Narrative, Reportage and Busy Work!

Ok so I've been a bit distracted this week so I may have forgotten to update the blog, so here goes 4 days in 1 post.

Monday: Our project for the next 3 weeks is working on how drawing and images can be used with narrative and reportage. The workshop was a lot of fun and pure imagination fuel, as I have been writing recently the use of items to craft a narrative was a really interesting approach and I was keen on taking the job of writing the short story for the group. Taking the suggestions and ideas of the others and weaving them into a interesting piece of writing. Once we had done this, and having read it to the group, we had the option of illustrating this narrative, or using more objects as source for a narrative to illustrate. I decided to stick with the narrative we had come up with a group, although I would need to go over it and make sure it was tighter and its pacing was better, a side effect of the short space of time we had to come up with it. My first drawing was using coloured pencils and I was very happy with the outcome of this, so much so that I will be doing rest of this project exploring the possibilities and limitations of the media, and hoping it doesn't come out like a 6 year old drew it!

My idea for the project is to have a series of images on a sheet of paper which shows the characters at key points in the narrative.

Tuesday: We went to Helston folk museum in the morning for ideas and inspiration for our narrative project, plenty of fuel here, got a couple of good sketches to use later. Really amazing place, just a bunch of collected pieces from the past 2-300 years just jammed into a series of small halls. The afternoon was just used to carry on with our narrative project and it continued to go well.

Weds: I used the studio time to continue with the narrative project, not a lot to say than it is progressing well, I am getting plenty of good feedback from the rest of the group and I have to say that is giving me more confidence to push on with the project. Print was a mixed bag, I procrastinated for far too long at the start whereas once I got to doing the print I found that while I am very used to the processes the ideas and patience to try something very different is what is lacking from my work. Talked to John, got some solid critique of where I am going and what I want to accomplish from my time in the print workshop.

Thursday: We had another colour workshop today, useful for several different discoveries. There were a series of different sets laid out in both the 2nd year and 1st year studios, these varied in subject matter and composition. I found myself enjoying using a large variety of coloured pencil layers on one drawing to emphasise the depth of colour on the subject I was drawing. Another approach that I felt very comfortable with was the combination of colour pencil and biro. I have found biros being a really interesting media of late and am looking forward to using them more in my personal work.