LFW

Today was a first for me. I took the day off from Farnham to help assist and dress at the Amanda Wakeley London Fashion Week show. It was a fasicinating day to see how the fahsion industry works, especially when under pressure for a major fashion show. The buzz backstage when getting ready to dress the models was unbelievable, nothing seemed organised although so much organisation went into the show.

Dressing the models was an interesting experience. The models have between 15-45 seconds to change their looks and being a dresser it was my job to change my assigned model's looks. In a mad panic and rush of adrenaline I struggled to get my model out of her first look and into her second. Never the less it was done and she hit the catwalk in time.

These are a few of my favourite photograohs of the day, when I had a chance to take them of course.

Visual Communication, Typography

On Monday, we began to look at the pathway of Visual Communication which covers a wide range of specialist areas such as graphic design, design and communication and typography. In particular today we looked at typography and how different text fonts, sizes and colours can change the message of a sentence, phrase or word.

Particularly when trying to communicate certain messages different techniques are used. For example if it was a quiet piece of text just the outline of the type would be shown rather than filled in. On the other hand reversed text can really stand out of the dark background and create quite an impact. Type can have lots of variations to convey all sorts of messages. Other things to take into account are, negative space, composition, lower and upper case.

The font of the type can also determine the meaning behind a piece of text. Fonts are divided into two catorgories, serif and sans serif. A serif is a font with 'curly' bits on the end of letters, like Times New Roman. A more traditional and formal font type. The other type, sans serif, doesn't have the 'curly' bits on the end and so had a much more modern feel to it aswell as being practical for signing and important messages.

We tried our hand at typography today. We were given the title A Day in the Life of... and had to use a passage of a memory, journey or future dream of someone else in the class to construct a sentence to fit with the mood and feeling of the piece and then communicate the message in the sentence by using different typography skills. The passage I was given was a memory of a family holiday in Florida.

I was trying to communicate the description of how exhausted and hungry the girl in the passage remebers her family being after a long day out at theme parks. I chose outlined type as it gives an impression of being empty like an empty stomach.

This sentence is trying to describe a holiday photo but not actually being a photogrpah at all. Holiday photographs are normally of cheesy smiles and good times so the 'happy' is in capital letters to try and show just how happy the family seemed to be on holiday in the memory. Also the reversed type made the text stand out aswell as being able to fit it into a camera film style, which is a negative image like the reversed type.

Drawing

Colgate Total

Allstar Converse

Drawing is an important part of our foundation course, as at the end of this unit we are assessed on our sketch book and awarded with a drawing award. These are a few of the things I've drawn this evening. I really wanted to show I can draw in detail and use shading to create the tones that make up the shape and form of an object.

Self Motivated Study (SMS)

Today we had our library induction which really set us up nicely for SMS. It now means I can use the library and access all its resources to help with my research for SMS. Not only that but we were shown how to Harvard Reference for all the resources we have used to gather information for our research.

We also had a brief introduction to contextual studies at the university, this is something that I studied for A-level and would like to further study at university next year. Whilst some may find it a really boring subject it's something I am eager to learn about and is also a great help in finding inspiration and learning new methods for my own art work.

Whilst this was one of those tasks that is quite lengthy and more often than not, not that interesting, I did meet some really interesting and inspirational people today.

Life Drawing

Common Weed in Field, Pencil

Life drawing is one of the skills we have to practise and improve on constantly as part of our assessment criteria. As part of a task today the class had to split in to groups and find a specific location marked on a map to go to.

When my group got to our location we found ourselves situated in a field of trees and grass and nothing much else. We had to draw from life what we could from the area around us. I found it particularly interesting to draw plants and grass in quite a detailed manner as there is so many different patterns and marks to incoperate.

This drawing was a particular favourite of mine as I like the tones of the leaves and the organic shape of the plant which in fact is a common weed, something most people would consider a pest.

Day Four Foundation Art

Lion and Lamb Walk No. 12, Fine Liner

Flowers on Lamp Post, Pencil

Padlock on Door, Pencil

Lampost I, Line drawiing not looking at page

Lampost II, drawn with right hand

Phonebox & Letterbox, Line Drawing

Today was spent doing lots of different tasks again. We started by having to draw our face using touch and with our eyes closed which gave an interesting 2D representation of a 3D face.

The next task was to make a sculpture of our head. The previous task had helped with an understanding of the form of my own face and head. I used wire and tape to make the structure and left it as a simplistic and minimalistic sculpture as just the wire on its own to give a feeling of shape and form rather than adding in all the details.

The final task took us in to the town of Farnham where we had to draw urban scenery. The town being quite old meant that there was a mixture of new and old to draw. We were also told to experiment with different drawing techniques and media. The imagery above is some of  my favourite drawings from the day.

Notts

Unfortunately I had to take Friday off from Farnham to attend an open day at Nottingham University. Whilst there I got a chance to visit the beautiful uni campus as well as visit the city centre.The course I am particularly interested in starting next year is Art History and Nottingham had a superb course on offer. What really attracted me to it was how I get a choice of my modules to take. This meant,that with me being a practical artist as well as interested in the theory side of it, I can take modules of practical art alongside studying art history. The modules on offer are such as fine art, photography and graphics.

Studying this year at Farnham will really help me find what discipline in art I want to follow alongside art history . I think it will also be a year to further develop my drawing skills and also essay writing that will be a key element in any art history degree.

Whilst in Notts I had a chance to visit the city centre, which I'm glad I did, so that I could get a feel for what it would be like if I lived there. What I did see of the city seemed very pleasant. The shopping was great, which shouldn't be an important factor but it is. The city does have an art scene though with various galleries and art spaces available to visit, so being so far away from London doesn't mean being secluded from the art world.

Nottingham seemed to have a lot on offer and I can begin to see how doing foundation art will fit in with preparing me to go to uni. There's still a few other unis I'm interested in visiting as options for next year but Notts impressed me very much so.

Day Two Foundation Art

Today was a continuation of yesterday. We completed the tasks we started and started even more. Some of them very intersting and alternative which really get you thinking.
One which was my favourite was using the illustrated pages of an old book we found to make a collage and then using words from the book to title them. I was quite limited in that my book was a Gardening Encyclopedia  and the pictures were very clinical in their content and layout on the page. But this gave me a good starting point. In our group we decided to swap imagery to make things more interesting. My final outcome is a triptych in which the plants and flowers change into an embroidery pattern.
Other tasks included drawing ourselves from a childhood photo with a speach or thought bubble describing the moment or memory; using a current photo and drawing the background in to give a mood to the context in which the photo was taken; and a final task of describing an image to a partner for them to draw but keeps the image concealed until the end. This was a more tricky task, although it wasn't so much about the art work itself but about the ownership of the work. Whos was it? Mine becasue I told my partner what to draw, or my partners casue she actually drew it.
This is a similar method that lots of artists work with. Athony Gourmley, sculptor, for example, has the idea to make a create a piece of work but his technicians often help him in the process of creating it but it doesn't make the work any less his or does it?
I will leave you with that thought, it's something that I still sometimes struggle to get my head around. Two days into the course and it's already challenging my thoughts on art, this year is going to be hard work, I can tell already.

Day One Foundation Art

We were told to start a blog as part of our Foundation Art course at UCA Farnham. So here it is.
I'm not sure what we're meant to post, I assume our progress we make on the course and record our personal journey.
Today could be described as slow starting but I know we're about to get thrown in at the deep end. This blog is about me and my art work and inspirations. Although I've met some nice people on my first day this blog is not so much for social networking but for work and hard work at that!
Apart from that we did some drawing today, until we get started properly theres not much work to post on here, hopefully when we get started my blog will be more colourful.