Sketch Book

Saturday evening i took out my sketchbook and started to sketch a plan for a new piece of work. I did plan to do quite a few sketches of possible mutated bodies that would be my next piece of work, but i did not focus myself enough and only managed one sketch of a possible piece. My next step is to gather more imagery that will help me create more work and complie more sketches in my sketch book.

Action plan!

To help me to plan for the next 6 weeks i am making an action plan of work to do so that i can be as productive as possible in both my studio and sketchbook at home. My general plan of work is as follows:

To complete the Bird-man drawing,
A dry-point print of a Deer/Women,
Paintings of a man half turned into a tiger
And i have thought of doing some portarits of half mutated people using images of mutated animals e.g: the two-mouthed fish to go on the torso of a person,
Book: make a leather-bound journal of mutated bodies, a bit like a documented book of mutated bodies. It wiil be made up with lots of little monoprints like i did in the developing artists identity project.

Action plan! (Collaborative)

To link in with my current action plan of work, i am building on what i am already doing by making more paintings of geneticaly mutated creatures and possibly oanother book(s) with jake:

There will be at least 2 paintings of these creatures using the skeletons that jake has created and painting what the creatures would look like on the outside,
Collaboration on the book aswell or do a joint book aswell as the one i have planned on doing. This one could be of prints again that include the skeletons and outward appearence of the creatures, perhaps with a description to go along side.

First of all i need to complete the Birdman drawing and the Deer/Women print i can make during the halfterm and then print when we cum back so that during the last week before the half term can focus on starting collaboration painting piece and the painting of the Tiger/Man, but will need to do plan the composition of the paintings. After half term, will need to focus on doing the rest of the paintings and getting a book together and perhaps a joint book with jake.

Recieved two emails from two schools; Simon Langton School for Girls and ..... Simon Langton has only offered me a day of exxperiance as they are already training a new art teacher, and .... has offered me a week of Experience week begining 9th March. I need to email back Simon Lagton a variety of dates to be more flexiable for them and confirm the whole week with ...

Collaborative work

Today started to work on the face of the creature, but i have used the skeleton too much and not added enough facial features and changes around the eye area, making the creature look ridiculous happy and cartoon like. I need to from now till next Monday, work on the sketch of the creature, research eyes i could use and the shape of a bats wing as one of the limbs of the creature is a bats wing. Also, work on the creature that is going to be my dray-point print and possible other mutations in my sketchbook.

Image Board and Collaborative work.

The image board was finished today, well perhaps not finished because i am still not sure what i am going to be doing with it. I have used all my collected imagery from the internet now and from the Faerie book, so now i need to really consider what this piece is going to be, whether it will just be a mood board for me, or whether i a going to make a piece of work over the top of it. Doing a piece of work over the top of the board could create a very strong impression to the viewer, depending on what the work would be over the top of it. I did envision doing a picture in charcoal or paint, of a mutated body, but now i have articles on nuclear plants and images of genetic mutations already, doing an image of a mutated body over the top of this, may be insulting to some people who may view it. I need to take this into consideration and consider that the image board may just be an image board and not a piece of work to go on show?


After the "completion" of the image board, i decided to talk to Jake about doing some collaborative work, as his project is about evolution and creation of new creatures, which is very similar to my genetic mutations interest. We decided that, as Jake is looking at the bone structures of these new creatures, I could work on what these creatures would look like on the outside, their features, skin etc. This is the skeleton of the creature that we have decided to work on together and we talked about what the end image could be, a large sketch and a painting??


This is the start of the planning for the body. I traced the skeleton that is in Jake's space so that I had the shape of the body to work with. I think i am going to do a small sketch of what the body will look like that will inform a large-scale painting.

Image Board

Yesterday i spent the day mapping out imagery for my board. I am still not sure what the end result is going to be of tis board yet, i want it to be very creative but i am not sure whether i want it to be just a colage of imagery relating to my work, therefore it wud be a mood-board, or whether i want to draw/paint my own image over the top of it. I ran out of imagey i had collected from the internet, so i photocopied images of creatures from my Faerie book to link in my interest of this area, but also because the pictures i chose were of bodies that had changed and were half of one thing and half of another.




This is how my board looked after i had used all my imagery collected from the internet.














And this is my board after i started putting the imagery from the Faerie book onto it. I wanted to have completed the imagery bord wih these images of Faerie by the end of the day so that come tomorrow i could perhaps start collaborative work with jake, or start my dry-point print and plan a painting piece. I plan to have this completed by tomorow and to have started one of my other aims just mentioned.

Email from Annie today confirming that she had recieved my emailed CV and Letter, asking to shadow her and perhaps participate in some of her workshops. She is on holiday now and will contact me when she gets back to her residency.

Finaly some studio work!

Today i finally got round to starting my picture board and i am at the moment quite pleased with it. I was uncertain whether i should work out a composition for the images and articles collected so far so i just started off collaging the images on. i want to get some more images from my folklore book to tie-in that interest to the work. will need to getr the book photocopied monday.

Also on monday, finish the Birdman drawing and itl be a completed piece of work. Between now and Monday, i need to draw in my sketchbook some compositional drawings for next pieces of work: 1 or more dry-point prints, and the series of drawings and paintings. Also, need to start talking to jake and planning what work we may do together as a joint project as our projects are so similar.


Embryo of a Mouse From the Guardian Newspaper.

I used the Guardian newspaper for the articles on the board and i was quite suprised when i found a two-page spread of 'amazing science pictures'. They were of the mouse embryo, a close up of a fly, viens, vitamin/minerals and cancer cells. I scanned in the image of the Mouse embryo cos it looks like something is happening to the embryo, and i thought i maybe able to incorporate it into some future works.

Tuesday

Completed my work placement cv's and covering letters and had them approved by anna. Phoned up my 6 schools to get the department head or arts names. Sadly, 2 of the schools were GTA teaching schools and didnt accept work experience placements, the remaining 4 were completed successfully. must also remember to email my letter and cv to Annie Halliday asap.

After completing my Letters for work experience, i went and got old newspapers (The Guardian) and looked through to find any relevant articles to my work that could go on the picture board. I did find some good articles on nuclear power plants and a two-page spread of images that could go on my board. My plan for tomorrow is to start collaging the images onto the board. Also decided i would like to finish my Birdman drawing, and that i may do a series of drawings of mutated bodies to go along side prints and paintings.

Monday Morning

Picture Board - while discussing with anna how to move forward, came up with the idea of getting a large piece of wood and creating a collages picture board with images, text, articles, that relate to my subject.

The board, measuring 100cm across by 120cm, needed to be primed with a solution that will help things stick to it, called ESP (easy surface prep). The solution was quite combustable and had to follow safety regulations, wear a mask/ glasses and gloves and keep the cleaning cloth as flat as possible, otherwise if it got scunched up, the chance of it combusting was very high.

I need to be more prepared for studio days and come in ready with all my material to do the work as i hadn't collected many images to do on my board. Need to make an action plan for my studio work.

Monday Afternoon

Did a researching session with anna for work experience placements. Decided i would apply for placements in schools, galleries, shadowing and try for some group organisations.

Found the contact details for 6 schools but not all the Heads names of art department so would have to call them tuesday during school hours. Also, researched shadowing Annie Halliday as her subject area would be good for me to gain experience from and she is currently in a residency and doing workshops, which would also be good experience.

Looked up a gallery in Folkestone that looked quite appealing and looked into pfizer work placement, which would link in too the science aspect of my work more and a community arts group called Murals.