Thursday, 28 March 2013

Better late than never!

Ok so its the 2nd week of the easter break and i'm updating the blog for the first time in nearly 3 weeks, why you may ask, have I held off from doing it for so long?

NO REASON WHAT SO EVER!

That is just how my brain works, one channel opens and another closes, I've been on a bit of a fitness binge over the past 2 weeks and I have totally forgotten to update the blog while still continuing with my drawing.

The week of the 10th of March was a bit manic, I have found that apparently I need a downtime between travelling and reverting back to normal routine, as I was effectively brain dead outside of uni and struggled with the most simple tasks, proof of the epic creative exhaustion I was suffering from being the 24 hours worth of sleep in 2 days I got once we finished on friday.

So work wise, carried on with relevant projects, found it a bit of a faff thinking of how to build my systems drawing so I have changed my mind on the subject and will be using a 20 sided die and a list of rules.

Personal projects are still going strong, if currently a little in flux. Print was a productive session and got some good feedback from the tutorial with the direction I am taking that. My memory driven architectural drawings are moving along at a nice pace, even if one has currently stalled slightly due to a room haven been forgotten and then remembered and messing up the original plan. Still unsure of who to look for in terms of research but will email some folks and see if I get any decent suggestions.

Non term time work is pretty much the above, and really need to get into the nitty gritty of getting out of the sketchbook phase which will start next week, as well as research and planning the essay, the drawing and written word question looks interesting so I'll give that a whirl.

Will be updating this more regularly next week.

Sunday, 10 March 2013

Plans for the Easter Break, Personal Developments and more

Ok so we have recently had the importance of our personal development, the work we produce on Thursdays, Fridays, Print workshops and our own time. This is more relevant to myself more so than some of the others. As I have previously stated before I have been really struggling with this side of my work this semester. I have to say I am happy with how I am developing my work in Print, and I have been unfortunate with the timings of certain events coinciding with personal development workshop days and our life drawing sessions.

In terms of the work I do outside of our directed study, I have finally decided upon a project that I think will give me the most joy and space for development over the remained of this semester and beyond.

Planned -

Project 1 : To create a series of images from Memory using architectural conventions of where I have previously lived when I was a child. Currently this is the house in which I lived when my family was in Nigeria and the Flat we resided in whilst living in Syria. I have discussed approached with Peter briefly and sit down with him and go into some more depth regarding the process of the project. I will look at artists whose work prominently features architectural conventions, and the use of memory. Piranessi would be a good start.

Project 2 : To teach myself digital drawing, I have 4 weeks effectively on my own over the easter break and I am planning on using some of the time learning the intricacies of digital art.

Project 3 : As the weather continues to improve I want to continue going on walks along the coast, this will give me the opportunity to plonk myself down and start drawing what I see, this will be something I will continue over the course of the summer past the end of the semester.

Current -

Isometric : I was unfortunately unable to attend the first Isometric drawing workshop, however I have since talked to Peter and believe I have a decent understanding of the fundamentals involved. I will be continuing with this project along side the other projects I have at the moment. I am also planning on finishing my part of the large Isospective drawing in the following week.

Life Drawing : I have been unfortunate that I have had to miss several Life Drawing sessions this semester so far, the first being helping with the interviewes and the second I was ill. However I will be able to attend several extra ones in the coming weeks as I am helping out with a school visit on wednesday afternoons.

Print : My development of monotypes and my evolution of my space project from last semester is going well, I will continue this as and when I can.



Music, Limping and Art!

Ok so this is a special one off version of my blog, this week was exhausting, we had a 3 day London study trip, followed by a new process followed by a interesting approach to life drawing. My mind was floored, I was shattered and days just felt like they fell into each other, I didn't even realise it was the weekend before saturday afternoon.

Anyway so quick recap and reflection of the London trip.

Monday: Trip was fine, found a good book and had finished most of it on the way up. Once we arrived and we had sorted out the Hotel etc, we headed to the British Museum. The BM has to be my 2nd favorite place in the city, after The Natural History Museum and a whisker ahead of the Tate Britain. Anyway so we were given a project to find a random exhibit and document what we saw, this was in the same vein as our semester 1 project on natural subjects. I had found a nice little dark corridor with a selection of Jade ornaments and belt buckles where I promptly got into the zone. However since we had gotten to the BM at around 3:30-4 we didn't have a huge amount of time before being kicked out for closing at 5:30. However before we are asked to leave I had made sure to pop into the Egyptian exhibit to see the Rosetta Stone and some of the more ancient statues.

Tuesday: We headed over to The John Soane's Museum and the Hunterian Museum at the Royal Academy of Surgeons. Both were interesting and worthwhile visits. Some of the specimens in the Hunterian were fascinating however as drawing subjects I could not find much drive to document them, in terms of recording history I would rather my subjects not be in Jars. The Soane's Museum was a bit hit or miss for myself, I found the sheer number of objects, while all interesting, slightly over whelming and without the context of their inherent origins I could not get excited. However saying that I can't state enough amazing things about the Piranesi show that is currently there. The work, whilst not technically accurate is wonderful and I am planning on looking into his work more over the coming week.
    In the afternoon, we went further afield and visited the Princes Trust Drawing MA, honestly I have to say that while I understand the benefits (its Free and its based in London, thus surrounded by amazing resources) it was basically the course here in Falmouth and it felt like they were selling us something we already have. Also whilst I was in London I truly missed Falmouth, the slower pace of life in Cornwall suits me perfectly and the hectic madness that is London is not something I think would like for a year. After this we went to see Gemma Andersons Isomorphology exhibt in the Eb & Flow gallery, this was really nice, and Gemma has produced some fantastic work and it was great to see it in its own space. After this I went for a wander which ended up at the embankment, and then after an hour there I headed back towards the British library for our Illustration Q&A and talk. This was really interesting and while was exhausted it was nice to hear some really grounded Illustrators discussing their work.

Wednesday: Ok so by this time I was drained, I mean not a lot left in the tank and we had yet another busy day. The morning was exciting, we got to go to the prints and drawing room in the Courtauld Institute. We saw a massive variety of drawings, from Goya and Van Gogh to Durer. To be this close to work that old by artists that important was just amazing and had I been in a better mental state I would have probably made more of the viewing. After this we went to the Light Show at the Hayward across the river, this was interesting and there were some fascinating uses of the lights, however in all I felt like it was wasted on me.
     The afternoon was much the same, we had the opportunity to the visit the Manet exhibit being held in the Royal Academy, this was interesting however it didn't hold much relevance for myself, however the free show we were able to see as well which was a series of Prints by Sydney Lee was much more of a draw for myself. After this I headed back to Paddington and the trip was done.

Thursday: Ok I will admit that I was doing better on thursday than I had any right to be. The morning was spent drawing to music, and by that I mean we would make marks which we felt represented the music we were listening to. I found that my marks would represent the time of the music as well as any significant changes in pitch or introduction of instrument, this was an interesting project which while I dont think I enjoyed the process enough to carry it on in my personal time I definitely appreciated the relevance to our current development. The Afternoon was spent adapting the themes we had started developing in the morning into a larger system. I am still working on this project and will post some images of it when I finish it.

Friday: The morning was spent having Claire Armitage for Life drawing, we were carrying on the theme of systems and this one was using a variety different marks and layering them as the drawing continued. I found myself enjoying this by the end and am happy with the last couple of drawings I produced. I carried on working with the systems drawing from Thursday afternoon.