5/12/2012 Experimenting with Manipulation

Distressing and destroying has become a new theme, with the photographs of abandoned and worn down buildings that I have taken. I tried manipulating and distressing fabrics by burning them with a heat gun, some really interesting outcomes were reached as shown in the images.

Later I experimented more with the overpainting that Richard had previously taught us. I overpained the black and white image with just white paint, simply dimming and hiding the harsh lines or the photo, then I cut and scraped back into the image to highlight the outlines of the flowers. This has worked particularly well and I want to work this into my images of abandoned buildings. 

4/12/2012 Glazed and Finito!

Remember those famous clay tiles (experimenting with drawing), well here are the finished items!

21/11/2012 Darren Hayman

Darren appears to at times doubt his abilities as an artist. Beginning his talk he said about how he compared himself to other artists and heavily criticised his own work and skills. "Its the quality of the audience, not the quantity" that matters to him and he would rather have only a few fans that are loyal and appreciate what he does.
Darren also ran with the theme that art can be cheap, the use of felt tip pens was apparent in some of his work, he said that he actually likes working with cheap mediums as a pose to more expensive. Saying that "when we are broke, we are more resourceful".
Telling a story of ups and downs to his career show how hard at times it can be for artists, saying he felt like he'd "played his cards" at some points in his career. It is a very challenging career and you have to be truly dedicated to be able to deal with the ups and downs, Darren never gave up and continued fighting, meaning he has released some albums he is very proud of and others that haven't sold well.
Drawing can take many forms, this was displayed in his video Lido,  where he said that drawing could be expressed through sound. In this video he was trying to recreate a location using sounds and trying to build an image up in the mind via the sound. In relation to drawing he said that there is something "completely unrepeatable about drawing".

Tutorial:
Asking to see some of my most recent ideas, Darren had a look at the images I had taken of derelict and damaged buildings. I had already started working into these drawings, by folding, manipulating and cutting in to them. He particularly liked the image below that I had cut into and straight away it reminded him of an artist, which he told me I should research, showing me a few images on his phone of the artist, immediately I bean to relate to the work and it sparked new ideas what I could do further with the piece. Darren was very helpful in not only this respect, but he discussed some of my folding techniques and told me (like Cedar had) to make them on a larger scale and I want to experiment with this. Being reassured that he liked what I was doing and that I may have sparked new ideas was a really good feeling. He said he liked the recycled nature of my work and making something new out of something old.

From this tutorial I researched into the artist when I got home and discovered more of his work that really related to mine. Darren told me to experiment with different backgrounds, including simple colours and other primary photographs that I had taken.

Original Image

Here I tried working with different backgrounds, I think that the green one is the most successful because it reflects the green in the original image.

PATRICK CAULFIELD
http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/caulfield-15-oh-helen-i-roam-my-room-p07166

20/11/2012 Sean Dower

Sean Dower was a true example of an artist who couldn't decide what they wanted to do. Originally wanting to study architecture and undertook part time jobs at architectures offices. He didn't like the course he was studying and decided that it wasn't for him. Deciding to spend time trying out different things Dower eventually went to study Sculpture at University.
Reflecting much of Dower's lecture he said that "it takes hours of trial and error to get an end result", this was in relation to his video House Music. This was a true inspiration as it shows that to be an artist you don't necessarily need expensive equipment or lots of it to create something huge.
Another inspirational film from Dower was based on recycling. He created a half hour long film where he would climb into clothes recycling bins and change his outfits, it was at times very funny. He created this solely with the use of a video camera and a few friends, once again showing that art doesn't have to be expensive.
The main thing I took from Dowers lecture is not to worry how long it takes to get somewhere, or how many mistakes you make on the way. If you want something you will achieve it, not always straight away, but eventually. This reassured me about my decision to defer my place at University for a year and explore my methods for a year.
This is his video Hot Music, not the exact one he showed his, but the same idea.

15/11/2012 Filming at the Tate Liverpool

The opportunity came up to do some filming for Tate. Being on the Art and Design side of the course, I didnt think I would have the chance to be involved in filming for an art gallery. I have never used a filming camera before and the daunting prospect of using it around everyone, who knew what they were doing, only hit me when we got there.
We were given exclusive press passes when we arrived, which gave us first view to the displays, this was very exciting. There were two separate parts to the display, one room was work from one artist only and the second had various artists. The exhibition was called "Tracing the Century: Drawing as a Catalyst for Change". I took two shots in the display upstairs, it seemed to take me like three times as long as all the media students, but they reassured me that my shots were good. It was really interesting to be involved in something a bit different, thoroughly enjoying using the camera. Maybe with a little more help I could use a film in my new work.
Just hoping my shots get used now, fingers crossed, I'll keep you updated.

UPDATE!  3/12/2012

14/11/2012 Cedar Lewisohn

Cedar began what he called his 'first lecture' by taking about exhibitions and art displays that he had run/been a part of. Previous to the work he has done at the Tate Modern, Cedar had helped at smaller galleries with half the budget of the Tate. He quoted "going from a budget of a few hundreds of pounds to thousands". , "the zero's have changed, but the process is the same". Cedars career rocketed when he took part in organising Rings of Saturn at the Tate Modern.
One of the main features of Cedars exhibitions are his fanzines, he believes that they are "travelling exhibitions" and can be taken and displayed anywhere.
I found the second part of the lecture more interesting, it was about the street art side of his career. He has published two books around street art and telling us what he defines as art.
Interesting quotes:
"no artist is fully accepted by everyone"
"people say that anybody can do that, but anybody didn't"

Tutorial:
I had a one-to-one tutorial with Cedar, we didn't have much time, but I showed him some of the photographs I have taken and the work I have produced from them. H said he liked the work I did where I folded into the images and manipulated the images I had taken myself. Cedar suggested that i tried producing them on a larger scale as they would have more of an impact, but he got where my work was coming from and told me to peruse with it and try different folding methods. The idea of making a fanzine came up, to which I suggested I would rather create a little book if I got the opportunity.

13/11/2012 Manipulation

The unit in textiles and fashion is manipulation. Over the holidays I have been busy gathering images and going out to do shoots. I have taken images of derelict buildings and the items that you can find in them, as part of this I am planning on doing a revisit to the place where I shot my fashion shoot from my previous work. In the lesson we started to work with fabrics and heat them until the fibres shrunk and created new and interesting effects.

Towards the end of the lesson I started to work with some of my images with inspiration from the First Cut exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery. I started cutting into the images and folding them, this worked very well and I hope to develop this further with more artists research. The main artist that inspired me to do this was Abigail Reynolds. There are images of her work and my development below... 

My Work... 

12/11/2012 Whitworth Art Gallery- Manchester

Jane and Louise Wilson had taken a series of photographs and recorded a film based around the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.It showed the devastation left behind, focusing mainly on the empty buildings that had been abandoned. I thought this might relate well to the theme I plan on using in my project, I have gathered images on empty and damaged buildings. The images taken within this have made me want my images to have meaning.
The film which was produced by Jane and Louise Wilson, it was hard to understand as we were only able to start watching it part way through and didn't have time to watch the whole thing again as the gallery was about to close. Some of the imagery included in this film were amazing and it showed the effect that nature has over time on buildings and the sheer impact this can have. Interesting angles of the buildings were used and I want this to influence my work.

http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/whatson/exhibitions/jane-and-louise-wilson/

These are some of the images I have already gathered... 

9/11/2012 David Sheppard

Today we had a lecture from David Sheppard (if you can call it a lecture, more like a personal group chat). He told us about his history in Art and how is man careers have come about. One of his main careers as a music journalist was unintentional, he found a hidden talent whist on tour with his band where he was asked to produce a diary of every place visited, sending them in letter form back to base. Little did he know that these letters would later be published in American College Music Journal. he told us about his many experiences as a journalist, such as editing and writing for Mojo Magazine and being an editor of the Art and Music magazine from the Saatchi Gallery. As him an his friends started the magazine they didn't expect to sell that many copies, they produced only two before being approached by the Saatchi Gallery who wanted to use it as their magazine.

David started a record label, which is very unique. The records themselves were a work of art, including packages based around the music that was on the CD's. Starting the label, David used a few artists that he knew, and now seeks new artists or allows them to find him. Each record that was produced was thought carefully about and hand crafted items to include with the CD. One record that was extremely interesting for me included a book telling a tale about the song, the book used found papers and recycled them into something new. I liked the idea that the book had been created by hand and had been thought about very carefully. This shows me that art is not strict and you can find many different ways to apply art to everyday life, including art for music. 

The talk with David was a true inspiration, he told us that it takes a while to build up a career, but if you are willing to try new things and get to know new people, that it will really help. He advised that we had more than one thing going at once and not just the 'put all of your eggs in one basket'. One little thing can make all the difference and take you down a pathway you would have never thought of for yourselves, he said we should just go with the flow. 

Below I have included some of the records produced by Davids record label... 

12/11/2012 The First Cut Exhibition

I noticed that there was a paper cutting exhibition on at The Manchester Art Gallery. It featured some artists which I have previously carried out research on and some others that I had never heard of before, the collection and variation in the artists was massive.

Danielle told me that our next unit would be based on manipulation and different ways in which we can manipulate fabrics of our choice, I thought that the exhibition would therefore be relevant to my work as I was interested in working with paper. 

When I first arrived at the gallery there didnt appear to be that much of the paper cutting work, as there were just a few pieces located around the gallery, however, after much confusion I managed to find the main room. There were many different styles of work using different methods of cutting and manipulating paper. The work was a massive inspiration for me and I plan on using the artists work throughout this project and cannot include all the work from the gallery in this post, I have included just a few highlights. 

Susan Stockwell 

James Aldridge

Moving from Birds to buildings...

So the move from birds to buildings seems a little dramatic.. but in my head it made perfect sense. There was one image that I had taken that formed this dramatic move. I had already considered the structure of birds when looking at the stuffed ones, so in my head it all made perfect sense. How I got on to considering derelict buildings is another matter in itself! This was brought around by the theme of destruction and distress (which I have always had a keen interest in). I thought I should possibly clear up how I moved from birds to buildings for those who don't understand my complex mind... :)

27/10/2012 Blackburn Museum

I returned to Blackburn Museum to have a look at the collection of stuffed birds. I decided that I wanted to move on from using the bright blues and greens to a more delicate colour pallet of browns. I remembered that there was a collection of birds with more natural feathers. Looking at the birds themselves, I liked the idea of using a structural element to create a piece. Here are some images of these birds...

25/10/2012 Feathers Galore...

Water Colour feathers, on tracing paper.

I tried using water colour on tracing paper because it was thinner than the standard paper, giving a delicate nature to them and it means they can be manipulated and shaper easier.
An artist that inspired me to try these water colours is Mary Hayes, one of her watercolour paintings is of a peacock feather, however, she uses much more dull colours. I Have used the colour pallet that I have previously been using to create my own watercolours.

Mary Hayes

23/10/2012 Garment experimentation...

Today I tried using different methods on my feathers to see what results I could get. I tried using lace and stitched it onto the screen printed feathers, this didnt work as well as I hoped because I couldnt cut the fabric out behind it very well, so it just looked sloppy, it took me a while, but I will definitely try it again on the vanishing fabric, hopefully this time it will work (fingers crossed). The feather that I previously created using vanishing fabric lacked structure and was hard to work with, I decided it would be a good idea to be able to manipulate it more. On the back of the free stitched feather, I used zig-zag stitch to attach a strand of wire to make the feather easier to work with. Its very time consuming creating the feathers solely using sewing and the machine, I think I need to find a different method to produce the mass of feathers for my garment. Here are some images of my experimentation of creating some form of garment (bare in mind, this is my first experimentation and it will get better, I promise)...