Drawing-The entire 4 weeks

Today I have just finished the last day of my drawing workshop, and I felt that now was the right time to review what I have done.
To begin with we started drawing objects that we put together ourselves-these comprised of all sorts of small objects that our tutor brought in, such as bits of plant, blue tac, match sticks and bits of plastic. We put together an object each, and went about drawing them. In some cases, I put together several pieces of paper, and let my drawings run off the paper. The materials I used here were mainly charcoal, pencil and ink, in which I used a stick and a brush. When I first started the classes, I had a real problem in letting go of a drawing style in which I have grown up using, which is using lots of lines. Im not sure if it is a confidence thing, or just habbit, but it is something I had real trouble letting go, in order to try out other styles of drawing in the class. If im honest, I would say that it is something that I only managed to have any success in today.
Because I was ill for the next session, I had hear from peers that the subject followed in the next class was still life using different techniques, so at home I gave this a go myself, drawing objects around the house and trying out different techniques in order to create more of a vairety of textures. I enjoyed this, as I quite enjoy still life drawing, and drawing in general really!
Today we focused on drawing from paintings. The first one we all made our own 'motifs' on was a painting by Valasquez named 'Las Meninas' or 'The Maids of Honour'. This is actually a favorite of mine, as I studied it a few years ago, and I just love the story that is going on in the piece: the princess being dressed up by the maids, the king and queen looking on at her through a tiny mirror in the background. And not forgetting the artist himself, Diego Valasquez reflected through the painting, showing himself creating the piece as if the canvas we are looking at is actually a mirror itself.

http://artchive.com/graphics/meninas.jpg

Anyway, we all made our own versions of 'Las Meninas' while studying it as it was projected onto the wall for us. It was certainly a challenge-the painting is so full of beautiful detail that you couldnt possibly hope to capture it all in one go. But I had my breakthrough in drawing at this moment, by capturing the drama in the scene by blocking in all the dark and light using a combination of lots of ink and charcoal. I think both me and my tutor could tell that this was definately a step in the right direction. From then on throughout the day I produced many pieces that really captured the light in each piece, and I really began to thoroughly enjoy myself. From now on I will definately carry on this technique in my drawings to come, as this workshop was definately a learning curve for me.

Painting-week 2

In my second week of painting, we were told to come in with some idea of what to paint. Seeing as it is advised for you to continue the theme you used in previous workshops, and due to the fact I enjoyed what I chose, I wanted to carry on with the theme I used in the printmaking workshop-family portraits. So I brought my prints in and some of the original images I worked from, and started a painting on some board of my boyfriend. It felt like ages since I had done a good sized painting, so I felt a bit rusty. And this definately showed in the results. But this didnt matter, at least I got some work done. Hopefully I'll pick some skills up in the next few weeks, as I plan to produce more paintings based on my previous images I took of my family, and also of the prints I made in the printmaking workshop. So thats the plan!

Painting-week 1

I have started my 3rd workshop, which is painting. This is a subject which I have a prior interest in, which is not to say it is one I am automatically confident in. But I do enjoy it.
On the first week we sat around as a group and did some drawing activites, such as blind drawing, which was quite fun, but it did remind me of my foundation course last year! But it was a good ice breaker if you like. We drew pictures of objects we had on us-I drew my watch. After this we began the painting with the acrylic paints. I didnt hunt around for a palette though, and as such I didnt mix my colours to get a good painting done. This sounds like a pretty basic mistake, but I guess I just wasnt thinking after a morning of talking and such. I didnt even really realise until I started to wonder why my painting look crap to be honest! But never mind! I had a good first lesson, and a nice introduction into this workshop

Art-Rest of Sculpture

For the remaining 3 weeks of printmaking before our assesment, I continued to work on my chosen subject-portraits. In particular, family portraits, which was definately a project that engaged my interest more than my last. The processes I used to gather a body of work included lino cutting, embossing and printing. I stuck to quite a small category within the subject of printmaking, but this was mainly because I wanted to achieve a nice selection of work that followed one particular process, so that I could get to know it well, and get some decent work.
At the end of the 4 weeks, I was really pleased with how the workshop went. More importantly, I thouroughly enjoyed it. I was pleased with the work I produced, and wasnt ashamed to show it when it came to my assesment!

Printmaking-lesson 1

Last weeks lesson I started a new workshop-Printmaking. I will be doing this one for another four weeks, like sculpture.
My initiative thoughts on the subject were slightly more possitive to the ones I had in Sculpture. I had had a bit more experience in the subject, and more positive experience at that.
Because of the short amount of time we have in the lessons, I didnt get round to actually doing any printmaking this week. Im hoping next lesson will be more practical and hands-on. But for now, we learnt about the tools available, as well as the presses, and what different materials we can use. Then we looked at some previous students work, to get a gasp on what different techniques can be achieved in printmaking. It ws very impressive stuff, not to mention slightly intimidating. But I think everyone is pretty much fairly equal in our group, and it will be a learning curve for us all.
We have been told to come in for next lesson with a vauge idea of what we might like to start on e.g. some initial ideas. I know that it has been hinted that it is always good for students to carry on with their ideas from the previous workshops we have been in, and to carry the ideas through into all the workshops. The only problem is I am finding that quite hard to do. I dont really want to make prints of guns, and I have actually come up with a new idea already of what I might like to do, which is further than I got in the previous workshop. I have decided to take some portrait pictures of my family and if possible, perhaps start some lino prints in the next lesson, working from the pictures I take. So thats my plan, hopefully its a good one!

Week 4

After last week in class I went away with three nice, detailed moulds of the toy gun I brought in. In the meantime between my final class, I was thinking on something I could pour into the mould. I came to the idea of chocolate. I felt there was quite a strong contradiction between a gun and chocolate. Guns are obviously very imposing and threatening objects, whereas chocolate is seen as a rather more innocent option. Again it could be argued that chocolate kills just as many people as guns could, but I decided to take a more naive approach. I brought two large bars of chocolate, melted them and poured them into the cast to set.

After a few hours they were ready, and it was after this that I realised that my final piece for this project was not nessessarily the final cast, but rather the documenting of what I did with the cast.

I started to wonder how I could use the chocolate gun in pictures, bearing in mind that it couldnt be held for too long before it would start to melt! So I started off by getting people to pose with it. I used my boyfriend to begin with, asking him to hold it in a fairly menacing way, as if threatening himself:

After this I wanted to create a scene almost, so I used both my boyfriend again and my dad to act with the gun. Sam (the boyfriend), probably didnt enjoy this too much, as it involved him being threatened with the gun by my dad. I didnt get too many good shots here, as most comprised of them laughing, but I feel the perspective of a couple of them arent too bad:

Week 3

Throughout the week before my third session of sculpture, I decided it would be an idea to purchase some cheap toy guns, so that I had something to play around with in the lesson instead of working freehand with the clay, and moulding them would always be an option. I brought a couple of them and brought them into class.
One of them was made of very flimsy plastic, and so to begin with I unscrewed it so that it was then in two halves. Each half look fairly secure, and with a little bit of clay I filled in any holes there were, and then poured some plaster into one of the halves. However, after letting it set I discovered my plan had not gone down so well. I couldnt get the set plaster mould out of its shell, and it ended up breaking in the process of coming out.
I repeated the process again, however this time I decided to focus on the mould I could create, and so put the toy gun with the set plaster in it into the vacuum mould forming machine, and this gave me a very intricate and detailed mould, which I was extremely pleased with. I repeated this and made several more moulds, so that they could be used for other things. I filled one up with plaster, and just as id hoped I got an extemely detailed plaster cast.
Later on in the session, I experimented with algenate, which I was informed is the same stuff used when dentists want to make casts of peoples teeth when braces are needed. The powder is mixed together with water to create a solution, then it is poured into the mould and left to set for half an hour or so. I did this, and found the algenate facinating stuff, which waas gel like when it had set. I got another brilliant mould out of it, and made another plaster cast from it.
At the end of the day I took home my plaster moulds of my gun, which I knew I could use at home....

Week 2

Second week back and I came back into class with the very vauge idea of perhaps wanting to create some sort of weaponry, perhaps a gun, after looking at the artist Wim Delvoye. I felt this was going to look pretty inadequate compared to some other peoples ideas. But I just could rush an idea, and one will never come into my head when I feel pressurised. (Unfortunately). So I spent most of this weeks lesson playing around with the materials we had been introduced to late in last weeks lesson/this morning. I played around with the clay to come up with the basic form of a handgun and work from there. After I did that, I got to use the vacuum forming machine which made a plastic cast of my gun. I then could pour some plaster into the cast to get a solid shape.
It was fun getting to use the plaster, which I hadnt had a play with for a while now. I cant say my gun turned out spectacularly, but it sure was a start. I felt by looking at the plaster gun that I would stick to this subject. It was quite striking and imposing, and I definately felt it was worth a shot over the next few weeks.
I went away at the end of this week with the idea in my mind to look at some other shapes of guns and get more of an idea of what I would be sculpting, instead of using guess work.

Week 1 Term 1

Week 1 term 1 of Art and my first workshop for the next 4 weeks is Sculpture. In the end I will have gotten round to doing all four of the workshops. They contain Sculpture, Printmaking, Drawing and Painting.
I will admit, I was slightly apprehenisve about the sculpture workshop. After all, I hadnt had much experience in that field, and what little I did have, I hadnt taken away a very positive attitude from the subject. But everything is worth a shot, right?
We were introduced to Angie, who would be tutoring us for the next four weeks in Sculpture. She gave us a worksheet which had a brief on it for us to organise for the week after. To summarise the brief was basically to think of a theme or subject that you would focus on for the next three weeks and base your work around. It was quite open, and I have to admitt when I first read it my mind went blank. I had absolutely no idea what I could think of as a basis for my work. Although in the back of my mind I knew the reason for this: all my educational life I have been told what to do. Or at least given some sort of an idea to get me off the ground. Now I was completely on my own, and it was/still is pretty scary. Although I know some people love the freedom of not being told, sometimes I just enjoyed the safety of it.
Anyway, so I began by researching some of the listed artists on the breif, such as Ed Ruscha, David Shrigley, Jack Pierson and Wim Delvoye, to try and inspire myself. I found most of their work interesting, mainly because I was new to them and their work. I found the work of Wim Delvoye rather interesting. Lots of his work is focused on the body, and although he is quite a controversial and sometimes shocking artist, there was a strange beauty to his work e.g: his machinary constructions, which are made out of laser cut steel. They are monsterous, yet rather beautiful.

Although I found most the artists suggested on the brief interesting, nothing was really grabbing my attention. Maybe it was because I still felt a little bit intimdated by the subject. Im not sure. I began to worry, thinking I was running out of time for an ideato appear, and that it would be too late to develop it if it did at this stage.
After this I came across Tom Sachs when I was researching the listed artists. His work seemed quite bold and structural. If there was anything I could say I was thinking of basing a project on at this stage, I would probably say it would be something structural. It sounds vauge, but it made a bit of sense in my head. What caught my eye about him was the sculptures he did of guns.

I didnt quite know where something along the weaponry lines would lead, but by then this was the one thing that had got me interested.
So I decided to make this my idea for when we came back next week.