Experimental print

I've been playing round with print processes lately to see if I can get textures that give a sense of bacteria-ness (for the culture project).

At home I've been playing with monoprints and using water based block printing inks, and drops of water, and stencils and other stuff.


And at college I have been using the presses to do embossing and collagraphy to see how I might be able to get different textures. I especially love the effects I can get using bits of wood veneer and rough sandpaper. I think I prefer the embossed stuff to the inked stuff ... hmmm....


Still no clear idea about where I'm going with this - but at least I'm moving and enjoying the process ...

More paper mechanics ...

Week two!

Paper Mechanics

We are exploring two processes in our 'Process and Practise' module - one is print, and the other is paper mechanics. I had been waiting for this set of workshops since I started this course! And now we have FOUR one day sessions with the extraordinary Mr Duncan Birmingham (he's SUCH a nice guy...).


This isn't a very flattering picture of my coursemates I'm afraid, but I just wanted to give you a sense of the explosion of colored paper in the studio earlier this week.

We're making a 'pop-up sketchbook', ie Duncan is going through the basic techniques with us and we're making them as we go along and writing notes on our pop-ups and embellishing them. We have him for 4 sessions (over 4 weeks). This week was fundamentals; next week building on those and more complex mechanisms; the following week we're doing things like pull tabs and such; and in the last week he's going to work with us individually on our projects (we have to make two double page spreads, again on the theme of culture)...

Here's my set of pages from this week - I'm SO happy to be doing this :) ....

Cultural jazz (!?)

I thought I'd better update you on the "Culture" project for the Process and Practice module. Its still very much in development, but its slowly moving along.

You might remember from this where I was drawing bacteria - well the tutors wanted me to get out of my comfort zone and asked me to put the bacteria out-of-context... I've found this very VERY hard but have slowly (after much random sketching) come to the idea of a micro-organism jazz band (because I love jazz music). Above are some very crude initial ideas and sketches ... hopefully I can develop this further into a full blown project ...

(yes, that's E.coli Fitzgerald, Louis Amoebastrong and Helicobacter Pianolory .... I am so geeky)

Don't trust your clock!

Phew! We've just been handed ANOTHER brief for the 'word and image' module (the one with the 'Curious Incident' and abstract book briefs). The new brief is basically to produce two images for this competition. Its all about generating ideas from words. And to start us off we had a one-day workshop today where we were handed an aphorism each. We had to explore it visually and generate as many quick ideas for it as we could; and then take a couple to completion.

My aphorism was "You must have a rough idea of the time, to believe a clock"

I started with clocks with obviously the wrong times on for the time of day (for example a digital clock that says 4:37 am, but its sunny outside the window, etc)... I worked through a few ideas and one thing led to another which made me come to the central idea of a "Is your clock telling the truth?". These are my final two images:



The abstract book, for which I uploaded the patterns earlier this week, is also almost done - I still need to tweak a couple of pages and bind the whole thing nicely; so you'll just have to wait till I'm done. The Curious Incident and Culture projects on the other hand are slightly stuck - but I do have till January (eeep!)

Help Cafe Kino by buying ART!!!

Cafe Kino is a gorgeous little independant co-op cafe in Stoke's Croft, Bristol - conveniently placed within stumbling distance of the ultra fabulous Here Gallery (which also has a show opening tonight) and the uber querky Cube Cinema. Some local artists (including me and Milla and Claire and other exciting peoples) have work on show (and sale) there from today till 13th December. A percentage of the sales go towards supporting the cafe - "cafe kino is a not-for-profit co-operative owned and operated by its' workers and run in part by volunteers. We strive to create a viable business which is open, fair and mutually supportive of all those with whom we are associated" ...how could you not want to support that??!!??

So, if you want to get your hands on any of my stitch'n'bitch inspired hoops - I've got all 6 on sale there ... grab yourself an early Christmas goodie whilst helping keep Kino afloat!

Patterns

Here are some pattern/textures I've been making to use in the abstract book project...

The Island

Here's something I did for a competition (the first competition I've done being a illustration student). I knew when I entered that I was unlikely to get even within earshot of a prize, but it forced me to finish a narrative started as some sketchbook ideas and I learned a lot in just tidying the whole thing up and getting it into a submittable form. Its based on the story of Easter Island as told by Sir Richard Attenborough in a BBC TV documentary some years ago. See it here.