LIKEY LIKEY WET WET RAIN

It looks like its raining outside - we are going to go and get breakfast soon.

I  cant believe this is it- I am starting my 4 year course at Edinburgh university studying Art history. 

Edinburgh college of art being a walk away I expect to be doing more doodling and drawing than ever( ok perhaps a bit less than at chelsea--- melancholia ....) but I will have my eyes and heart wide open to new art / old art  and have taken up with me my sketch books. There are plenty of art societies here so I will be joining those and picking up life drawing that I dearly missed in London. 

Edinburgh : a brand new source of inspiration- a brand new landscape to draw inspiration from.

Away from London's busy graphic scene, here in Edinburgh  I expect to be reminded of my artistic phase I went through in Cornwall and in Britanny.

I have a greater understanding of my taste in art. Over the summer I enjoyed " In the wilds " by Nigel Peake and started doing some water colour myself. It confirmed to me that water colour really is my favourite medium.

Anyway, I might start a new blog but for now- I am continuing this one. Lets see how it goes! 

EXCITEY!

The last steps

The finnish line is in two days time and I have finished my book and I am reviewing my work now. All seems fine. I'm pleased. I know  my box still needs a bit of work and I need to display all of my work in the correct way first. I am a bit worried about the images I need to submit for the showreel.... just technicalities like size, layout on a canvas... we will have to see....

WHITE IS THE WORD

After all of that green triangles cutting I realised that the cover would look better in white- take 2- white  triangles !

Little angular thoughts

Cutting more triangles for my book cover is making a bit crazy. Living an angular life is killing me but soon comes glueing!!  The next thing I need to worry about is printing off this blog. ooo and also just finished  sticking the book cloth to the cardboard- sounds easy- so not.

PRINT PRINT PRINT

 THIS MORNING WAS " STRESSY STRESSY'- panicking about formats and last minute photoshop  canvas size problems. BUT in the end- all was ok. I got the collages printed on cartridge paper  and used the guillotine  to cut the strips- Then I folded all the pages in order to make my constina book. Yesterday I bought the book cloth at Falkners and cardboard at the chelsea shop. So tonight I will be putting my book together!! YAY.

Pictures of dark fun!

The best days of my life

Today was one of the days that when you go to bed you think : wow today I was truly happy ! Sounds  so cheesy but that's the truth.Today was going to be a good day the moment the bright sun began to shine-the sun shone down on me as I  walked by the river side on route for destination somerset house.
The "pick me up" exhibition was enlightening, inspiring, beautiful, moving and very very relevant! .......It was just amazing. There i said it.I suddenly felt a burst of inspiration and just wanted to go back to Chelsea and finish my own designs.

The reasons it was so relevant- 1. Stylistically - the illustrations were all very eerie, odd and many of them reminded me of the imagery I was trying to achieve
2. The content- many illustrations were mad mad worlds - one even was inspired by Calvino's invisible cities and was practically  identical to my "urban mountain"collage.
3- I even saw one image that was inspired by exactly the same concept I had had for the book project- book anatomy.
4- I saw right at the end some mini 3 D worlds that were perfect inspiration for my box.



Then I went to college and finished most of my collages.
The book is officially become my place of refuge. The places i imagine existing in my thoughts and day dreams. Even if they have been stylised they are still fairy accurate to the reveries.
For example when I wrote the reverie of going to the city London( and the rabbits attacking me) and this one inspired the urban mountains. Then the forests are very accurate forests I imagined after going to wales and then watching sleeping beauty.... I still need to give more details of all of the reveries and the inspirations but to be fair they are all in my sketchbook .....Oh I don't know.
So about the box... the box has become a little taster of what a 3D reverie world might look like.I can't wait to start building it ! I have all the parts... just have to put them together now.I also need to bind the book this weekend and redesign my hand in and all the general paper work. GONNA BE FUN.


The creature

MORE DARK FUN! AND BUILDING MY WORLD!

 More dark fun!  Having made more creatures to inhabit more worlds me and Mariam set out  at 10 p.m.  to take some night time photographs with the masks on The photos were really great - I even think they could be a final piece if i wanted to - I will play around with the imagery more tomorrow but for now I have just uploaded them, grayscale printed them out and then rescanned to place them in my collages.
The idea for a book is really working out - I decided to make a Constantine book( that folds out like a map-( the book being a map I  chose this format-that makes sense right?)) and not getting the book glue bound because then the book would look very flimsy and sort of similar to a pamphlet. I still need to print out my collages out at college with Jeff upstairs at Chelsea - they will be printed on a role and each page with be the width of an A5 piece of paper. We decided this was the best size.


In the meantime, my book idea is still on - only its going to have to be just one box- a taster in 3D form of one of the worlds that will be featured inside the map book.

Also Wendy reminded me that I need to print out my photographs from wales and "all the dark fun" photographs and present them in a portfolio manor- I mustn't forget to put all the dispossible camera pictures and also put my film on a CD.  GOSH thats a lot of things to do! but i  can do this! i must do this!

Room for a thought

WHAT IF: the inspiration pages introduced the new world.

long time no post

Soooo... where to begin?

I haven't posted much recently as I have been using my sketchbook as a diary- most of my reflections were small technical worries. However I have some thinking to do now : I am in the middle of creating the props for the box and all is going well. All of the elements are inspired by my vision of what  a "where the wild things are"  type of forest and the way the forest world looks at the moment does fit accordingly to my vision.
Last night however I thought about the prospect of having to make more than 5 boxes and realised it would be very hard. It took me this long to make one world, i can't imagine how frustrated i would be by the firth.

On tuesday I had a book workshop and made a constantine book . It was a really useful workshop and made me think about the possibility of making a book for my fmp. I good make a book map of my imaginary world with some of the collages I had done previously. This is what I am going to have a go next at- the mapping and perfecting the collages .

A second opinion

After watching where the wild things are I realised that inventing worlds  is what intrigues me the most. We had presentations on monday and mine didn't go so well. Mainly because Ed, our tutor, didn't really understand my perspective; being in the Vis com area doesn't define me as as a graphic designer; i still feel a connection to the " Artist ",  most of my ideas still feel unresolved and exploratory.
Talking to Wendy today just confirmed that having an unresolved purpose was fine. I don't want to " say something" all I am doing here is evoking - evoking in people a haunting edge to childhood they might have forgotten, less innocent and sweet, more worrying and intriguing.

DARK FUN

A great weekend of fun- cheeeesssyyyyyy but true

This weekend was a great one- I watched lots of films from my bibliography which helped me and inspired my work. I moved all of my things to the art room: I had  inspiration images on the wall,  art materials spread across the floor and my lap top on the table.I was watching sleeping beauty whilst working which completely seeped it self in the imagery I was making. I first  drew very roughly the landscapes I had recently fantasized about and then I looked at the found imagery I had collected to see if I could use some of it. I then made more graphic patters using water colour paint and began creating my collage. I realised very quickly that the idea of making a complex landscape meant the collage looked busy. Combining my photographs of wales and my own illustrations was difficult. I felt that i should strip back on the amount of material I should use and let the white paper show. I still want to create a landscape only I want to strip it back of excess material .I love the photographs I took of the woods in wales last weekend but I think I should leave them alone - they are resolved images and altering them doesn't add anything. They contribute to my collage as inspiration not physically in the collage.
 I need to focus more combing found imagery that particularly fits to my fantasies and my own illustrations. This will lead to more successful collage.








I also made masks as part of my playsack idea. I took the photographs after having watched for a second time "where the wild things are".

Joseph Cornell

Joseph Cornell is the solution to many of my problems. Why not make a relic ? 

GET DOWN WITH IT

Just an hour ago I had a great chat with Wendy our tutor and she told me to explain what my project was about in one sentence . I paused and said : " it's about becoming a child....again". She looked at all of my work and loved the pictures of Wales, Bushy park and of the museum of childhood. The idea of making a map and a great collage of this imaginary world was a hit . She told me to scan, photocopy and print out in in different sizes the forest photographs and create on big landscape. It seems I am at the stage of experimentation and need to use what I already have.

I also want to make by monday the paper costumes for adults to wear. These would resemble the playsack only they would be my own creatures :)

Wendy also liked my videos and thinks an installation that combined all of my different ideas would be interesting :)

The fantasies of the weekend

Friday 24^th of Feb:

I’m going on a walk to the park next to my house. Emilia and I climb the hill and get to the ivy tunnel.  We  reach the ferns and hide from the dinosaurs.  They are eating   the leaves in the corner. We  crawl on the flour, through the grass- it’s so damp , the moss sucks us in. Near the pond we see some animals in the trees. As we look closely we see that they are squirrels. They are divided into two gangs(grey and red squirrels). The grey gang claims the territory but the reds have lived here for centuries . The grey squirrels have put their flag on the branch. 

Saturday

We take the car to go Wales to see granny. That means we are going to the fairyland. The fairyland is great and wonderful. The gate is locked but  my daddy has the key. We go down the drive , the dark trees block the sunlight. The lake and the forest is to the west and to the east the pond with the magic trees and the tree house. We get out of the car and say hello to granny . Us  children go straight to see the fairy people. They live with the frogs and fish in the pond .Their houses are in the moss at the bottom of the trees. I talk to Lola, my favourite one. We play  by the pond and climb the trees. We see that the monkey people still live up above.

Next we go to the lake. The sky was inside the water that day. We were looking at the frogs born and realised they were eyes.  We spoke to Mr. frog and said he was aware of the fraud. But we were curious so put the yes in jars.

We went to woods. Their were no birds or any animals. We find more of the fairy people. We also see the graffalos. We got to a clearing and saw our tree house. There were all the animals waiting for us. The deers came in huge numbers to  greet us.

The tree house is huge inside. The first bit is wooden then it becomes a tent and then a glass hut. To access it you have to climb the opposite tree ,  go over the bridge and get into a glass box. Inside the box there is a tunnel down the drunk and it goes underground  then inside the trunk of the tree with The tree house. That’s the only way up.  We read books and drink  fruit tea , ice cream sodas, eat exotic cup cakes and hot cross buns ooo and and granny sweets. We fall asleep in the afternoon.

Late afternoon we pick daffodils . They are for king George. The fields are rolling up and down.

Sunday:

Sunday we have tea inside the Wendy house. English tea and welsh cakes. Later we go down the lanes for a walk. We are walking to the sea.

Lake  frogs  tad poles  forest fairies

REFLECTION REFLECTION REFLECTION

The conclusion I draw from going to Bushy park and going to Hendrewennol in wales is that  i am so excited by woodland and the outdoors in general. I  had ideas about dressing up and playing in the woods  when I was taking photographs of my cousins. Those woods were where I used to build my dens and pretend I was in fairyland.

I shot many videos of my cousins messing around and I think I would like to have a go at editing the clips and making it into a short film.  I also linked the things I had seen at the childhood museum such as the playsacks. I think I want to make some paper costumes and go to Hyde park and take some photographs.

I also thought of the idea of  mapping my fantasies. I think that my daily fantasies in different places could become parts  of  fantasy world. If I made a book that  had a map at the start and then inside would be all of the fantasies and places.

My younger cousin also had fun  filming her self dancing and I thought the videos were  hilarious! When I got back to London I had fun with the costumes I borrowed from my granny. Late last night me and my friend Hanna got completely high on caffeine and thought it be a brilliant idea to dress up , have a dance around and play games. So we did …. And the videos are very amusing.

First though I need to post of the haunting videos I shot in Wales. I love the sounds of the birds singing in the background.

HENDREWENNOL / FAIRYLAND