☆Holly G☆

1. What skills or strengths do you think you demonstrated in these electives? What did you learn that confirmed your choices? Where did you struggle, and how did you improve?

I definitely found that I improved on my ability to experiment. I was far less anxious at the idea of failing during these electives. Although I never strive to fail, learning how to do so and move on after really helps on the long run. It helps me improve.

2. Creative Use of Materials, Media, Processes: Which materials or processes did you explore? What creative risks did you take? How did your material choices support your ideas?

For sculpture I worked with recycled plastic bottles and actual water. I did this to get a grasp on its movement and show it off. Although it was a huge pain to work with water as it is so messy.

I used the wood prints to showcase the pattern.

And in ceramics I used clay to explore both movement and pattern.

3. Research & Contextual Understanding: What research did you carry out? Which artists, designers, or movements influenced your work? How did your research appear in your final outcomes or Tumblr?

For my primary research I took a basic walk along the city, focusing on the river and canal. As well as taking a trip to the beach. This allowed me to take inspiration later on. I really connected with the water and it made the research far less tedious.

Hokusai was one of my biggest secondary influences through my work, especially in both print and ceramics. Some other artists that inspired me were: Pere Gifre and Dash 7 Design ( who built "The Waterfall Swing")

4. Creative & Conceptual Development: What ideas were you trying to communicate? How did your concepts change as the project developed? What parts of the project show your conceptual thinking best?

I wanted to communicate the calming effect of the movement of water. That although it is random and often chaotic, it has a level of peace and beauty.

I originally planned on focusing more on the music side of this but it did not appeal to me over time.

I think my print experiments with the roller and my sculpture show my concept best.

5. Commitment, Motivation, Self‑Reliance: How consistently did you work throughout the electives? How did you manage your time or overcome challenges? What evidence shows independent thinking or initiative?

I really enjoyed all my electives but I was most present during sculpture. I found that over time my motivation dipped and I found it hard to work in studio with people. I had a tough few weeks and struggled a lot with motivation. However I did not want to fall behind so chose to come in during the noon, when most had left in order to catch up.

I believe that most if not all my project pieces show me taking initiative as I was not shown how to do most of it. I worked away to develop the idea and my skills on my own and I am happy with how they turned out.

6. How did you bridge your three elective areas? We had 5 intended learning outcomes for you, but did you discover any unintended learning outcomes?

I found it a little hard to come up with ideas to link my electives. I did sculpture, print, and ceramics.

For week two, I decided to use my woodblock prints on the clay to see what would happen.

I was scared that the clay would stick to the wood and decided to use corn flour to help prevent that. I lightly dusted the wood with it and then pressed it into the clay.

I really loved the way the ink transferred as well as the imprint.

I then repeated this with the other block and shaped it into a kind of jug shape so I could pour water from it. Very tragically, I dropped this before it went into the kiln, and so it is a little squished.

I didn't get the chance to glaze my pieces from week one as I was sick, but I still really love how they turned out.

Katsushika Hokusai was a Japanese painter and printmaker.

Born on the 31st of October, 1760 and later passing away on the 10th of May,1849.

I chose to focus on his printmaking, specifically his woodblock printing.

The name of his woodblock print series was 'Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji'. This series includes one of the most famous prints I could think of, 'The Great Wave off Kanagawa'. A print that was created in late 1831, in Japan. It is nearly impossible to go about your life without seeing this iconic print as it is everywhere.

On the Thursday of week one, I finally got to work with clay. I decided to start off by seeing how well I could replicate the design I created out of paper earlier that week. Gemma showed me different techniques to create textures and smooth the clay in order to get my desired look.

I used cloth to help me smooth out the clay without leaving fingerprints, as well as getting clean edges. I created loads of strips of clay and then used slip to fit them into their places in the square.

I used a different twirling technique where I spun the strips of clay in my hands for the base square. Gemma also helped me to use the clay on a large rock that had been eroded in water over time. I found the exploration into the effects of water-based movement very fascinating, such as attrition, abrasion, deposition, and erosion.

This free moving beauty is part of my second reason for choosing the movement of water. For me, water has always been safe, whether its the waves of the ocean or just the quiet flow of a river. It is a safe and calming environment and plays a huge part in my mental health.

I began the week by using a cut-out square over my previous sketches in both sculpture and print in order to recognise shapes and patterns.

From this, I then used premade wood shapes to cut out a pattern of paper. This allowed me to create a frame for the shapes to then be created out of paper. I needed the paper to portray movement and have the idea and pattern of water.

More examples of the reaction between the ink and water in order to create patterns and movement:

As I continued to work away creating prints, I noticed that as I roled the ink onto the wood block, the roller would pick up a slight imprint of the design. This gave me the idea of experimenting with how this movement would look on paper.

I really loved how these turned out and kept working away with this technique! The ink took on a more fluid movement with this technique than with the stationary blocks.

I also decided to use the paper to represent the movement of water as i cleaned up my station at the end of the day. This was possible thanks to the use of water-based inks.

After completing my first wood block, I took the time to carve one more in a slightly different and less realistic style. I wanted to focus on the pattern.

I used water-based inks, specifically blue ink, to print. It took me a few times to figure out the best way to get the ink to print onto the paper. The ink was not transfering properly, leaving the prints splotchy. However, I found that I quite liked how it looked for a few of them. To me, it gave the print that little bit more movement that I felt the prints were lacking.

I did get the prints to transfter smoothly after a few tries, but I still prefered the broken up prints and their weird allusion of movement.

'The Waterfall Swing' is an interactive art piece designed by Mike O’Toole, Andrew Ratcliff, Ian Charnas and Andrew Witte and then built by Dash 7 Design. 

I decided to look at this sculpture due to its use of real moving water and how it interacts with people. It played a key role in my inspiration for the sculpture I ended up creating at the end of the two weeks.

Pere Gifre is an artist who works to create sculptures. He is known for his ginormous sculptures, often representing water and movement.

Such as 'The multi-story Metallic Splash'.

I found him at the start of my two weeks in the sculpture elective. I found his depiction of movement through stillness really interesting, although I decided to focus more on the actual movement of water rather than the idea of freezing it in place.

'Under the Crest'

The second elective i took part in was print! This was an interesting one for me as I spent a long time worrying and struggling to figure out how to go about this. I decided to focus on block printing for my time in print!

I sketched plenty of basic ideas before deciding on one that I felt would suit my exploration of the movement of water the best.

Once I had the idea sketched, I then used transparent tracing paper to transfer the design onto my block of wood.

I then spend a few days carving out the design into the wood. I really enjoyed this process as it took plenty of trial and error in order to learn how to best carve the design.

It was quite a struggle for me to figure out what parts were meant to be carved into or not, but after a while I got the hang of it!!