Dungeness 2

It feels like we haven't really done anything in the last week and a bit, but I think it was structured like that so that we could get our personal statements done. We started off with some observational drawings using different media (blabla), then later in the week the tutor from Southend came and had us drawing/painting with bamboo sticks (about a metre long), which basically meant that we had little to no control over what we were doing. I get the concept, and it was good fun, but the results didn't look particularly amazing.

Here's some photos of the things I remembered to take photos of:

Rope :/ Charcoal and ink.

The next photo is a super-zoomed in version of this rope.

A1, charcoal and chalk

Rusty bit of metal and a bit of net, fine liner and water

A bit of wood and..string? Got bored doing this one haha.

Drawing with a bamboo stick dipped in ink. It's supposed to be a bit of squashed can, I was not impressed.

You'd be surprised, but this actually looks like what I was drawing. It was a bit of coral/rock/something beachy. Done with a fine liner on the end of a bamboo stick.

What a mess! A bit of dead branch drawn with the bamboo stick again, this time dipped in watered down emulsion.

Err..I think this is also dead branch, but I can't remember.  Modern art, haha.

Another bit of branch, using a bamboo stick with a decorator's brush on the end.

Another version of that thing I scribbled further up. Beachy thing..

If you draw like a child they seem to like it...

I had my first day off on Monday as I barely slept at the weekend due to something happening on Friday night. I'm glad I didn't go in on that day of all days, because we apparently didn't do much at all, and I caught up within 2 hours the next morning.

Here's some monoprints I did on Tuesday. In case you don't know, monoprinting is where you can either spread thick, gloopy, oil-based paint gunky yuck onto a pane of glass, then scratch a pattern into it with a stick/pencil and then press paper onto it to make the print, or paint the pattern onto the glass then print (giving the reverse effect...if you're lucky). I only used the first method, because I was still tired and cleaning up the gloopy paint is a right pain.

I actually made about 9 prints but they were only these three designs so there's not much point posting the rest. The first is my favourite.

This is quite hard to see in a photo, should be better on full view. 

This one definitely is hard to see, it's rope, but view it bigger if you want to actually see it.

More rope patterns.

On Wednesday we were given the brief for what we'd already been doing (the head of department at college is worryingly disorganised), and it turned out that we were supposed to be digitally manipulating some of our drawings. I wanted something quick so I just used a couple of different filters on photoshop after fiddling with the levels, and apparently that's all I was supposed to do anyway.

Dungeness 1

So we went on a trip to Dungeness. It was err..strange. It's a pretty desolate place, looks like a nuclear bomb went off, and being there gives you that feeling that you're being watched. I'm surprised we all got home alive actually.
We had to take 24 photos (though I think I took around 100 on my digital camera and 50 on film), do 6 sketches, and find 5 things to bring back to college.

Here's some of my photos (I haven't developed the film ones yet):

Goodness me, what a pretty nuclear power station!

I like sepia.

A commode, in a box. Right.

Why would you want to live here??

Teeny tiny people.

And that's it so far! I've done loads of observational drawings in the last couple of days but I haven't taken photos and I don't know if I want to upload them anyway! My drawing has definitely taken a turn for the worse...

Matchbox Self-Portrait (cont.)

Every week, we have a tutor called Irene for two hours. Irene specialises in photography (more old school than digital though) and she loves it. She's a bit eccentric which I like, but she tends to go on a bit when explaining things... However, I find that teachers who love their subject are the best, so I'm really looking forward to other sessions.

Anyway, this week we were inducted into the print room (we have to be inducted into everything and learn all the health and saftey rubbish, it's ridiculous), and taught us how to create photograms. Photograms really aren't that complicated, you just put an object onto photosensitive paper then expose it and develop it.

Here are the not very interesting ones I did when I was working everything out:

Flat sweet wrappers (from Quality Street)

Screwed up wrappers and what appears to be an elephant.

String.

And here's some I did the next day once I'd got the hang of it:

Knitting.

Obsession 1: Cranes. Aiming to use these as often as possible.

The netting on my dress! I quite like it :)

The little wire bike.

Bit dodgy this one, didn't put it in the developer for long enough because I couldn't find the stopwatch (it's dark in a darkroom y'know...) It's cutouts of my morris costume and my choir uniform. Quite pleased with the different tones though, I wasn't expecting that.

Obsession 2: Buttons

October 1 - Matchbox Self-Portrait

For this seven day project, we basically tried to fit our lives into matchboxes. We were to include as many things as possible that described us, our hobbies, things we like etc, but without including photos of ourselves. Visually, I don't think mine is that effective, but I liked the concept of it.

These are the things I included:

Mini wire bike - because I cycle everywhere. Or at least I used to before college! (It's about 6cm tall).

A ribbon from my suitcase, because I love choir, and I love going on tour.

When I went to London on my birthday when I was 6, a drunk man on the tube gave me a box of Just Brazils. I don't like brazil nuts, but I kept the tin and this little bit of paper which was in the tin.

I made a teeny tiny book because I like reading.

Backstage pass for the Royal Albert Hall...I think. Might have been somewhere else :s

A mini version of the programme from my first choir concert.

Cake. Katie likes cake.

The ticket from when Jack took me ice-skating in London for an anniversary/valentine's day. Most romantic day ever.

My first plane ticket. Because most people spend less than 23 hours on a plane for their first flight.

An artist pass for the Royal Albert Hall. First time singing there.

A penny, because at the time I had no money!

Needle and thread because I like making things.

Crane obsession...

I scanned all the tickets and made them smaller because I didn't want to damage them by folding them too much. Also included a few buttons.


The first day with this matchbox was spent producing drawings of the box and the things in it. For the first one, I drew it without taking my pencil off the page, and I guess it went okay, but it's not fantastic! Oh and my scanner didn't like it.

This version is just drawn with sharpies. I have learnt that red sharpies and orange sharpies are almost the same colour. Humph.

This is drawn with a 9B graphite pencil, I'm rather pleased with it, but it's not exactly inspirational. I think foundation is less about producing an accurate representation of an object/s, but more about doing something interesting or creative etc.

(But I haven't taken a photo yet so you can't see it anyway. Should appear the same time as the naked man.)


We were then told that the idea of this project was to explore as many different techniques and media as possible, so the next thing I did was sew the first line drawing onto fabric. I then made a sewn picture of my wire bike. I was happy to discover something called 'dissolvable film', which you can draw onto, then sew over and it dissolves in water. Would be lovely to have known about it before I'd used ordinary paper..