Hannah Leighton-Boyce.

Hannah is an artist who says she specialises in actions, sculpture, drawing, sound and installations, she also says that she that she does not specialise in crafts but most of her big projects are based around creating things from wool and fabrics.

The main project she did that really stood out to me was ‘Instruments of Industry’ as she took different industry tools and places them in an installation but not only did she do this but she also created different sounds for them all from the frequency that they create, she also had the blueprints and also has released a record of these sounds together, she also went into the technical explination of where these sounds came from because they were not just the sound when you hit the object but something much more interesting.

Other work I found very interesting:

• If the walls could talk, the last yarn.
• The windowless shed camera obscura.
• The event of the thread.

I think all of her work have very interesting topics but also the way she looks into the detail and the technical aspect of the topics is very sophisticated and she puts alot of meaning into her work.

CFCCA Brief.

We were given a brief from the CFCCA to create a piece of work based on the archives that they have in thier possession, the work that really stood out to me was Suki Chan’s ‘Seeing: Out of time’ which was a piece created by black pigmented rice, I thought this was a really interesting piece and decided to focus on this peice for my response to the archives.

We had an presentation on information on archives and here are some of the key points:

• Archives are information that is created, recieved and maintained as evidence by an organisation or person.
• Archival artists seek to create historial information that may be lost or misplaced.
• Monuments created to pay respect to a historical figure or event is a type of archival art.
• Use of archives to create realistic finctional people or events.

While thinking of my own work me and Lauren decided to join teams and work together on this piece and she had been looking at Anthony Key’s ‘Sauce’ which was basically a ketchup bottle that had been filled with soy sauce, after a disscussion we decided to combine these two influences and create one piece that would be a response to both archives.

Our idea is to take a piece of acetate and to recreate Anthony Key’s ‘Sauce’ using normal or pigmented rice and placing them onto the acetate in the shape of the ketchup bottle. We also had the idea to place the animal of the chinese new year in the middle of the ketchup bottle where there would be an open space.

Phil Wickham Brief.

I was asked by someone to help Phil Wickham with a book cover and that I would be working with Jelana to create and edit a book cover to the specification that Phil asked for, we started by sitting down with Phil and having a talk about what the book is about but also what he wanted the cover to look like and I took some notes for this and he also gave us an image of the sort of thing he wanted.

• Genre: Supernatural / Gothic.
• Colours: Greys and Black.

He stated that he wanted the path in the image more defined and also he wanted a light at the end of the path that is almost like headlights but more like one omninious light.

My idea is to create my own version and sketch out what I was thinking and then for Jelana to also sketch out her version and then we would have a meeting about this and discuss ideas come up with a final image which Jelana will go away and create, after this I plan on taking it into photoshop and darkening the edges but also experimenting with different effects such as distortion and also colours such as different shades of greys. I think that after doing this i should have a range of book covers to show Phil where he can pick and choose which one he wants but also if they need changing or combining i can also do this.

Seba Kurtis.

Seba is a photographer who creates work based on the immigration situations of the past and also the present and his work is heavily influenced by his own experiences as an illegal immigrant, he has a very unique style of photography and in my opinion makes the imperfections of his images the thing that makes the image successful as he said that he found old photographs from when he was younger and really liked the way that the photograph had deteriorated and I think this is where his style originated from.

I find that Seba’s work is very playful because when he always wants to make it more than just a photograph and it seems like he will experiment with anything to make this happen, He told a story of when he was taking a photograph of a man and instead of just taking a normal photograph he started taking plastic bags and trying to create something within the image, he also uses different exposures with his camera and has images with high exposure at the top so that the image is white and then it fades into the image.

I think that most of his experiments with photography are very naturally done infront of the camera but there is a series that he has created using collage over his work which I think are very successful, this series called ‘Talcum’ is based on a certain immigrant situation where talcum was being trafficked by immigrants and how dehumanising this was to the people involved as the people were seem more as transporters rather than human beings and their lives were not valued very highly. He created these images by taking photos of talcum before it is made into a powder and then tried to make it look valuable by changing the colours to something asthetically pleasing and then collaging these onto the images he had took of immigrants that he met at a camp. I think that these images are very powerful and the meaning of them come across very well when you know the story behind it.

Jim Medway.

Jim Medway is an illustrator, artist, cartoonist and animator who came to give our group a talk about his work, he started by talking about one of the main themes in his work which is his characters being anthropomorphic which means that his characters are animals but with human characteristics such as the body of a human, he started talking about one of his main influences which was Richard Scarry who is a creator of childrens books who also uses anthropomorphic animals.

Jim then went on to say how he uses everyday life in his work as he will use people he sees on bus journeys and draws them as different animals in the action they are doing such as seeing kids riding their bikes or a small group of delinquents acting shifty. I noticed that the main animal he uses in his work is cats and I think this works really well for all the expressions he uses for his characters. He also said that everything he does starts from a sketchbook.

While Jim was with us he also did a workshop with us on how to create anthropomorphic animals and a process that we could use which was 2 sets of different coloured cards, one with an animal and one with a job on it but if you wanted you could also throw in a 3rd card with an emotion. The cards that I got was lion and window cleaner.

I think that this workshop was very helpful and I would definately use this again in my own work and maybe in future projects.

 

Exhibition Planning.

After deciding on some different venues for our exhibition we went to view them and looked around to see what we thought.

Z-Arts.

• Is used during the day but free 5-9pm.
• Big space and lots of room.
• £350 + £90 for a technician.
• We need to email them and find out what groups are there during the day.
• Will they keep our work safe?

Victoria Baths.

• Easy to find.
• Was not open to look around.
• Has parking.

Kosmanaught.

• Free Space (Potentially).
• Brick walls.
• More than one area.
• Not practical.
• Great Location.
• Would do an opening night for us.
• Lines to hang work up on but wouldnt be able to drill into any walls.
• Work would get seen alot more.
• Not enough space unless we have both rooms.
• Maybe better for personal exhibitions.
• Restraicted in size of work

Leaf.

• Can’t drill into the walls.
• Would have to use sheets of Ply wood to hang work.
• Very restricted on work size.
• £195 per day.
• £150 deposit.
• No age restriction before 10pm.
• Purchase all food and drinks from this venue.
• Small space next door included.
• Can sell work.
• Power Available.
• Can advertise in space before event.
• Open until 12am, close early Mondays and Tuesdays.
• Have to talk about how many days we can have and price. Est. £800.
• Someone needs to check out how busy during days and night opening hours.
• June dates are full.
• Good lighting.

Twenty 22.

• First room is very small.
• Tennis tables would probably be taken down.
• £100 per day for the first room.
• Alot of art already painted on the walls which could over shadow our work.
• Very damp and dirty especially on the walls.
• £1000 + VAT for second room.
• Staff were very unfriendly and complaining about leaving the door open which is how we walked in.

Jeni McConnell.

Jeni McConnell is an artist who works with archives and places to create artwork as a response and also uses perormance in her work, I think that some of the work she does  also means a lot to other people and it gives them different emotions towards her work which can be very interactive such as her work ‘Tell it to the water’ where she got people to write onto dissolving paper and then place them into the canal using coal and limestone to weight them down.

The piece of work that really stood out for me was her responce to dementia which she used performance to shed light on the way it effects people and the back story of this performance really stood out aswell, she started by taking sentences that had been said by people with dementia and printing them onto dissolvable paper and then knitting them into a cloth which when she put it in water the paper would dissovle and represent the dementia patients brain and how it works as its almost like the brain is dissolving, I also thought that the performance she gave responded to the way that the family of the patients felt and how frustrating it is for them as the mood she portrayed in my opinion was frustration and devistation.

 

Ordsall Hall Live Brief.

For Ordsall Hall we were given the brief Curiousity and to come up with and create a range of products that could be sold in their gift shop, the main product was to be sold for under £5 and the other products were a price of choice.

10th October 2017 – Initial meeting with Ordsall Hall.

This initial meeting was to gather information about the place and also what the clients were looking for, I found that the clients were very open to any ideas and did not talk about anything specific that they wanted. I wrote down around 2 pages of bullet points and these are the ones I found most useful.

• They have 30,000 visitors per year, 50% of the people are local and the other 50% are from away.
• Alot of the local people are school groups and adult tour groups.
• Family is very important.
• The shop at the moment is not hitting all the age ranges or target audiences.
• They wanted a product that was specific to the venue.
• Lavender is an important symbol to them.
• 1360s is when the oldest part of the building was built.
• 1512 the great hall was built.
• 1648 is when the brick work is from.
• Most of the furniture are replicas, the most original piece is the bed in the master bedroom which belonged to the Radcliffe Family who were either the original owners of the house or a wealthy family who lived there a very long time ago.
• The building was a family house for 300s.
• The allotments were used in World war 1 for growing food.
• The building is said to be haunted and there are events during the year and halloween for ghost hunts.
• Age range 25-35, there is nothing really for this age range in the shop.

After this meeting we were allowed to walk around the site and take photos for inspiration.

 

Initial designs.

After going to Ordsall and taking pictures I had alot of inspiration, I started by looking at the photos I had taken and came up with 3 solid ideas.

Idea 1 – This idea is based of the dress that is in one of the bedrooms which I really liked, I thought that this was one of the most memorible objects in the building and that people would relate it to the Hall and also I thought that this would symbolise the people that have lived in the hall through history. I drew the dress and then coloured copies using watercolours, I decided that I would paint one simple with normal colours and more like the original dress and then I wanted one that would stand out and this was because I did not just want normal designs but I wanted to also put life into them are reality can be very boring to me and painting this way is more fun for me on a very simple image.

Idea 2 – This idea was based around the brickwork and also the design of the building its self, I wanted to include this idea because the building is very well designed and built and is very eye catching in the area that it is in as it looks very out of place to its surroundings. I picked a part of the building that I could work with but also a part that I thought was the best and this was it was because the roof has a very tudor look to it which I thought was a big part of the hall and to the history of the building and also how clean this part of the building was and apart from the tables and chairs there was nothing obstructing the view of the building but also nothing distracting you form the main features,  I had also attempted to draw the whole building and failed many times as I could not get the proportions right and after this I started sketching parts of the building and found this alot more successful. I did the same thing with this idea where I drew the image and then started using water colour on copies, I also created a normal painting using the original colours such as browns and greys but I also created one that would stand out like with Idea 1. At the end of creating these pieces i used white and black finliners to define the image but also add more detail like the brick work and the window lines.

Idea 3 – My third idea is based off the flowers around the grounds because the gardens and the plants have just as much history to the place as the building and and people as the land has been used to grow crops and flowers for years and was a huge part of the peoples lives. The started by drawing from the images and than using finliners to colour them, I wanted to make them very original and on some of them I used different techniques such as line and tone. After this I decided that I did not just want these images to be the final outcome because I did not think they were as successful as I wanted them to be and at this time I was also thinking about the products that I would be placing these designs onto and decided that it would of been better to also create little simple versions of these flowers.

I plan to use these designs on a range of different products that would be sold for different prices to complete one of the briefs main sections. I am not planning on creating the products or manufacturing the product myself but instead I want to create a design or image that can be placed on multiple different products because I think that Ordsall have ways of ordering products and also a way to customise them so that my images could be added. My intention is to sell them the image rather than the product.

Products ideas –

I have a range of ideas for my designs and will pick the best ones that will present my designs well.

• Key rings.
• Mugs
• Place Matts / Coasters
• Post cards
• Prints
• Bags

Design Sheets –

I decided to create some design sheets for when we met again with Ordsall Hall as this time we would be presenting our ideas to see how they would respond. I picked 3 of the items that I had thought of and chosen keyrings, mugs and coasters.

I created design sheets for all of my ideas and then came up with ways that they would  be printed onto the products, I decided that Idea 1 and 2 would be prints that would be redrawn and painted and then scanned and printed onto the objects but would also work as prints and post cards if Ordsall Hall wanted that. For Idea 2 I also wanted to create a wooden keyring that would be etched by a laser cutter. Then for Idea 3 I picked the design from my flower designs that I thought was best but also represented the site the most, I decided to go for the lavender design because this was a big part of the place which I think the people in the first meeting talked about quite alot and as the main flower in the gardens I thought this was more fitting than the others and I did not want create more than 3 sheet because I thought it would be too much.

All though I only made 3 official design sheets for the presentation I also made design sheets for the other flower designs because I did not want them to not be used and I also wanted to know what they would look like on design sheets before I made my final decision.

Presentation Feedback –

• Wooden Dress Keyring is a good idea. – Design 1.
• Think about using heat ink to show the white lady (appears when the mug changes temperature)and this would mostly appeal to the ghost hunter groups. – Design 2.
• The outgoing paintings are alittle too much and have a very bauhaus style and does not represent the building – Design 1 & 2.
• Very customised and simple – Design 3.
• Not all about Ordsall Hall and can be bought as a gift for someone who has not been – Design 3
• Can be used on a wide range of different products including tea towels, aprons and broaches.
• The Lavender design is the strongest of the 3 designs.
• Design a range of domestic kitchen products.
• Could design a cup and saucer gift set.

Final design sheets and development –

For development I decided to move forward with the lavender design and took the simple design onto a graphics tablet and drew them in different sizes and colours, after this I took the one that I thought was the most effective and then created patterns and also photoshopped these onto different items.

For the final meeting with Ordsall Hall I made 2 more design sheets filled with my final ideas and development, the first design sheets showed my different lavenders and patte

rns so that they were easy to see as appose to only looking at them photoshopped on the products, I wanted to make them look professional and had decided to make all these patterns and designs into little booklets and then they would be easy to present but I was advised not to go with this idea by a tutor so instead I put them onto a sheet but layered them so that they could all be seen easily and included but also so they would all fit onto one sheet, my main problem with this is that the only thing I could use that would make it so that each page would flip over was masking tape and if I had used glue or double sided tape there would of been no way of moving them to see the others underneath.

The second sheet showed all the products that I had photoshopped the designs onto which included the 2 original ideas of the mug and the coasters but I decided to develop them as for the mugs I created more than 1 design and also I wanted to see what the products would look like in a proffessional format. I also added new products and these were cutlery, aprons and tea towels and this was because I was thinking of things in the kitchen.

 

Costs:

• Mug: £5 – £8
• Coasters: £4 – £12 per set of 4
• Apron: £10
• Cutlery: £10 – £15
• Tea towel: £8 – £11

Selling price: We were told to come up with different products with different price ranges with the first one being under £5. These cost prices are from some of the first online distributors that I saw and also handle the printing aswell and they are always more expensive when buying if its for personal, because I want to sell my designs rather than the product. I am also assuming that when bought in bulk the price would be cut and then the selling price would be less and this is the idea I had for the mug that if bought in bulk they would be able to be sold for £5, the coasters would be sold for £5 – £12, aprons £15, cutlery £20 and tea towels between £14 and £20

Last Feedback –

• Have taken on the Feeback from the first presentation.
• Developed presentation techniques.
• Maybe develop the cutlery into a childs cutlery and also add more like an egg cup or a plate and bowl, look at what is sold in mother care.
• Appeals to a range of different ages.

I feel like this project was very successful and I think I have completed most of the criteria that I was given and that I have enough development work to back up my final outcome. I am really glad I was able to use a graphics tablet for my final work and even though I did not use it to its full extent I was able to use it simply and it is a start to what I want to do. One thing I would really like to improve is the ability to draw more loosely because I feel all my drawings for this are very defined and I want to be able to draw loosely with different drawing materials and not worry about stray lines. The experience of this project has also not been as stressful as other projects that we have had and has been quite laid back.

 

 

Steve Messam.

Steve Messam is a 3D artist who works in landscapes. He came to Ambleside when we went as a group to give us a talk about his work and what goes into planning it. I was very impressed by this talk because there was alot of information and he went very into depth about his work and the way he uses place, colour and angles.

I could not say anything bad about his work because I really liked all of it and I thought it was very interesting and also satisfying to look at, the way he uses colour is also very interesting as he will place red onto a green landscape because these colours stand out form each other which I agree with and also red is a very powerful colour and when asked the reason he uses this colour he said “It’s a good colour isn’t it?”.

The piece of work I enjoyed the most was a piece of work he did in Blackpool called ‘When the Red Rose’ which was a red giant glowing red ball that was placed around a hut on the edge of the seaside and where it was placed you could get a picture with the tower behind it which looked really nice at night time.

One thing that is dissapointing about Steve’s work is that it is temporary and is always in a different location so you dont know where one of his pieces is going to pop up next and its not going to be seen in person by alot of people but he said he enjoys people taking images of his work so that it spreads around social media so that its still there in memory.

 

Ambleside Evaluation.

On the 2nd of October we took a trip to ableside for 3 days to do a live brief for the Cumbrian Tourist Board. over the course of the trip we went to different places to gather ideas and materials that we could use for our final piece.

My final idea was based on the fairies of Cumbria which is a legend in different parts of cumbria and ambleside was one of these places, I decided to take rocks and then draw fairies on them and place them in the woods in trees and under rocks as I thought it was a magical idea that would bring them to life for families and children.

For our final pieces I was really dissapointed because the way things were going to work out were changed 3 different times, at first we were creating work for a picture that would be shown in an exhibition in the place that we were staying, then it changed to that the work was being diplayed and then the venue of the work being placed was changed again so that we would have to take our work to the place and show it there, because of this the worktime was cut by an hour and I feel like I couldnt create a great piece of work or something that I was proud of due to all the confusion and being rushed.

Over all I think that the ending to the trip was very unorganised and I was very unhappy with the final product but I really enjoyed the rest of the trip and coming up with the ideas that I did.

Some more images that I took from ambleside: