28 January 2013

New Portfolio Photos


After some awesome advice, I decided to re-photograph my portfolio. That is, my entire portfolio from Foundation, and also all my sketchbooks up to today. The photographs turned out incredibly, however, I'm umm-ing and ahh-ing about setting up a portfolio site, or whether to just extend this blog, or my Tumblr... It's such a nightmare to decide! Or maybe even not have one at all, and just save it for sending to people? I don't want to waste the morning's work, but equally...I'd like to be able to keep work to myself and edit accordingly. What do you think?

By the way, I apologise for the lack of posts, and also how short these last few have been! Just being a busy bee! But I promise to update you all as soon as I can.

27 January 2013

Juergen Teller: Woo


Hannah, Ani and I went to the opening of the new Juergen Teller exhibition, "Woo" last week at the ICA. It was pretty awesome to see the photographs printed, on walls for once instead of on a feed on Tumblr. I particularly loved the first room, where on entering there's the HUGE triptych of Vivienne Westwood, alongside a portrait of a kitten. It was totally impressive, and I wish that all the photos displayed were that big, or at least bigger than they are on a computer screen. Unfortunately, the rooms were all very separated, but what was lovely was that they integrated extremely well with the building itself, the floors and high ceilings perfect for creating the right mood. I'm glad to have seen this exhibition after the Tim Walker exhibition at Somerset House. It's nice to see two different fashion photographers show their work so differently next to eachother on the calendar.
I would highly recommend going to this, and it's free so there's no excuse!

20 January 2013

Kingston University: Life Drawing, Lucy, Bekah, Camilla.

Life drawing this term started off a bit odd, as the snow has been a bit of a predicament for the tutors and models! Alas our life drawing class was foiled a little, and we only had a half day. Bekah and Camilla filled in for Lucy for the first two drawings, before the model arrived in a fluster, poor thing. She was an extremely good model, not a twitch out of her!




Most definitely not my best work, and I'm a little disappointed with my outcomes. I was only really happy with my last one of Lucy. I feel like if we had less time, I could create something with much more energy, like the ink life sessions at Foundation. But not bad, I look forward to the next ones!

Visit to the Tate Britain Print Rooms

We were fortunate enough to get the chance to see some incredible prints in the Tate Britain Print room, where our guide patiently and to such great detail told us all about some of the world's most iconic prints. It's just so interesting to hear the process of how a print exists, and how the ways in which the relationship between print studios and artists work. I can really appreciate a print so much more in the flesh than in a photograph, so I really recommend you go when you can. It is appointment only, but if it's to your interest, it's so worth spending an afternoon just flicking through some of the most beautiful portfolios in the world.


Woodcut, Gertrude Hermes


Woodcut, Gabo



A mixture of print techniques, Hockney


Also it never occurred to me that artists create print portfolios specifically to be seen in a portfolio... Designed to be handled by the viewer and seen by one or two individuals at once. There's no other way of seeing these that by visiting. My favourites were the two prints by Gertrude Hermes, The Tony Bevan prints on the wall, and most definitely Michael Landy's portfolio 'Nourishment'. If there's one thing every print enthusiast must do, it would be to see that portfolio. Just exquisite.

Visit the Tate website here to make an appointment with them.

Kingston University: Adaptations Project.


From the Christmas project, we were instructed to adapt one of our responses into a storyboard and/or an animatic. If you know me, you'll know that storyboards are my worst nightmare, so it was kind of a bad project to start on... on the other hand, it didn't turn out too horrifically, and my tutors felt the idea was strong, which makes it alright with me. The drawing was not up to my usual standards for myself, and it showed, but then for me, it did communicate enough what was happening. I think this would have been even more effective if I could produce it digitally, but alas, it always is easier to say in hindsight.




I think with the subject I had chosen, it was difficult to have that balance of accuracy and yet the roughness of an animatic. I feel like it was more successful and communicated better as a storyboard, or alternatively as an animation would have worked better. However, I was particularly happy with these three images. I'd drawn each object out on tracing paper, which then could be easily moved into place when taking the photos in the animation studio. The tracing paper gives it a pretty nice effect, showing all the different layers of the drawing as separate pieces.

I was also excited to revisit the types of drawing I did back in Graphics GCSE. It was something I really relished, and I feel that this shows how much I have retained from all of that education. Its something else I can add to my skills list, and I feel like I have really benefited from it. There were some really awesome animatics, and although animation is something I'd like to work into and improve on... I don't think I have the patience, or the obsessiveness that you need to be an animator full time. However, I am planning to animate some of my self-directed book from last term, so I shall keep you posted.

In other news, I am actually re-photographing my portfolio, as these photos are truly getting poorer and poorer quality, apologies! I really have to work out a way of managing good lighting in this room. However, I will be using the photography studio next week to just photograph my entire portfolio so far to start sending things off to interning positions and just so I have something to show people whenever they ask for it! It's a big job that I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to doing, but it most definitely will pay off.

07 January 2013

Kingston University: Christmas Project

Over Christmas, we were given instruction to 'research' three different texts:

'Cheers' by Jayne Anne Phillips

'Liverpool Disappears for a Billionth of a Second' by Paul Farley

'Come and Go' by Samuel Beckett

Click through for videos of them being performed or read. I was really excited to receive this small pre-brief, if you like, and we were to respond to them in any way we liked, whether that be analytical writing, an image, a collection of objects, photographs, etc. I found this a really interesting way to show what we can do, and I think for our class, will show a lot about the person who makes the work.

This is going to be a long, hearty blogpost, so if you're just looking for pictures...this is perhaps not the best post!

'Cheers' is the perfect piece of text for me, as it is just chock full of colour and texture, and just oozes this time and place that I adore. It absolutely screamed collage, but as collage is most definitely not my forte, I did it my way and decided to make a surface pattern. Certain aspects of the text really appealed to me, and I wanted to portray objects and environment. The words, 'Beatiful Bounty' and 'Lord, you do look pretty' really stuck out to me. As a textiles lover, and as this piece was about sewing and dressmaking, I decided to stitch the words onto fabric, and scan them in.


That task was extremely taxing in itself, but it worked out pretty well, and I wouldn't mind using it again! The postcard, and the "pins between her teeth and lipstick gone grainy in the cracks of her mouth" also really caught my attention, so I decided to make some images on postcards. I used watercolour first, before layering with oil pastels. I feel like it gives the right amount of texture.



The surface pattern itself needs a little work, but with the time restraints I couldn't afford to get too worked up about it! However, it does give it a little reference to a time period perhaps, and where this piece of text is describing.


'Liverpool Disappears for a Billionth of a Second' was more of a struggle, and I don't think I truly understood what it meant until I talked to Hannah about it after doing this piece. In hindsight though, I think that it demonstrates the poem pretty well, and it turned out to be the one that I am most happy with, and I feel like I put my old skills in GCSE graphics to apply to what I'm doing now. I would love to make this into a print, and could perhaps develop into a series of prints depicting all the different scenes that he describes.


'Come and Go' was by far the hardest to convey, as it is a really physical piece of work (of course, as all theatre is), and yet we had to respond in a way that wasn't just... performing the play itself. The pattern and character of the piece was so specific, that I found this one very difficult to do. I ended up using photography, and trying to capture the anonymous woman, and mostly I wanted to play with lighting. Photography is very much a recent love, and although I have done many photoshoots for various projects, this is the first where I have experimented with the technicalities of it. Part of me wishes I could have used film, but with time constraints, this would probably have not been so successful. This certainly can go somewhere, as a photographic series, or turned to drawing, but we'll see how it pans out!


It's been an interesting few weeks, and I have tried my best to experiment as much as possible. I very much wanted to steer clear of three drawn images, as I don't think that I would challenge myself enough to make an interesting image. I feel with these as research, I can truly develop into something more refined and edited. It has really been enlightening to explore three parts of my interests as an artist and image maker, as opposed to 'The Illustrator'. I feel like illustration is much more than that, and in the bigger picture, we have so much more to give.

Kingston University: Drawing Day 12, Self-Directed Drawing, Horniman Museum

This is an extremely belated post, as I did all of these drawings before Christmas! But then it needed to go for assessment, and THEN I went home and left this book here, so it has been a little neglected! As has this blog actually, and I am truly sorry, I have much to inform you about!

Anyway, these drawings are from my self-directed book, and after my second location, I had really run out of places to go to draw... but then during location drawing, Stephen mentioned that there's an aquarium at the Horniman Museum, a fairly small museum in Forest Hill. I was ecstatic to find a smaller, much more affordable place to visit, and after my first trip, I discovered that their Natural History section was also really very detailed; just perfect for this project! I ended up going twice, because I was really quite unhappy with the first visit's drawings. It turned out to be a really good thing, and I finally feel like the outcome is finished and conveys the colour and vibrancy I wanted to capture. 








My last assessment went well, and I'm fairly satisfied with my results at the end of the first term... Anything I'm unhappy with is my own downfall, I really don't feel like I have done enough! This is going to change over this second term, I'm really motivated to take myself to the next level. I'm most proud of this project, in hindsight, as I really felt like I pushed myself to explore new places, and I will be trying to use the material in this for a surface pattern, and my tutors also suggested I try animating these too! I was surprised to hear them tell me that they think I would be suited to animation, and it has made me think whether I would choose it as my second year option... More likely, I think I would just like to develop it for a time and add to my skills! Of course, you all will be the first to see.