Welcome to the project of FUN...du du du du du

I neeeeeeeeeeeed something to do next week while I'm back in Birmingham for work, so I'm giving myself a fun drawing project (well, two):

Project 1:
To do some cute little stickmen drawings. I love drawing stick men, I love incorporating text in my work...so I'm going to combine to two! I think I'm going to call it something like 'Stickmen Doing Stuff, With Words'. It'll literally be that. A drawing of some stickmen doing something, with a caption to match their action. What fun!

Project 2:
I've started to think about what I want to use as inspiration for my next project at uni. After a recent trip to the coast I found myself interested in the formations of barnacles. I like how these forms are built up from lots of one similar shape. The result being something almost quite grotesque to look at, yet simultaneously intriguing.

I'm going to draw from the photos I took on the beach, and maybe try to create my o

wn similar formations.

I'm reminded of these rings by Maud Traon when I think about the shapes I'd like to make.

www.maudtraon.net

EXCITING TIMES

What to do....

Well, I'm on my Easter break at the moment. The first week's pretty much been and gone and I've done very little with it. It's been nice to have a break though. I've caught up with friends and had a nice slob! But now my creative mind needs some form of stimulus. I've had a few ideas of things to do with my limited free time. I've already said that I'd do some public art with my cork people, so that's one thing. Also, whilst in Camden the other day I saw some mirrors with interesting vintage photo collages around their frames. I thought I might have a go at making something like this myself. I thought I'd buy a framed mirror and create my own collage on the frame using cut outs of anything I like, then sealing the design with glue/varnish. It should work. Well, I don't see how it wouldn't!

Public Art..

I've been thinking. Recently a classmate presented a seminar on Graffiti, and since then I've had a small desire to do some myself. I don't like the idea of running out, under cover of darkness wearing a hoodie and blasting the side of a piece of private property with some spray paint, but I do like the idea of leaving something highly inoffensive, harmless and easily removable in public, for all to see. So what would I do? Well, remember my little cork men of many moons ago? I think I shall be creating a little cork army and releasing them into the wild (either Birmingham or Leicester) and placing them in positions suited to their setting. I'm excited, more excited than I have been during my latest project! Finally, something enjoyable!

A very literal walk down Memory Lane

I've decided (for now) to look at houses for my latest project. As I wanted to inject a healthy dose of nostalgia into this project I decided to return to places I felt would help me to achieve this feeling.
My first port of call was Burns Street, the street that I spent the first 8 or so years of my life attempting to grow up on. I've driven past it a few times since we moved out, but I don't think I'd walked down the street since we left. Everything had shrunken, that's for sure. It used to be at least twice the size that it is now. Especially No.8, the house we used to live in. I had a little spy through the window (yes, I must have looked completely normal peeking through people's front windows with a camera around my neck), the back wall looked like it had jumped a few feet closer to the window too. What horrible disaster could possibly have occurred here? I took my photos and quickly left. Fortunately the street was virtually empty in terms of cars and people (probably another effect of the disaster), so my photos weren't too littered with unwanted obstacles. UNfortunately my mother (who was posing as my chauffeur for the day) managed to park right in the way. Cheers mother!
Here's our old family home, although, when we lived there the front door was brown, not blue, and the windowsills and side gate were a colour halfway between Lime and Aubergine:

The street looks more like part of the East Is East set that I remember.

Where to next? I decided to head over to the roads around my primary school next. I knew there were beautiful houses around there. As we pulled up next to the school I felt slightly nervous. It was lunch time. There were visible children. I had a camera around my next. "Erm, lets go somewhere else mum". So we zoomed off to the road that my old best friend lived on and I got happy snapping along there instead.
I think the session was a success. I've got enough to be getting on with now and it was lovely to go back to these places.

Celebration Project

My first proper project was entitled "Celebrations". We each had to pick a celebration and design and make something to be worn or used at the chosen celebration. There was also a few criteria to meet. We had to make something that included either a cube, sphere or cone, it had to be two out of the three at least. And it had to fit into a footprint of 8x8cm.

Initially I decided to look into tribal celebrations, things like Rain dances and hunting celebrations. This didn't inspire me though. I think there was too much colour. Bright yellows and reds really wouldn't suit my work. I know it's bland, but I don't like to use colour. The project that I've enjoyed the most in my whole artistic education was my Final Major Project, and for that I used NO colour. Sorry Africans, but it was never meant to be! So I got in my banana boat and sailed to blander pastures.

I had to think of something that was really 'me' so that I knew my interest would be maintained for the duration of the project. Naturally I startied thinking of food. Yeah yeah, I know. Funny isn't it. But it actually worked! I like cake and cake and cake....where do you get lots of cake? A tea party! So it was settled. Tea parties would be my theme.

But then I started to doubt this theme! A tea party itself isn't actually a celebration, it's a way of celebrating things. People don't shout out "Happy tea party!" do they? So I had to come up with a disguise for it. As tea parties are quintessentially British I had to think of a celebration to match. GOT IT! V-E Day. Victory in England day was perfect! A celebration of England and English pride, celebrated with tea parties and street parties! Perfecto!
So, what would my object be? My idea was to make some sort of contraption that made "the perfect cup of tea" but all of these ideas failed, mainly due to milk's inability to be solid. I'll scan in some of my designs once I get them back from Uni, then you might understand more. My idea shifted slightly from that to a way of adapting a cup of tea that's already been made for you. I'm not a tea drinker myself but I know how fussy people are about the way it's made. Too much milk, not enough milk, too watery, too sweet, didn't brew for long enough, too strong...blah blah blah. As it can often seem rude to ask for extras at a function of any kind I thought it'd make sense to make something that would allow a guest to control their own tea strength without making any kind of a fuss.

So I set about designing!
Before this course I'd never really done much by way of design sheets. I was used to a lazy attitude of "create at least three designs and pick the best one" that I'd learnt from a less than inspiring art teacher during my GCSEs. Now, however, we are encouraged to do as many designs as was physically possible. We are to ask ourselves questions about the design, and answer them with another design. For example I drew a tea strainer ring, with the strainer sitting on top of the finger, and asked the question "what if it was to be hidden so that no one else but the wearer knew it was there?" and designed a ring which concealed the strainer under the hand. I found it to be an extremely effective way of designing, and it certainly lead to more innovative final pieces amongst the group.
I continued to design like this until I reached a piece that I was 100% happy with. And here it is:

This part of the piece is designed to hold one sugar cube. It sits underneath the hand with the rest of the piece. There's a cup attached to the side, the wearer would take the piece off of their hand to drink from in a tea-drinking emergency! The rest of the time the cup would sit off of the side of the little finger.

As you can probably tell, this is the tea strainer part of the piece. It's designed, like the sugar cube container, to be worn under the hand. This piece is separate to the rest of it though. I think, as soon as I'm allowed to have it, I'll actually wear this part.

And this is the WHOLE thing together! Like it? My tutors seemed to. They suggested getting it silver plated, then they'd put it on display. But I like it this colour. I might ask if GOLD plating is a possibility. BLING BLING.

Here are a few pictures to demonstrate how the piece would be worn:

And that's it!