Roundabouts 12th September

Today was the second lot of Visual Communications and 3D lessons, which after Tuesday I had very mixed feelings about. I was looking forward to Visual Comms. but really didn't want to do anything similar to welding again, like in the last 3D lesson.

Visual Communications

In today's V.C. lesson, we were continuing working with the pieces we had produced on the 10th, cutting parts out. Pieces were cut out to shine light through, producing patterns of light and shadows on the background, which can be seen below 

The photographs were taken with a modelling light shining on them, on a light box and against a window to produce a range of outcomes. 

I think it turned out quite well, I was expecting it to be a lot worse because the holes I'd cut weren't very neat. I could extend this work, working with assotate and other similar materials to create different effects from all angles.

3D (screen printing)

Screen printing is done similarly to printing photographs. You apply the light sensitive liquid to the screen, and shine light through an assotate of your image onto the screen. When the screen is made, you place is on top of a piece of paper/fabric etc, and drag paint up and down the screen with a squeegy (similar to a windscreen scraper) to push the paint through the screen onto the paper like below. 

Doing this allows the paint (or whatever other materials you use) to go through the screen, printing onto the paper below, creating the picture underneath.

I really enjoyed this lesson, and would definitely do the process again with my photography. If I had more space and time, I would of done this all day, screen printing was the closest thing to photography we've done so far, so it instantly stood out.

First roundabouts 10th September

On the 10th, we were put into groups and started working in our first lot of new lessons, which for me was Visual Communications and 3D (welding). I was optimistic about trying out new things instead of working just with photography and really wanted to experiment with some new materials and techniques.

Visual Communications - One

In the first Visual Communications session, we were introduced to the topic and shown some pieces of work related to the subject. We then picked an image from the previous museum visit, this was the photograph I chose to work from.

After picking an image, we applied filters via Adobe Photoshop to create different effects, which would be used later. The photo below is an example of one of my products

After applying stylize -> trace contour to the image, and turning it monochrome, this was one of my outcomes, which I would use in the next lesson.

The lesson was quite straight forward in a sense, because after years of photography I know how to use Adobe Photoshop, but having something ready to work on for the next lesson kept me optimistic, and didn't put me off the subject. I was looking forward to seeing what I could make out of the above photograph, especially as I'm not used this kind of art.

3D (welding)

In the lesson on 3D, we were given a brief introduction to the subject, shown some models made by welding metal together and given a basic health and safety tutorial. To weld, we had to place to two pieces of metal in between the two parts of the welder, and push down the handle to send an electrical current through it, causing it to heat up, spark and fuse together. 

After seeing the demonstration, I decided to work from this photograph to produce a similar model by welding metal.

I started by wrapping together thicker pieces of wire to create a trunk for the tree, and welding on smaller pieces for branches, but this soon fell apart, so I decided to make more of a cartoon styled tree, with big circles for leaves.

The hardest part of the lesson was probably keeping everything in place that you were trying to weld together; the area that welds is so small, everything kept falling off the machine, making everything take twice as long. That, as well as things not sticking properly and pieces falling off of the tree made the afternoon seem endless, and made me give up a few times. But I thought it was better to make something bad than to half finish something, so I completed my tree in the end; it's safe to say I won't be doing welding again.

Edwin Ellis' Welsh Coast

The Welsh Coast

I struggled getting going with writing my 500 words on this, I think the main barrier was getting into other forms of art than photography. It took quite a while to get past the point of thinking "what can I write other than 'this is good' or 'I like this'". But I started noting down little details about the painting, which lead me to create a structure for the essay, which at least was a starting point if nothing else.

After planning out what I was going to write about, and in what order, I managed to produce this essay about the painting.

My 500 words

The piece I chose was Edwin Ellis' painting 'Welsh Coast'. The painting instantly stood out to me because of the size, the contrast in the colours and the detail in the scenery. Although the people and animals appear to be the subjects, the land that they are situated on takes up far less of the painting than the sea does. Another quality that caught my attention was the detail in the animals in the foreground was far greater than that of the people in the background; this is either to give the effect of depth of field for aesthetic purposes, or for a more metaphoric reason, like the people being of little importance.

In the painting, Wales looks massively different to modern day Wales. Ellis' perception of the coast looks more like a desert island, inhabited by jungles and wild animals, as apposed to Wales a century later which looks far more suburban. The scene looks distant from civilization in my opinion, mainly due to the grassy area on the beach, which looks more like a jungle than a place anybody would live.

To me, the characters in the piece look uncivilized, and almost like scavengers in a way, the single improvised shelter on the beach looks less like the sunny paradise I first saw, and more like the people are stranded, using whatever resources they can find to get by. Aswell as that, the people have wild animals roaming near them, and they are changing in front of each other, which I perceive as being almost savage, having no structure or care about their lifestyles, and having little dignity, or respect for their surroundings.

This leads me to think that the people lived simple lives; they don't appear to have a source of food or water, they don't have careers or homes like regular people would, and they aren't even dressed. At first glance, the painting just seems like a 'nice' picture of the beach, but looking further into it, I have a massively different opinion of the scene now.

I thought the painting was really open to interpretation, which is the most important quality to any piece of art; I have scene people living in a sense of poverty, whereas others may see it as a paradise. Although I couldn't relate it to another painting, the picture instantly reminded me of early parts of J. J. Abrams' series 'Lost', which featured characters being stranded on an island. After seeing so much of a story from this piece, I would look into more of Edwin Ellis' work, although working with photography instead of painting, it is difficult to take much inspiration from The Welsh Coast.

Museum Visit - 4th September

On the 4th, we went to Blackburn Museum as a group to browse through the art. A few different pieces caught my eye, especially the Japanese Egyptian pieces shown below.

Japanese

Egyptian

These two pieces caught my eye straight away, because they were so unique and outstanding compared to the other pieces of art, which were all very similar styles.

After looking around, we were asked to choose  something and write 500 words about it, and reinterpret it. Being in a museum full of mainly paintings, I felt pretty lost at first, being a photographer, and spent a lot of the time walking round thinking 'there's no way I can write 500 words on this stuff'; a lot of it just seemed simple, for example, paintings of the sea. In the end I chose Edwin Ellis' painting of the Welsh Coast from 1908, because it was one of the few that stood out - (it wasn't just a boat, or an ocean, it was a scene).

Museum Project Breif

Museum Project Brief.

Foundation Diploma in Art & Design: Part One

Project Title: Drawing Programme (Museum Interpretation)

Units

UAL Level 3 Certificate in Drawing - Unit: 16

Foundation Diploma Units: 1, 2, 3 & 4

Refer to your Course Handbook for further information on units available on Moodle and Facebook

Deadline : Initial assessment – October 7^th, Final Assesssment - December Assessment week

Tutor : All

Location Various studios and also off campus, Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery

Rationale

Central to the experience of any artist or designer is the process of drawing. We draw for all sorts of reasons, we draw to represent the world as we ‘see it’, or to express the way we ‘feel’ about it; we draw to communicate a complex idea, or to explain how something works; we draw to leave a trace of where we’ve been, or who we ‘are’. Sometimes we draw for no other reason than to take our minds of whatever else we’re doing. In the first few weeks of this course you will be exploring all manner of approaches to drawing, some of which may seem familiar, some entirely new, and some that seem to be totally strange and unpredictable. But each approach will build on the next, forming what many artists describe as a drawing vocabulary’. As you get to the end of these first few weeks you should have built up a range of strategies for drawing, which you will then begin to apply to your future projects.

To begin with you will be given the theme of Interpretation. Initially you will identify a piece of work by another well known artist or designer from the local museum collection. You are to interpret the work in a discipline of your choice. This may take the form of reproduction in a new medium or an updated version or even a conceptual response to the original proposition. You will be expected to produce a wide body of research to help you do this, you could explore the way other artists and practitioners have worked in a similar manner.

Throughout Part 1 you will be asked to experiment with a variety of different drawing process, and given the opportunity to work with different media to record and interpret the world around you. Your perceptions of what function drawing serves and your understanding of what makes a good or bad drawing will be challenged.

We believe that drawing is extremely important within contemporary art, design and media practice and is an art- form in its own right. It is clearly a fundamental skill in traditional areas such as illustration and representational painting but drawing, in one form or another, also plays an important part in disciplines where its contribution is less obvious. 

Drawing is useful as a means of:

• Recording visual information

• Developing an understanding of composition

• Exploring and developing ideas

• Developing an understanding of form and space

• Expressing the invisible – emotion, for example

• Presenting your ideas to others

• Enhancing observational skills

• Simplifying the visual world

• Problem solving and planning.

Aims

UAL Foundation Diploma in Art & Design

Unit 1: To enable the candidate to develop a research method which demonstrates contextual awareness, ability to interpret and evaluate information and can be applied effectively.

Unit 2: To enable the candidate to develop ideas within the context of art and design using a broad range of approaches, appropriately and effectively.

Unit 3: To enable the candidate to develop the application of materials and methods to explore and solve creative solutions, safely and effectively.

Unit 4: To enable the candidate to develop planning, recording, analytical, reflective and evaluate skills which support their own learning.

UAL Level 3 Certificate in Drawing

Unit 16: To develop a critical understanding of drawing as a tool for interpretation and evaluation of research sources, information and ideas.

Objectives

By the end of the programme you should be able to:

Demonstrate how the use of measurement, proportion, composition and perspective can be used to improve your drawings.

Demonstrate how an understanding of different materials, marks, and approaches to drawing can be usefully employed to create more effective images.

Demonstrate how you can use drawing as a tool to research, record, express, visualize or interpret the world around you.

Show records of analysis and evaluation that record objectively what you have learnt in each session, and how you have taken that into work you do in your independent study time.

Provide examples of research that support what you have learnt in the sessions, and what you have done in your independent study time.

Assignment

You are asked to:

• Outline a personal response to a work from the local collection.
• Record and research the original in a suitable format
• Produce a piece of writing ( 500 words) and describe your chosen work.
• Consider and select what primary research might be useful to your project and what material/subjects/examples might be found.
•  Consider and select appropriate drawing/recording methods to collect your primary research and prepare/collect drawing materials/tools in advance.
•  Conduct effective and appropriate preliminary research.
•  Build on your initial primary research, developing your ideas through to an exciting conclusion.
• Extend initial contextual research with relevance to your chosen work

Constant reflection and evaluation of ideas, process, techniques and experiments through to final solution.

Assessment Evidence

Evidence from this project will be required for your Part 1 assessment and you may be asked to finish work that you have not completed. (See your handbook for more details) A group critique of your work will normally take place at the end of the project. This is an invaluable opportunity to engage with self and peer evaluation of your work and receive feedback. As a guide for assessment you might be expected to produce a body of work which consists of:

• 20 Drawings OR

• 30 Photographs (edited to 2 really good ones) OR

• 1 Three minute film OR

• An installation with 5 working drawings OR

• A textiles piece OR

• A series of 10 drawings for two design ideas OR

A series of recordings mixed and placed on blog in response to a drawing or identified

Piece OR

Collage work OR

A series of prints OR

A typographic response

A substantial body of contextual research

These are simply suggestions or examples to give you an idea of the amount of work we expect at assessment. You may chose to do something that’s not listed here, if so use these as a guide. Besides the visual work you produce for this brief you will also need to document your progress and evaluate your outcomes. This will contribute to the work generated throughout Stage One.

Work presented at the Stage One assessments will typically consist of:

• A sketchbook that coherently documents both visually and textually the development of the project. You should annotate your working methods and show your decision-making.

• Analysis and evaluation: You should document your learning experience throughout the project in your Learning Journal / Blog Make notes daily and analyse your progress at the end of each week ensuring that you evaluate your strengths and weaknesses. You should use your journal / blog as a tool to help you plan effectively. Notes from tutorials and critiques should also be kept here.

• Relevant research should be documented in your sketchbook. Examples of artists and designers work should be annotated using the appropriate academic citation system and a bibliography provided where appropriate.