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.

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...