Don't Bury Your Head

Week 26 - 

After being ill during week 25 I was playing catch up during week 26 which was a very stressful time but productive. On Monday we had our last guest lecture from Robert Nicol, it was great to see all his creative mark making in his drawings and to see him exploring other media to produce his work. It was also nice to hear stories about his grandfather being in the Grand Masons. 

That afternoon we had a talk with Glynn about what we need to get and do for the final degree show. He made some good points about including expenses within the price of the artwork and where we could get various art supplies such as magnets and framing services.

   I have been looking into getting my business cards made from a company called Moo, which have a reasonable price for the production of them and I have began to design my final year show space in more detail to. 

I have been running around trying to get things organised by booking screen printing, embroidery and by going around the shops trying to find a higher quality t-shirt for a reasonable price. I have settled for using a topman off white t-shirt that has a good thickness and a label which I will remove therefore making it completely blank and allow me to attach my own labels. 

Unfortunately the prints on the t-shirts didn't turn out as well as I wanted so I will be doing them again next week. But I did get my labels made using heat transfer with embroidery booked in for next week. 

On Thursday I got a short but good talk with George about my project and where it was at that stage and I just some tips from her about changing the inks to help improve the final result. 

Week 27 - 

This week it has been full of stress! The count down is on and things needed to start falling into place fast, so on Tuesday I was in getting my ‘Bloom’ logo made using the CAD embroider which is always time consuming using the software as it crashes constantly. But after 2 hours I got the logos finished and began sticking them onto the labels to give a professional look to the t-shirts. I have also received my business cards which have the same brand name as the labels. On Tuesday afternoon I was prepping for screen printing and trying out a new method for sticking the t-shirts down so they were flat as possible as I kept having problems when lifting the screen from them as it moved the t-shirt about too much so I could re-do the design properly.

Week 22 We had the pleasure of Studio Operative/ Limner Journal come in this morning which was a nice talk to come back to. During the week I spent a lot of my time tidying up my badges / patches that I created prior to the easter break. I am happy with the outcome of them and have decided to out source the production of them as the time to create a single one is too long. I have been re-working some imagery so they are of a higher standard so it becomes easier to alter them on Photoshop and Illustrator. I have also began to create mock ups of the t-shirts to see how they would look and working out what works.  After my joint crit with George on Thursday, I came out with a lot to think about and to do which I am glad of. So the out sourcing of the badges is going to happen and will be sorted by Saturday. I was told to simplify the designs as they were too busy looking, which was very true as I was trying to fit all the images onto  a single tee.  So I have gone back and stripped the designs down and staying true to what I would want to see / wear on a t-shirt, so it has led me to the simplistic design due to the aesthetics. But it has purified what I want to get across. 

Week 23

I have been just carrying on from last week working on designs and getting them to a stage that they are near completion, so I have been prepping them so I can screen print them next week to get a feeling of how they will look. So i have went out and bought a number of plain cheap white t-shirts in preparation.  I had a typography group meeting with Peter on Friday, as I wanted to get a grasp on it so I could create embroided labels for my t-shirts which will give information about the characters, so a font that will read well and that suits the process with minimal distortion.

On Friday we started our studio talks with Catrin again, this time it was on Originality. She talked about how objects gain substance through touch which played on how brands use celebrities to sell their items which was very interesting to hear her views on such a matter and how copies of products or artwork could take over the original. Was very thought provoking on such matters as new t-shirt designs or placing of imagery on them sparks a wave people copying this similar theme to make sales. 

Week 24

Mireille Fauchon made a return on Monday to give us a talk about her practice and an insight to how she worked through her uni years and working within the business and her projects. 

Week 19 - Monday was a busy day of drawing and lectures yet again. The most beneficial talk of the day was with Glynn about Portfolio prep. It was good to hear all that we needed to do and what could make our portfolios stand out among st others such as having a range of products within it to allow the company to see your range of skills and what your creative practice is.  Also by using coloured paper instead of just plain white as it captures the eye more.  Londongraphics.com, portfolioplus.com, Printed Matter were just a few websites that Glynn gave us to help prep our portfolios.  On Friday afternoon we had a talk with Catrin on narrative theory which brought up some great questions on ‘who speaks?’, ‘who are they speaking to?’, ‘when are they speaking?’ which really got me thinking about what is possible for any future work and how that could play a great role within the imagery. 

This week has been all about finishing up the Hyphen collaboration project with UEA, which has been an interesting experience and vital prep for when I leave uni to work with someone who knows little about my practice. On Monday afternoon held a different format as we got a guest lecture called Adam Avery who was very informative as he left uni only a few years ago so knew how we were feeling. He said a number of things that stood out to me ‘make the most of the early stages’ and ‘challenge yourself’. These points really got me thinking that I need to keep pushing my work and not settle for second best while also knowing when enough is enough and when to walk away and just say no. 

I have been quiet on this as I have been very distracted by external matters, but it has been a steady production of work which I am pleased about. I had a crit group with Peter which reassured me on my new line of research of looking into my family history and developing designs from the imagery and information that I gather from online and back home. I wasn't sure if it was a strong enough subject matter but it recieved an all round positive review which was great to hear! I have been spending this time to just draw certain elements of an image over and over again to see it in a more abstract form. 

Today we had the pleasure of Nous Vous (Jay Cover, William Edmonds and Nicolas Burrows) come and give us a lecture on their practice, It was great to hear that the guys had to work hard to get where they are today and how they had to work part time jobs as well to cope. It was a very 'real' lecture in that it allowed us to get a raw opinion on what to expect and it wasn't sugar coated. 

It was good to hear a few tips on how to work such as knowing who you want to work with can help drive you or by not using visual reference at first but then refer to it after the image is done to make adjustments. 

That afternoon we had a talk with Glynn about our professional development and CV's. It looked at the key aspects that we need to focus on when doing a CV such as Visual impact, be specific, echos your abilities and knowledge of employers. It was a very helpful talk and allowed me to get my head around some things and what to prepare for the future. 

Monday was a lecture with Becca Davies gave an insightful lecture on her practice and the opportunites that she was able to experience. It had elements of comedy with the BBC documentary children talking and Seven Up. Her way of interacting with people through her bingo alter ego was great to include as she was proud of the character. 

Her time in Ghana was interesting to hear her struggles and what she had to over come to do what she was there for.. But also to hear about  the culture she was exposed to and how when a person passed away their coffin was carved into the shape of their profession such as a Tuna (for a fisherman), Onion (for a farmer) or a chicken (for a mother). 

Later that afternoon we had a talk with Glynn on companies that can help us when we leave university or what we need to be aware of. such as Association of Illustrators, Creators Rights Alliance and Copyright Claims. But also who to work for by looking up the Editorial Directory and to create a market for ourselves.  

Monday morning was followed by another guest lecture Tom Hicks. He was an artist with a creative outlook on what he did and had a lot of practical skills that he utilised to create some truly unusual but unique videos. One of his first videos played a song called 'Little Red Monkey' which was extremely creepy in the way it was sung and the imagery he created for it. But the creativity he had was inspiring in the way he used simple and cheap alternatives to create these characters and effects. Such as turning a room into another world with the use of black sheets and lighting. His work was about images that connect people to certain things and made me think of possible ideas for my major project and how I want to connect my work to the public. 

Monday -

We had a lecture from Kate Morrell, her work focused on accessing and interpreting archives and collections. It was interesting to hear her perspective on it all and how she attended interactive learning based activities to get to know the items within the archive better and how they were made. Such as learning how to make pottery or flint knapping ( the shaping of flint), which then led onto her creating her own tools out of shells and documenting them into a book called The Treasure Act: Volume 1 . Or hearing about the TV show Animal, vegetable, mineral? which was aired on BBC in 1954 which looked at various artifacts. 

Tuesday - Friday

It has been a long week that just didn't seem to be productive at all early on as I try to get the essay complete my practical work is suffering. As I haven't had the chance to even look at it as I want to prioritize my time to the essay so I can get it done and out of the way. So my days have been spent doing it and constantly researching new leads. I started to lose focus and became lost so I got a tutorial with Glynn on Thursday which was very helpful as it settled my head and I was told to just focus on what I have. Instead of trying to reach out for useless information just to fill it out. 

''Where to begin? ''

Having this week off to focus on the Reader and the draft has been great. But one of the most stressful weeks of my life, the reader project took up a lot of my time during the first part of the week, working from 9:30 am - 7:30 pm in the studio those days trying to figure out little aspects of the reader that needed refining so that it was its best it could be but also to be ready to be printed with out any hiccups at the printers end. But it was sent of on Tuesday evening so we are currently in the waiting process to hear back from the printers (FootPrinters) on when it will be delivered to us. I wish the reader project was introduced to us earlier on in the year so that we had more time to work on it and not have so much other things to juggle as well.

 The rest of the time has been spent on my research draft which was not a lot of words to do but a struggle non the less, as I have felt drained by the course, restful sleep is something that is still needed, so hand in will be a relief. But I guess its part of the ordeal and must be done.