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..

Hello!

I don't know if anyone cares/noticed/is confused/is even reading this as I haven't given anyone the address yet, but I decided to start this to document my foundation year. Partly for myself, so I can look back and see how I felt about different things, and partly because when I get excited about a new project at college, I want to be able to show friends what I'm going on about :)

I've written about 8 posts, but haven't posted all of them because I don't have photos of everything yet. Hopefully I'll keep it quite regular and post about each project.

Love,

Katie

x

September 3 - Paper Manipulation 3 - Paper Garment

This was my favourite of the paper manipulation projects. We were allowed to use black, white or brown paper and dresspins to develop a garment on a mannequin. This project was intended to be an accumulation of the two previous paper projects, and we used photos as inspiration. (There was also a matchbox project, but I've lost the photos and it wasn't that exciting anyway).

I used newsprint paper for most of my garment, as it's a lot easier to control and shape. I also used some textured wallpaper, which I originally used merely because we didn't have any plain lining paper left, but I think the visual and textural effect of the textured paper against the newsprint is definitely a bonus! 

I was intent upon creating some kind of hooped skirt, and spent around 4 hours screwing up newspaper and wrapping it round in a circle, it wasn't quite how I'd wanted it, but I think it turned out alright in the end.

Suspended with thread in case you were wondering!

I also had to include my little obsession of paper cranes, and I'm hoping I can reach my aim of 1000 this year. I should probably start counting or I'll never get there...

This is the final dress. We photographed them in the lovely studio, which is something I've never done before and I really enjoyed it. I didn't realise how simple it can be to produce professional-looking photos (when you've got the equipment)!

September 2 - Paper Manipulation - Paper Room

So on the Friday we were told to buy ourselves decorator overalls and lining paper, and to bring in our decorator's paintbrushes. We were also told to wear shoes that we were comfortable climbing in.
Naturally, we were terribly excited and dreamt up ideas involving rolling around in paint and climbing trees.

Jess and I in our overalls

Our actual task was a little disappointing compared to our fantasies, as we were told to 'change the space' of the life room (a room with no natural light where we do life drawing) using only lining paper and masking tape (which later evolved to lining paper, masking tape, duct tape, pins and a staplegun, thank goodness).


You might think that this idea has a lot of potential, and perhaps you're right, but with thirteen  students in one room, the illusion of a magnificent installation is soon broken. We started off sitting in a circle coming up with ideas and making a vague plan, but our main course tutor (Tony) told us that we had to get on with doing it because that would work much better yada yada yada. So we all started making walls and attaching strips of paper to the wall and causing chaos with no real idea of what we were aiming for. The result was that we did 'change the space', but I know I wasn't particularly proud of it, and most of the others were going a bit mental after being cooped up in the room for three days.


Anyway, I'm getting sidetracked; here are some 'abstract' pictures of our disappointing masterpiece:

Then, we finally got to wear our decorator's overalls! Alas, there was no rolling around in paint involved. Earlier in the week, we'd been given the task to produce 10 patterns each (also part of some later project that we have yet to discover). We projected these patterns onto the walls of our fabulous creation and took photos of it, then painted the patterns on using black, white and grey paint. Not only was this pretty frustrating (course tutor number 3, Leslie, is a huge nagger and wouldn't stop shouting for at least 4 hours straight), but paint goes through the overalls so they weren't even worth wearing! I've kept mine, I'm sure I'll find something to do with it eventually...