Week 4

Plaques

All around London there are special Blue Heritage Plaques that link significant people from the past to buildings of the present. They have been awarded to the memories of people for the last 150 years, 2016 is the 150th anniversary of this brilliant initiative.

Iconic Blue Heritage Plaque, Sir Isaac Newton.

It was our task to create a plaque that honoured a memory of a place. For me that was a really hard task as thinking of memories isn't very easy.

However, in light of my struggle, I found that brainstorming helped me to get my ideas down. I gradually began to build up a page of pure memories based around a place, they were a mixture of good and bad memories but memories nonetheless. I found it easier to think of a significant place and then note down why I was emotionally attached. This made it easier to go through my memories systematically instead of jumping from memory to memory. I often found I had more than one memory in the same place.

The memory I chose to use for my plaque was one I had almost 12 years ago when I was 6. Where I previously lived there was a swampy area that was really interesting and became quite popular among the local kids because it was so mysterious. It was like a mini jungle on our doorstep, as curious children we were inclined to explore. However after staying for longer than we had hoped it started to get dark and suddenly we found ourselves in an incredibly dark swamp. What made it scary was the fact there weren't any nearby street-lamps to light the place up. The darkness kicked in the fear factor which only got worse because of our young ages. 

The idea for my plaque is based around that specific memory. The thing with a plaque is that it is dated and is usually only dedicated to one thing or memory. What if I could dedicate it to the many children who have experienced the same thing. But here was my dilemma. Given that it is a mystery and something that children are getting scared of, do I want to de-mystify that or would it be more fun if I kept the fear factor alive?

I began to sketch out ideas for my plaque which became very basic and didn't seem to reach anything interesting. I didn't want to do anything really outlandish as it may become a bit comic and therefore ruin the 'seriousness' and 'fright' of this plaque. A lot of plaques these days, especially really traditional plaques found on park benches or buildings of significance, are generally very flat and square. Although they are an iconic form to commemorate someone they are, in truth, very boring and sometimes fail to represent the person intended.

As mine was simply something that wasn't at all real it didn't need to be very flamboyant or colourful but I still didn't want something boring. I decided on a cube shape, both traditional and unconventional at the same time. You don't see many 3D plaques out there because they are generally considered sculptures or installations.

This was the start of my design, as like all other plaques it was going to have some text on it to give it context. The text I was going to write on it reads "THE REASON IT IS DARK IS TO HIDE THE MONSTERS"

However, after much thought, I decided to change the text to "THE DARK GIVES THE MONSTERS SOMEWHERE TO HIDE SO WATCH OUT!". The text I chose is designed to keep the fright alive instead of commemorate it as that may give the impression the fright is dead and buried.

Instead of making a prototype out of cardboard or something similar I decided to go straight in and create a cube net in Illustrator which I could use in the Laser Cutter. The settings of the laser cutter meant that i had to use specific colours for specific jobs. Red allowed me to cut the material and Black allowed me to engrave onto the material. The material I used was acrylic as at the time wood wasn't available to me. 

This is how it came out, as you can see I used black acrylic which came out really nicely. The text was engraved onto the acrylic which gives it a nice touch. However, although this looks successful I did manage to laser cut one of the cub faces wrong

One of my faces went wrong as I didn't create it correctly to fit into the rest of the cube. My design relied on tight tabs on the side of each face to interlock and stick together without any glue, which it did. However as this one was wrong it would only fit in upside down which of course wouldn't suffice. Therefore I decided to cut the face again. 

This involved rotating the face to align with the rest of the cube. 

Now that I had all of the correct faces my plaque was complete.

Week 3

Life Drawing Part 2

Today marked our second Life Drawing session, this time it was with a different tutor and a different model. The model was male this time and that actually made it a lot easier for me as I feel like I can better draw the male body over the female because i am much more familiar with the anatomy.

We were given a lot longer than usual for each drawing, thankfully. The first life drawing session didn't go so well because I felt really rushed and i didn't really get the opportunity to put my head down and simply draw. They were all 2-3 minute exercises which i really didn't like. This time we had around 20-30 minutes to draw the model it was a lot calmer and I felt more successful in terms of my drawing.

It was more successful because i actually got to take in the models form, I had time to measure and to look and then transfer what i saw onto the paper. I could think about the marks i was making a lot more and concentrate on precision. However in light of how much time we were given there were times where having too much time was irritating, especially when staring at a drawing i didn't feel too confident in for 20 minutes or so.

As we had a lot more time to create our drawings, they weren't so much focused on how we drew but what we drew and especially where we drew it. There was a lot of focus on the composition of the drawing within the frame. On one of the activities we had to walk around the room and draw the model from several different angles and viewpoints very quickly and roughly. This really helped me to decide what angle to go with, you don't usually get to change angles very much in a life drawing session because the time is so limited you just want to get as much done as possible.

Moving away from home

Following our theme of places we explored the idea of having to suddenly up-route somewhere random and we could only bring a suitcase/bag full of things with us. The choice of objects varied throughout the class with many choosing luxuries over bare essentials or things with no practicality but full of sentiment. It was hard to decide what objects I should bring but I guess i didn't choose too badly.

My choice of objects ranged from a spare pair of trainers to a camera and obviously some food. The explanation behind my choice of objects has to be about documenting the experience, I was more motivated and I would be more motivated about capturing the experience over actually surviving. There are many ways to survive out there but you can't capture a moment you have missed. I decided to bring with me two cameras, one film camera and one digital, a screwdriver set, pair of trainers, roll of film, sketchbook, pencils and pens, coffee, noodles and a charger for all of my gadgets.

We laid them out onto tables as a way of presenting them, you could present it however you saw fit. I chose to deconstruct my mess and lay it all down onto the table facing the ceiling. 

It looked alright but I felt I could have deconstructed it even more...

It all looked very neat and organised with a sense of order in comparison to many others in the class. We had to question why we presented our objects the way we had. Why did i lay everything out like this? Was it because i'm a very organise person? Am I over doing it? Am i in fact a very messy person and am I using this as a way to portray myself in a better light? Is this how I want people to see me? Do I live to present myself how i want people to view me? The whole exercise raised a lot of questions but only if you had the capacity to think about what you have done and why you may have done it like that.

After raising questions about our own work we had to investigate someone else's. We were partnered up with someone and swapped objects as they were presented. We were required to document and archive what we saw in front of us, this could be done with a simple list, a photograph, a painting, an illustration or sketch, using typography, video, it didn't matter too much as long as we had a way of documenting it.

These were my partner's items. I first took down how many items there were and what they precisely were. I also noted down all of the main colours which were reds, whites, blacks etc. Another of my lists were the ratio of luxury items to necessities as well as an ordered list ranging from most practical to least practical in terms of survival. I drew a number of her objects as well. My partner's objects were far more thought out than mine however her ratio of luxuries to necessities was still 11:8

Looking at someone else's objects and documenting them was only preparation for our documentation of our own objects. For this we looked at a number of artists and I chose to explore an illustrator called Lee John Phillips. 

In light of his grandfathers passing, Lee John Phillips decided to illustrate every single thing inside his grandfather's garden shed. This included nails and screws and tools. All of the bits and bobs inside his grandfather's estranged shed amounted to over 10,000 individual items that Phillips chose to work with.

I really admired the passion and commitment toward the final piece. Visually the style is amazing, it is clean and simple yet it captures the very essence of each and every object.

This was going to be my inspiration and how I document my objects. 

Nomadism

"A member of a group of people who have no fixed home and move according to the seasons from place to place in search of food, water and grazing land."

The final part to the week revolved around nomadism. The idea was still about having to suddenly get up and leave with only a bag full of objects/things to our name. However instead, the focus changed from what we chose to bring with us to how we were going to bring them with us. As an introduction as well as a chance to look at some artists relevant to the topic we looked at some existing work. 

One of the artists we looked at was Hussein Chalayan, a British/Turkish fashion designer who created clothes that dual up as furniture in his Autumn Winter Collection 2000

The reason this all linked to nomadism is based purely on the duality of the garments. A nomad has to move everything they own when they are forced to change location due to weather, food or grazing land. What if there was a way that your clothing could make that job easier, easier than standard pockets. The video of Hussein Chalayan's Autumn Winter collection 2000 was really inspiring, given that it was over 15 years old it still remained a very relevant problem these days. It is an idea that needs to be revived especially with all of the refugees migrating.

For further inspiration Abeer Seikaly was the artist we looked at. Seikaly produced tent like structures that are specifically designed situations where people have been forced from their homes. Although the motivation behind the creation comes from the current refugee crisis it still has the same purpose as it would with a nomad. It differs from Hussein Chalayan's collection as it isn't a wearable piece of clothing, rather the duality being a tent that offers many things instead of a T-shirt that becomes a table

These two artists provided more than enough inspiration to create something fit for a dual purpose. My ideas weren't necessarily about clothes but it did of course have duality to it. I almost knew what I wanted to create from the get go and coming up with a sketch wasn't hard at all. My design revolved around a Tipi, a native american tent, that was my instant thought. It is a very iconic type of tent thanks to all of the Western movies.

I tried to incorporate as many uses to my design as I could. Given it was the ideal size and material, my creation could be used as a basket, a tent, a cradle and even a boat. The real task now was making it, the material available to us was only cardboard and my design had quite a bit of curvature to it.

First I made the handle which will support the structure, I made two just in case.

Then I started to create the bowl part. The cardboard didn't provide the best option for a curved bowl like structure but I had a way. By creating multiple strips of cardboard like this I could gradually overlap them and slowly but surely create a bowl-like structure.

As it started to come together it began to look more and more like my design. To the eye it looked as if it could be used as a tent, a basket, a cradle and even possibly a boat. To attach the strips of cardboard onto the poles I cut holes in the ends of the strips and pushed them over the ends of the poles. One issue was the strips sliding over each other and losing the overall bowl shape. To avoid that happening I began to sew the trips together as it gives the bowl a bit more strength than regular masking tape

The end result was pretty impressive I have to say, it came incredibly close to my designs and theoretically it could function as four separate things. The only problem was the handle as it wasn't strong enough to support the amount of cardboard that made up the bowl, and to think that this was designed to hold someones belongings. To reinforce it I stuck the spare pole to it and extra cardboard to make it thicker but even then it wouldn't hold.

Collage

Collage seemed like the best way to present our creations. We made our garments and objects for those who needed it, their purpose was to help them live easier. Making a collage allowed me to incorporate my creation into an environment that best fit its purpose. I explored the work of a few collage artists to better aid my work, the artist that I like most was Jesse Treece. 

Jesse Treece creates very vivid and abnormal collages. He likes to play around with the scale of his work a lot, often combining small and large pieces to create something rather extraordinary.

This piece here is a perfect example of his work. He's somehow managed to mix both the regular and absurd, beautiful and disturbing and put them into images you find yourself lost in. Treece uses very simple materials, scissors, glue, papers and magasines.

This was my first collage. It is very basic as you can see but that is because my main focus was on capturing the first purpose of the piece which was a tent. I used both a black and white image and a coloured image, cut them into strips and rearranged the photograph to create a slice effect. I did this to simply add a bit more complexity to my collage.

My second piece came out a lot nicer and probably explained the piece a lot better. The collage depicts an ignorant businessman struggling to hold his belongings whilst a very relaxed woman carries her items with ease thanks to the help of the basket around her arm. It would have been nicer if the basket was a bit more vibrant so we could notice it more. 

This was my final and favourite piece. It's final purpose, though it was a bit of a stretch to even imagine, was that of a boat. Therefore I used many shades of blue to create an ocean and then simply stuck an image of someone sitting down into the 'boat'. Below the boat I tried to add some Japanese inspired waves to highlight the fact it was in the waves and not simply floating above them.

Week 2

Life Drawing:

Our class was split into two groups so we could use the time we had with the model efficiently. This wasn't the first time I have done life drawing but It certainly felt like it. The model was a woman which was new, I had only previously worked with a male model. I've been told that having a woman to draw is much more interesting anyway because they are generally curvier which in turn makes it a more challenging session. I certainly found it very challenging.

We started off with quick two minute drawings trying to capture the correct proportions of the subject, this was all very basic until the subject changed positions. The slight change in posture or angle changed everything, I wasted a lot of time trying to work out the measurements when I really should have just gone for it and drawn everything that I saw. We explored many techniques such as timed drawings, continuous line, weaker hand drawing and finally a drawing with two pencils stuck together. This was to add further depth to our drawing.

Left Handed

30 seconds, 1 minute and 2 minute drawings.

My favourite one was definitely the weaker hand drawing, this was because it felt so unnatural and free. The fact i had limited control over it made it all the better, I felt like I wasn't disciplining myself. I was becoming more expressive. It also made me focus more on what I was seeing, a massive part of Life drawing sessions is developing what you can see and how you can transfer that to the paper.

Continuous Line Drawing.

Pencil and Pen Simultaneous Drawing

30 Minute Drawing

What we leave behind:

We were asked to bring in any rubbish or just anything we were planning to throw away. At first I thought this would be linked to consumerism but it turns out it was about what we leave behind. As a starter activity to warm us up we had to draw ten individual objects with only 30 seconds per item. We had to use continuous line with a bold fine-liner which was right into my comfort zone. I prefer ink and pens over pencils.

We took one of the objects we brought in and had to disfigure it, change its appearance in any way we could. My object was a Tropicana Carton which I only scrunched up very subtlely. 

Our task was to draw this, in proportion, with paint onto a sheet the size of two A1 sheets stuck together. This was a huge piece of paper. We couldn't use a brush, only a piece of cardboard. This was a brilliant idea, what better way to loosen us up and throw us out of our comfort zone than removing our brushes and giving us something so strange yet usable as our tool. It was a great idea, we wouldn't know what to expect as out outcome, we were blind and it made us concentrate on the marks we were making even more. We were focused. Looking at the object we were drawing and concentrating on every single mark never became so important.

After completing our drawing we had to stick our paint palette into our sketchbook and redraw our object on top of it. It was a really strange request especially as all of our drawings were done with black acrylic. Our palette was simply a small piece of ripped up cardboard. The idea was to quickly change up the size of our canvas and again take us out of our comfort zone. 

        

As a black fine-liner was ruled out by my use of black acrylic paint I opted to use oil pastels. It was only meant to be quick and because of that my drawing wasn't very accurate. The proportions were far from correct. However I did capture my object very well considering the scale and what I had to work with. 

We moved on to creating a sculpture out of the many objects we had brought along with us, this included using tracing paper to combine the drawings we had previously done to create something weird and wonderful. 

These were the combinations I came up with, we had to create ten. As you can see many of them are very simple, combining bottles and lids, Whilst others looked strange and complicated to even it out a bit. Using the rubbish we bought we had to actually create these sculptures. We were using ordinary objects to create something extraordinary. 

This was the object design I went with, It was mid-range in terms of complexity and it actually came out pretty well. 

After we had created our extraordinary sculpture it was time to draw it, just like we had for our singular piece of rubbish. Starting off with the shape/form of the object was what we did, in order to help with this we used graph paper as it had a preset grid on the paper, this helped with the straight lines and our proportions much more than plain paper would.

Using the graph paper to draw on did feel strange at first, It was far different to standard cartridge paper. The grid really did help with my measurements, I was able to keep the sides of the object the same length and eventually everything became proportional. It helped me the most when it came to my straight edges, usually I would struggle to keep my lines parallel.

Colour was the next formal element we were going to explore but only pens and pencils, no paint. I think this decision was made because watercolour and acrylic paints are too easy to blend and get the colour I would need. Pencils are a little more complex, you need to start off with the correct base colour and use the pencil in a way that avoids the horrible pencil lines that often occurs with child level colouring. Sadly that was something unavoidable.

In the end my drawing came out pretty successful considering the amount of struggle I underwent. I failed to find the correct navy blue/grey colour of the wrap box so I had to compromise and combine a mixture of turquoise, dark blue and a grey to match as closely as possible. Even still the colour seemed way off what it was meant to be. It looked stranger the more I looked at it so I decided to focus on the edges which were yellow and I knew I could replicate onto my drawing. 

This was a good decision because the addition of another colour naturally helped the focus shift from what I perceived as a bad drawing. It all started to slowly come together. It started to look great, the colours were looking fine and the proportions were correct, I slowly started to add shading and the reflections of the glossy material. 

I didn't get to finish the whole piece but that didn't bother me so much, what bothered me more was my child like colouring, If I had coloured a little softer and with more care it would have come out a lot smoother and, in my eyes, a lot more successful.