Photomedia Project 3

I chose to animate a poem called The Nonny by James Reeves:

The Nonny bird I love particularly,
All day she chirps her joysome odes;
She rises perpendicularly,
and if she goes too high, explodes.

I made a bird model out of felt and wire, I think it looks effective and is easy to manipulate. I created a background from card and felt and painted it. I think it looks very effective when photographed, but it may have been better to make it a bit bigger so I had more space to move the bird. Some of the animation is a bit jumpy, the light flickers and there is a loop which I feel like I repeated too many times at the end because the flying shots were not long enough and I needed the explosion to sync with the run up in the music, but overall I think the animation produces a good effect and I am pleased with how the project turned out.

Photomedia Project 2

I started looking at swans because they're often connected with gracefulness, then expanded this to looking at all birds, because i think they would be fun to animate and I would be able to show grace in my animation through the bird's movement. The target length for the animation is 30 seconds so I need a short story to work with. I have looked at a variety of poems and short stories to base my animation on and created some storyboards.

Photomedia Project

So far I have enjoyed the Photomedia project. I am creating a response based on the word Grace, so I am investigating a variety of definitions. I am thinking of doing an animation, because I would like to make models an sets. So far I am thinking of basing it on gracefulness, God's grace, saying grace or grace as a form of address for a Duke or Earl. I have looked through magazines, books and the internet for ideas, and have found some artists who use photography to capture movement.

Penzance

The Penzance trip was one of the highlights of the course so far. I enjoyed going out and drawing and produced some work that I was pleased with. I felt like the work I produced in the first few days wasn't very good but it improved as I had more practice and time to draw. I liked drawing in Newlyn Harbour and St Ives, and looking around the Barbara Hepworth Museum. I didn't enjoy painting the wooden panels as much but I was pleased with some of the results, and really enjoyed painting a part of the mural in the games room.

Illustration project

I enjoyed the illustration project more than the graphics one and I was more pleased with the result. I liked making the brains and experimenting with backgrounds, and was pleased with the photos and the way they turned out when I edited them. It was related to the article in that it was designed to depict fMRI scans and were tied in with music through the book pages. I think the colour worked well and the image fit into the article and looked very effective. I didn't look at as many artists for this project, and I think this could have been a way to improve it, as I could have had more inspiration to generate more ideas.

Graphics project

I feel the graphics project went reasonably well, I enjoyed working digitally because I haven't done it much before and it was fun to experiment with new techniques. I thought my design was quite effective and  I liked working with the Maori patterns, but it might have been better if I had more time to play with different backgrounds, colour combinations and levels of contrast.

Textiles project 2

This week I have created my final piece. I really enjoyed making it and am fairly pleased with how it turned out. I was very pleased with the shape of the chair I made. I made a model around half the intended size. I had some problems with putting it together because the curved side was not set in position, because I didn't have the time or resources to steam bend it. This meant that it was still flexible, so it was hard to get the straight pieces of wood to fit with it because it easily bent out of position. However, I felt that the final product looked quite effective.

I think the cover I made was less effective. It could have worked well given more time, but I was quite rushed to put it together so it looks messy in places. It is also not the colour I was aiming for, and I think it might have been better to play around with the pattern more to find the most effective composition.

Textiles Project 1

For the Textiles Project I looked at a variety of styles of architecture including Roman and Gothic architecture, and several architects. I also looked at Fine Artists including Klee and Kandinsky. My initial ideas were originally inspired by the work of Klee and the architect Louis I. Khan, but realised that I wasn't effectively incorporating Klee's work into the structure or surface texture of my ideas. I decided to change to looking at Kandinsky's work in my designs because I feel that the two styles can be combined more effectively. I have decided to design a chair for my final piece because I think it will be fun to try new thing and an effective way of combining my chosen architect with my artist.

Land and Water Project

I am quite pleased with a lot of the work I have produced during this project. I have enjoyed going out and drawing around Bristol and Weston, and I feel like this has really improved my drawing. Some of the work I did on a larger scale felt like I was just copying out my drawings onto bigger paper, but I enjoyed using mixed media, working with ink and chalk and charcoal, and I was very pleased with a drawing I did using black thread. I found working with colour quite difficult and enjoyed it less, but I would like to work more in colour with different materials and experiment with the effects it can have on images.

Week 3: Colour

This week I attempted to explore colour theory in my drawings. I experimented with using complementary colours to create light and shadow, blue against orange for a painting of part of a crane, and purple against yellow for a building by Bristol docks. I think the theory worked, but I wasn't happy with the drawings. I think it might have been more successful if I had a colour picture to work from, so i could pick out and exaggerate colours in the picture. I also experimented with colour combinations in an oil pastel drawing. I don't think this worked very well because I didn't have a wide range of colours to choose from and combining them didn't work very well. It may have been better to do a drawing of a crane or bridge where I could have used straight lines and seen how the colours affected each other more clearly.

Week 1: Drawing

Monday: drawing in Uphill

Some quick sketches of boats in the boatyard. I found the proportions difficult and wasn't very pleased with my first two sketches, the second two were better but I would have liked more time

Tuesday: drawing in Weston seafront

Some of the sketches from weston i was more pleased with; particularly the walkway and the close-up of the old pier

I think i will try to theme my drawings around structures connected with land and water