be calculated and provided as

a statistic, (for example every 30-60 minutes), with a final result at the end of the exhibition.

Proposed Research: (give examples of appropriate art/design research, including examples of artists/designers and practical experimentation, that you intend to undertake)

I am looking at the controversial work and approaches of Andres Serrano, Cosimo Cavallaro, Patricia Piccinini and Carolee Schneemann. Their work seems to be related to the way I perceive the drastic situation we are in and I would like to build on that.  But I also like the much “softer” work of Diana Al-Hadid and Hilary Harnischfeger. I may possibly approach my piece in a similar way, using various materials to create structure and texture.

Creatures made by Patricia Piccinini, based on a theme of doing the right things for the wrong reasons.







Cosimo Cavallaro - Birth

Diana Al-Hadid - Towers

Once I make a decision which way the project will head, I’m planning to create a small scale sample to test the materials that I am planning to use and to give me an idea of how the final piece will look like. I will experiment with various types of printing and painting to achieve the desired effect.

I would like the piece to be thought provoking, radical and possibly a bit confrontational. I would like to collect people’s true ideas about the subject by creating a simple 1 question digital survey with a yes or no answer. 

A New Beginning

Moving on – the Big Final Project…. Scary… Working on my ILP, well, I sent it out to the tutors, but it may need to get “tweaked” a bit (or a lot).

I’ll update it here once finalized. Hope it all works out well.....

Alchemy

I haven’t uploaded any info about my progress for some time – so better get on with it ;O)

I’ve got my results so far and I’m pleased enough ;o) Now just need to start the final project.

Just for a few lines reflecting back on the 2^nd not completed project – as I am still planning to finish it. I love the idea and got loads of materials organized.

I’m going to the North of Scotland during the February break. My in-laws are being extremely supportive, although they are not big fans of art that doesn’t look like something from Michelangelo… even Picasso is a bit extreme to them…so very appreciated they are so understanding… ;)

The plan is to heat to a very high temperature two 50x50cm steel plates and melt various metals such as tin, copper, aluminum, brass, silver and also some chemical substances which I’m still getting hold of. This should create a very expressive, alchemy influenced pieces. I’m just really hoping it’ll work out, as I’ve never done anything like this before. The plates will be the final works, but I’m also planning to take photographs of these and make silk screen prints.

So this is the plan – I will update the blog once I get a chance to do it in February.

Snow and The Light at The End of The Tunnel

The college has been closed now for a week due to crazy amount of snow and council’s idea of being prepared for this winter failing miserably… My car is barely visible under the amount of snow and we don’t own a shovel…I guess we are following the council’s example of (not) being ready for this kind of weather. Still my puppy loves it, runs around like a mad thing, chasing snowflakes and making snow angels (well maybe not snow angels, but is certainly able to leave her mark… ;)

So apart from following the weather updates I’m trying to work on my research. I’m over 10000 words now, I will need to clean up quite a bit of it though. Still have a bit to do including conclusion, referencing, bibliography. I’ve done the interviews, just hope the way I’ve done is appropriate… need some feedback on that. I’ve done my survey charts, looking good, but still need to add some more info to those sections. Lots of work for this weekend.

I’ve changed my mind again about the brief I was going to do. Back to the Charlatan Ink Price. I was looking forward to doing the music brief, however I don’t have access to the equipment needed and don’t know when I would have, so I abandoned it. Then I was considering the RSA Stamp brief. I thought about it a bit and did some research, but as I really wanted to do something quite expressive and fine arty rather than graphic design I decided to go back to my original option of the Charlatan Ink. I thought the stamp brief also considering the size of the images would be a bit too similar to my book, the 1^st project. I feel I need to produce something more expressive and especially larger. I’m still tempted to do silk screen prints, if I get a chance to, but may need to stick to painting.

My ideas for the brief? I’m not really trying to be thinking in a religious way, but this sentence from the Bible always resonates in my mind: “You come from dust and to dust you will turn into.” Very true, and it just shows how very insignificant we are.

I came across this artist – Cai Guo Qiang http://www.jingdaily.com/en/culture/cai-guo-qiang-i-like-things-that-are-hard-to-control/    http://www.colectiva.tv/wordpress/lang/en-us/cai-guo-qiang/

I find his approach very interesting and unusual. It got me thinking  about chemical reactions – (because let’s face it, that’s what we are) I would be quite interested to experiment with heated metal plate and pour various chemical substance, sand etc to produce interesting reactions. Again, it would be good to have access to college as I’m not sure about doing anything like that in my little kitchen.

Another way of looking at our being is also the fact that “We are all trying to make a mark in this world”, are we here to leave a mark? What and who for? Why are we here? What is our journey of life (life cycle) about? Why are we so self destructive? Where do we come from? Do we really know what we are and what are we here for? And where are we going? Are we heading towards self-destruction, or is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

2nd Project

Tried gold leaf and it didn’t work that well – at all ;o) So, leaving the illustrations in their original form, the books is printed, bind, front/back pages are cut…. All looking good. I’ll need to add some photos of it in as well.
GSSmith kindly sent to Enzo a whole bundle of cut paper. Paul thinks it’s a bit heavy textured for the prints, so I may stick with the simple mat card I’ve used. I will try it later to see how it looks.

The case study is going quite well but still tons to do. Richard checked my latest version (just over 4000 words) and seems quite happy with it, which I’m obviously very pleased with. I’m hoping to take some days off to get it done as soon as I can. Find it much easier to write at home, plus have access to internet which is vital…

My second project….hmmmmmm. I changed my mind about doing the Charlatan Ink Prize and now thinking about D&AD Illustration brief or RSA postage stamp….
For the D&AD I was considering Thomas Newman, Clint Mansel but find them a bit depressing… not in a mood to do depressing stuff…. So I may go with Vanessa Mae. Or music used in Circ de Soleil. Richard mentioned today (23/11/10) Elvis Castello (Julliete’s Letters) so I need to listen to it.

It’s looks like quite a full on brief and I’m not sure if I’ll have enough time to come up with a good idea and finish it to a good standard….

So…. Maybe the postage stamp, seems a bit more straight forward…
I need to make a decision very soon. I’m hoping to be quite expressive in this project, quite colourful and lively.

Book of Similes - Nearly There

My wee book is getting printed - just hope it looks ok... I'm getting it printed on white 200 g/m2 card in The MinuteMan Press but I've just sent an e-mail to GFSmith Paper Company asking them very nicely for a few samples...

The book of samples was produced in 12/04 so I am not sure if they still have the same paper, however I would really love about 50 A4 sheets of white Accent Fresco in 250 gsm and about 6 sheets of A4 Heartland Juniper in about 300 - 350 gsm. Hope they come back to me soon - with a positive answer ;o)

I still need to design and cut the front and back page, but it is pretty much finished and it was a great fun and experience. Absolutely love printing and wants to do a lot more this year. Paul is very encouraging as well which is nice. He recommended I join a print making studio in Glasgow – will do as soon as I can….

 

Printing Here I Come ;o)

The contents page is good to go. I started to work on the History of e-books.

Gave out more questionnaires, this is the last of the lot. Looking forward to the results…

On Monday 1/11 I printed new pictures, looking a lot better now but still needs a little

more work. I’m using Phtalo Blue and Lamp Black water soluble inks.

I found out today that laser cut costs £75 per hour – a bit too pricey for my student’s pocket…but will see. I’ll give them a call and see what they say.  I tried to cut with a scalpel and it doesn’t look that bad at all.

I am working on the typography for the similes, will keep it quite simple.

I have to start thinking about the next brief – I think I will still go with the Charlatan Ink Price. I have a few ideas, but needs to start putting them on a paper.

Oh – and I have 9 similes/prints to use now, more the merrier ;o)

·         Dark trees bending together as though whispering secrets

·         A fluttering as of blind bewildered moths

·         A lady that leaned on his arm like a queen in a fable of old fairy days

·         A sudden sense of fear ran through her nerves like the chill of an icy wind

·         As a cloud that gathers her robe like drifted snow

·         There slowly rose to sight, a country like a dragon fast asleep

·         His voice was like the clap of thunder which interrupts the warbling birds among the leaves

·         A silver moon, like a new-stamped coin, rode triumphant in the sky

·         The pine trees waved as waves a woman's hair

Printing Press - The Lows & The Highs

Monday 18/10/10

My sketchbook is starting to fill up. I have many ideas for my poetic similes.

I chose the following:

·         Dark trees bending together as though whispering secrets

·         A fluttering as of blind bewildered moths

·         A lady that leaned on his arm like a queen in a fable of old fairy days

·         A sudden sense of fear ran through her nerves like the chill of an icy wind

·         As a cloud that gathers her robe like drifted snow

·         There slowly rose to sight, a country like a dragon fast asleep

·         His voice was like the clap of thunder which interrupts the warbling birds among the leaves

or

·         A silver moon, like a new-stamped coin, rode triumphant in the sky

Thursday 21/10/10

At 10 am I had an interview with a college’s librarian and learned about use of e-books in this particular library. It was a very informative and interesting interview.

On Friday I interviewed a librarian in a local secondary school, the head mistress and one of the English teachers. Again, very interesting and positive experience.

On Saturday 23/10  I started to work on my 7 etchings for the book brief and by the end of the weekend I finished most of them. I was hoping to produce some prints on Monday however the printing press broke down…

I’m thinking of producing the prints but then scanning them into a computer and printing them out on a laser printer. This should eliminate too much paper wastage and also become more suitable for printing a larger limited edition.

I also started to work on my content page for the research and started to type up some information. However on Monday my not very elaborate content page was shot down in flames ;0) I’ve re-done it and handed it in, but I’m sure there will be many adjustments to be made…. Also handed in the mid-term module.

Wahey!!! The printing press is fixed!!! So I managed to do a bit of printing today – 28/10 and the prints are looking quite good. More work to be done but they turned out not too badly.

Oh and yesterday at the Academy I met a writer Mr Tim Bowler – AND he agreed to do an interview with me! A really nice and approachable guy.

University of Stirling Library Visit

Went to the library yesterday with a hope of finding some publications about the use (or not  much use) of e-books in education (mainly secondary) however not much luck…

I spoke to one of the librarians who helped me with the search but even she wasn’t able to locate anything. Only thing she knew about was a research done right at the Stirling Uni under name National E-books Observatory Project. All the work is on http://www.jisc.ac.uk/ so I can access it on-line only – I guess very appropriate since it’s about e-books ;) Only thing is – this research was aimed at the use of e-books in university environment, not secondary.

I did however find journals called “Reading Today” from which I was able to photocopy a some articles relevant to my research and they also have a website http://www.reading.org/ which has quite a lot of info, so it was actually quite a productive day ;0)

I also spoke to one of the librarians in charge about this subject and even though she wasn’t very keen on being interviewed she is very happy to complete a survey and give her opinions on this matter in written form. Happy me – getting somewhere.

I organized an interview with Margo at the college library for next Thursday (21/10) at 10am which I’m really looking forward to.

I’m going to do more research about e-books on-line today and start putting together some words….

And I’m going to do more sketching – loads to do….

And I’m trying to get hold of someone at the education office for the Dean Gallery… I have 3 numbers and no one is at their desk, or on hols…. What’s wrong today – tried to call a few offices to organize things and not getting anywhere – must be one of those days…

http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0142.pdf

Feeling Inspired by Chagall

Last week I discussed my case study and questionnaires with the tutors and all seems good to go. I will need to organize some interview questions for the headmistress of the academy and also Linda McKay – the principal of the college, Margo Johnstone at the Library, Martin at KA library and one digital media company I recently approached. I have loads of research to do this holiday week. This Wednesday 13/10 I’m going to Stirling Uni library to go through white pages and journals relevant to my research. I’m hoping to get loads done on that day.

I’m hoping to make an appointment with the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh, tried to call them today, but no answer…. Hmmmm. I’d really like to see the book section, there might even be someone I could interview… ?

The tutors seem to be quite happy with how I am planning to approach my illustration brief, will see. I felt very inspired by Striking Similes by Grenville Kleiser (1868-1953) and I think I made a decision that this is the way I will go. I will need to try various printing techniques which I am really looking forward to.

I started to look at Marc Chagall’s paintings and etchings. Very poetic and his style is just what I had in mind for this brief.

I’ve done some sketches today (11/10). I’m hoping to end up with at least 8 images, so I need to select the similes I will go with so I can work on the compositions.

On 4/10 I work on my Artists Statement and PDP and made my ILP plan a bit more detailed. I also had a chance to discuss the projects with Paul which was good.

I have a huge list of things to go through this week - better get on with it....