My lovely assistant ...

... has been putting up boxes for me today.

Sunshine seen here hard at work this afternoon (while I did a spot of painting). So, my boxes are up in my space in college; my 'lab bench' has been painted; all I have to do now is all of the rest of the 'frufru' (as Sunshine calls it) to make it all come together and look fab.

The laboratory comes together

Summer term week 6 at art school

Right - the last boxes done. Complete with 'samples' - sea salt, baking powder and diluted turquoise calligraphy ink!




And a couple of shots of the top corners to give you an idea of what the 'ceiling' on the boxes looks like ...

It's getting closer (with dates)

Have done a third drawing for the large boxes set, and did a bit more colouring and tweaking of the other picture of bottles:


And this is what the boxes are shaping up like:




The two at the bottom look like a pair but the top one is a bit of an anomaly - I might display them separately. Also, the backgrounds are just too boring. I need to pep these boxes up or they won't hold their own against the other set.

In other news, lots of people have been asking about dates for assessments/show etc., so here goes:

Everything in and done by Thursday 31st May
Internal examinations week of 4th-8th June
External examiners in on Monday 11th June

Private view Tuesday 12th June 6-8pm (my stuff will be in room CE2-04, Central House)
Exhibition open Wednesday 13th June - Sunday 17th June 10:30am - 7:00pm

I'll be there invigilating at some point during the week (although we haven't sorted out our rota yet) but probably not Wednesday as I'm due to go to Bristol to see their end-of-year show.

One step closer ...

Finally! Eight little boxes done, and three big ones (and a host of other things) to go...

EDIT: Don't think the photos do them justice - they are all a bit warmer and richer in colour, but this will have to do for the time being. Hopefully once they are up in the exhibition space I can take more photos in natural light.

Takin' over the house

Summer term week 5 at art school

Yup, I seem to be slowly taking over the whole house. I've sectioned off a third of the kitchen table with my computer, scanner and all my art materials; last week you saw me spread out over the carpet with my collage; and this week I've also spread to the studio table! Poor Sunshine - fortunately he's managed to keep his desk sacred ...

College this week was all about preparing for the show. Wednesday we painted the walls white and scrubbed down the floors (yes, they made the students themselves do it!) and today was a quick meeting about assessments, the show, and other bits like that. I know where I'm going to be, and I've also spotted the table I want to use (to dress up like a lab bench!). Unfortunately the desks (there are about 10 of them - I just need one) are in the BA fine art studios so I have to go nobble one from there ...

In the meantime at home my shadow boxes are coming along. The set of 8 smaller ones (in the photo above) are practically done. I'm happy with them and all I need to do tomorrow is dismantle them and put them together again with proper adhesives (just some crap sticky-tape holding it all together at the moment!). I'll post pictures of the final products then.

I also have the 3 larger boxes to finish; I want to do a little book describing all the bits of scientific equipment and paraphanelia I've used; have to finish collating and putting together in my notebook all the references, resources, tests, etc that I've used/done for the project (we get assessed on all that stuff too); and obviously get things together for the show. My idea is to have all the boxes on the wall behind a 'lab bench' installation on which I'll put my little book, sketch/notebook, and a few other laboratory bits and bobs. So excited, just under two weeks left!

Current state of FMP

I've already tweeked some things since my last update - and I'm liable to do more (none of the collages are stuck down permanently yet), but I've had complaints that I don't update this blog often enough - so here's where I got to yesterday night (click on images for larger versions):

Backgrounds

With acetates floating on top.

I think today I'm going to concentrate on all the non-artistic things, like working out how best to float the acetates in the box, and how to stick the envelope cuttings to the back of the acetates.

Collage madness

Summer term week 4 at art school

This is what my floor looked like this week as I tried to get on with collages I'm planning for the backgrounds of the shadow boxes. From the top going clockwise is: the Ikea bag full of shadow boxes, and just in front of it is some test pieces; some graph papers, photos, other reference material and my sketchbook/notebook for the project; my selection of envelopes with interesting pattered insides which I'm using for collage; A stack of coloured paper; a selection of scientific journals from which I'm cutting out images for collage; and a selection of cutouts - some from the journals and some colour photocopies from my old biochemistry textbooks.

I've currently divided the boxes up into a few sets. The first one is the "measuring set" - ie they are all devices for measuring stuff. This lot are getting the envelope design treatment:

Without background collage

With early attempts at backgrounds

The second set is the "gadgets set" - ie slightly more complicated bits of gadgetry from the lab. I've also gotten slightly further with the collage work for this set:


I was in college today talking to one of the tutors about how my work is progressing and what else I plan to do and how I plan to do it. He seemed pleased with my progress - not much time left now though and I may have to scale back some of my other little ideas for the project.

Apart from the collage, and the drawings on the acetate, I'm hoping to also include some bits of labware in the shadow boxes. This evening I visited my old lab (to celebrate our paper finally coming out) and have managed to scrounge for a good selection of bits-and-bobs (thank yous to all the lovelies at Structural Biology for helping me source stuff!). I now hopefully have all I need to finish my boxes.

Fun with reagents...

Summer term Week 3 at Art School

Progress has been slow this week with mum being here and all. Had a meeting in college today about assessments and the final show - Crikey! Its all systems go now! I did a load more drawings and even coloured some in (the coloured ones are Indian ink on acetate with acrylic painted on the back - like animation cells).