Monday, 14 December 2009

Body explorations

Previously, i had been working with the idea of mutations and the drive to be the best through evolution. Now my concepts have developed and i am now more interested in looking at the present obsessions with the body and creating your perfect ideal.These drawings and painting are my first explorations of the nude body and with mixing literature with my artwork.




Sunday, 13 December 2009

Friday, 11 December 2009

As i was struggling a little to develop my idea, i decided to try doing a quick painting of a larger women in a different setting to that we usually see them in and being idolised. I haven't finished painting in the figure and im not sure i will, it has not given me the desired effect i was aiming for.

Monday, 25 May 2009

Almost complete!

This is the the almost complete look of mine and Jakes exhibition space. At the end of Friday we had all the work up on the walls but unfortunatley we have not yet got the floor installation finished s we ran out of floor paint and cannot finish the floor till Tuesday 26th (hopefully). Once that has dried we will go on in on an extra day and complete setting up the floor installation. We decided with Anna that painting the plynths the same colour as the floor instead of white would give the installation an interesting effect of it coming out of the floor as you can just see start to happen from this photo. if it still looks good when we finish painting the floor and plynths, then we shall carry through with this idea.

Friday, 22 May 2009

Installation

Friday we did the finishing touches too the walls and then we began installing our work. Me and Jake all ready had a good idea of how we wanted our work too look and be installed and when we ran it past Anna and Charles, we was given the go ahead except that the shelf and the placement of my crate should be considered more carefully and perhaps we should consider having them all in the centre of our space as a floor installation with Jake's books and box n plynths. This was so that we could have the full use of the space being used and it may give it a better viewing quality too the works and bind our collaborative projects together more in a sort of narrativ/display. These are the photos takenfrom the day and the installation of the work.











Wednesday, 20 May 2009

Letters for private View

Tuesday Afternoon spent in the canteen at college preparing the envelopes and letters for the invites to go in to be sent out to our mailing lists this week. Me. Janice, Toni and Sam folded the letters and enveloped them.

Tuesday, 19 May 2009

Preparation of Spaces.

Monday to some of wednesday was spent preparing the studios to be a gallery space. We all helped out and pitched in after clearing our spaces of work. There was lots too do, cleaning, filling and sanding the walls, painting the walls too a crisp white if tat was what you wanted, and also putting up the false walls that covered all our storage areas.







Monday, 18 May 2009

Installation plans

On monday afteroon, me and Jake had a meeting to discuss where possible places for our work could be. We wanted to have our joint pieces of work together, and have our other pieces of work opposite the other so that as soon you walked in you were able to see the links betwen the works and the ideas.

There is the floor plan of the whole show, and we took measurements of all the walls and floor space in our space and the correct sizes of the work we wanted to install so that we could accuratley set up instalation plans.





Sunday, 17 May 2009

Background Ideas

I liked the idea of having the writing behind the creature, so just incase i did decide to use this as a background i have written, with the input of Jake, what should go into the narrative for our joint creature the Bird-bat.

The Zyphit is an evolutionary reject, something only recently discovered in Northern Europe’s woody, dark forests. The Zyphit has evolved with elements of both a bat and a bird, taking the wing of the bird and the bat, giving it the unfair disadvantage of erratic flight and a confusion of baser instincts that evolve around fighting over food and hunting in its flock. The Zyphit survival rate is not very high, they maintain a lot of injuries from their poor flight ability and become almost scavengers in their flock as they are very clumsy during hunting due to their unbalanced wings. However, when they do catch prey, they use their five prehensile legs that enable it to grab and catch prey, crushing their meal in a vice-like grip. There is also a lot of infighting over breeding and food, with battles ensuing between the rivals. This basic rival fighting often leads to a nasty battle to the death, where the dead rival is then eaten by the champion before the rest of the flock descend on their fallen member. The Zyphit are being caught because of the dangers to the public as they are unpredictable in nature and it is instinctual for them to attack any stranger to protect their territory and young. If you do happen to find one you are advised to get to dense bush to make flight harder for them, distract them with a thrown object or light source. Try not to threaten the Zyphit as a distress call from one will have the entire flock upon you.




Homoavis - Bird man



Aleuranthropusmartichoras - Homofelis


As well as this, i did two possible backgrounds for the Bird-bat and the Bird-man. I am not too sure on how i would create these backgrounds onto the wood as i do not want the background that goes on to over-power the subject. I think i will refrain from doing a background for now and wait and see how the works look when i have varnished them.

Friday, 15 May 2009

Background Ideas

Decided that i would do some background ideas for my pieces of work this weekend, a couple of watercolour backgrounds just to get an idea of what it could be but i wanted to explore some more the idea of having writing (a story of the creature), behind the subject onto the wood. This is the first story that i came up with for my tiger-women painting and created some Latin Names with Jake for our creations.

This is the Homofelis, a hybrid that is a cross between a tiger and human, perhaps an unfortunate choice of evolution due to habitat change or perhaps a transformation that aides each side of this creatures faces. Though this creature is classed as dangerous when goaded, it is better to try to keep them in their human states for the safety of everyone in proximity to the creature. Highly unpredictable and should be treated with caution. Is very hard to track and discover as they have a morphing ability to change into their human counter part whenever they choose, though this type of shifter needs to make weekly shifts to their animal half to keep the behaviour and temperament of their beast under control and the transition between halves smoother. To identify one of these shifters, there are a few qualities that can make them identifiable in their human form; hunter-like amber eyes that will appear to stalk your every move, there will be light patches of fur over parts of the body… if you can get close enough to find it. It is not completely sure how these creatures came about or whether they have been living among us for centuries, contributing to the myth and legend of a shifting creature, or perhaps whether this is a new, inconceivable change to genetic makeup that could very possibly be happening to other people and animals over the world? What would these changes mean to our evolution, how will it effect the persons social standing and acceptance when they are a part of a small, changed group of hybrids against a larger population of norms?

Wednesday, 13 May 2009

Completion!

Today i completed my painting of the tiger-women. There is still some work to do to it, like considering the background, if there is to be one, and to varnish around the painting to darken the wood. I am very pleased with the overall outcome of this painting though, and definatley want to put it in my show if there is enough space.

Tuesday, 12 May 2009

Business Card Finalised

Tuesday Afternoon i spent finalising the image of what my business card would be. After working with my previous images some more, I could not make them the correct size for printing as they went too pixalated. I took some more photos on a better quality camera and found one that I really liked because it kept the texture of the paint strokes to the image. I made adjustments to the image in photoshop, hightening areas of colour and adding text to the front and creating a back for contact information to go onto.

Work Experience

Tuesday morning I had some work experience with a class at Canterbury College, the BTECH Introductories. I found this an enlightening and a little difficult an experience as the students were very independant and just went to work without the need of much help other than a few tips of guidence and dirrection. Also, I found the class less approachable than the Simon Langtons classes I sat in. I think this is because of the mixed class and I did not feel as comfortable as i did with the all girls in approaching the students. My full log of the day will be included in my file.

Monday, 11 May 2009

Thursday, 7 May 2009

Saturday, 2 May 2009

Work Experience

on Friday 1st, I went to do some work experience at Simon Langtons Girls Grammar School. I spent the whole day here observing and getting involved with the teaching and tutorials with some of the 6th Formers. I started out the day with year 13 art class, going round the group and talking through their work. I also sat in on the year 12 art class and gave tutorials to them, helping them to identify areas that they need to imporve on for their final projects. I did the same with the year 11 and 10 art classes and suggested ideas for their final pieces of work and assisted the teacher of the year 8 art class in making venition masks. I really enjoyed my day at this school and i think I would enjoy working in teaching alot from this experience, though I will need to compare this experience to observing in a mixed school class. My full log of the day will be included in my file and the information i obtained about the school and the criteria that is used in the marking of work.

Thursday, 30 April 2009

Tuesday morning I worked some more on my Tiger/women painting. I managed to paint quite alot quicker than I have in the last week and I managed to paint down from the shoulders, both front legs and then start painting part of the womens body and tried to make a good transition between the two halfs of the body. I struggled over finding the right colour for the body, first i went too yellow then to pink. However, I decided that I would make a base colour that was a pale pinky yellow and then went over it in a lighter version of the tigers fur.
This is how the body started to look after I did this and it also gave a more even transition between the two bodies joining.

Business card imagery

Tuesday afternoon I started to create ideas of what my business card could be. They are photographs taken from areas of my work though I may find a better image once I have comleted my last peace of work. I plan to send the final image off to an over night printers and have them done specially made and double-sided, image on the front, info on the back. Another idea that I plan to make a maquette of is to have a card of fur so that there is a direct link to the imagery and creatures I have created.







Wednesday, 29 April 2009

I did not paint very quickly on Monday. I had wanted to get alot of painting done this week but did not manage to work efficiently to target today. The painting i did do though i am very pleased with, and I am really liking the bright colours i am workig with. I plan to do alot more painting tomorrow, hopefully to reach the join between the two bodies or beyond that though trying to get a smooth transitio between them and finding a good skin colour to work with is going to be a challenge for tomorrow.

Tuesday, 28 April 2009

Monday, 27 April 2009