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...