Self Evaluation...

In this project I really wanted to experiment and take risks, I wanted to really push my work forward, taking the ideas and working methods, but really experiment with scale, colour and materials. I think the use of scale is something I have come to embrace, as now I think I prefer to work bigger, realising this because of the interest I have in space related ideas and artists, and through drawing and making, bigger seems better, even if just to fill a small part of something, the consideration of space is there!

I have been continually blogging and working in my sketchbook and notebook, so that I can filter down and connect all my ideas, I have also spent a lot of time laying out work and photographing,
looking at the composition, the colour or texture. This really helps me to look at my work conceptually and I feel I am able to see where I am going; laterally reading my work through photography and notemaking (sometimes just describing or connecting words) really makes me focus and points out a clear direction, until I discover something new in what I have made.

I really like to do a lot of contextual research, looking at artists and reading books, looking at words or places for general inspiration. As my project has been based on something with more of an intangible nature, I think it has become really important for me to work this way, as I get a lots of ideas to then process and move forward with. I have definitely been inspired by artists and I think this can be seen in my experiments with colouyr and materials. Now I feel more comfortable with taking risks, even if they don't work out. This is something I am going to take with me in my next projects, where I can begin to make my work really personal and exciting.

Out and About

Out and about...

Taking photographs in and around the studio...

I did initially want to go out to places and spaces, but slight problem with the weight of them! They are very heavy, and to lug 4 around Manchester would have been a tad problematic.

However, I quite like how they have turned out; related back to when I was thinking about minimalism, making normal things a little out of place...making the place a little abnormal..(hopefully).

Experiments...

                                  
After my tutorial, this week I have been trying to make things stranger.
-Adding wax, adding flour; flour paste (gooey) and flour into the forms I have made, to give them weight (heavy things would be stranger, less fragile physically, hopefully they will feel more strange).
I have started to think about how/where I will photo my objects too, places; normal, unassuming, everyday could play excellent hosts to strange textile sculptures.

    

Drawing!

Drawing task using homemade tools! 

Wanted to think about space and ground, some worked out better than others!

I quite like the random and accidental marks and splodges, and also the rings made by the jars...

The bigger drawings were definitely the most successful,  made me think about the space, the concentration, bigger spaces gave the drawing 'room to breathe'! More to be done with a bigger scale...
It really helped me to think about space, and spacing, not just on paper, but composition in a wider sense, for example in my installations and sculptural pieces I am working on.

Minimalism, Piero Manzoni and Gary Kuehn

After looking around the city gallery, I bought a book about minimalism and it got me thinking about the nature of minimalism, 'a new kind of art [in the 60s] inspired by mathematics and industrial process'. Flipping through, I felt what seems integral is materials, space, positioning and forms; much consideration and thought is needed so that all these are working together, even if the aesthetic is minimal.

Possibly could relate to my ideas about strange and everyday, in a minimal sense, as sometimes minimalism is the most strangest idea, people often react 'I could have done that' if it is something quite plain, or just because something is so blank, or unfinished or seemingly uninteresting...etc.

I don't want to make my work plain (as I am partial to a french knot session) I think somewhere my work could translate this idea, plain lines, colours, dots: normal regular things...just a little out of place.

Robert Ryman

Carl Andre

Ralph Humprey

Bit like Rachel Whiteread? 30 years earlier...


Dan Flavin

I really like the neon lights... I definitely want to think about light, and space maybe in the next projects, Dan flavin- excellent! I am quite liking the use of light, quite a lot of finnish artists are quite good with light...

Also...Gary Kuehn! Same time around Eva Hesse...

And Piero Manzoni (came up on google too!)

Lines and Dots!

BLUE

Whitworth...