A few life drawings.

Here are a few different styles of life drawing - I'm not entirely convinced by my life drawing skills thus far but we shall see.

My face is a lamp.

Although a lot of people who have seen my latex face cast and been freaked out by it - I rather like it. Not in a narcissistic way but because of the texture and the eerie effect created by the thin latex in front of a light.

It is cast of a cast of my face (if that makes sense). The initial face cast was done with plaster and mod rock which creates, not only a good cast, but also adds an interesting texture unlike, say, alginate castings.

I think it looks a bit like an ultrasound.

The piece unlit. 

She was a bad egg . .

The technician where I study art made an egg box out of hair and suggested that it would be nice is six student were to make an egg each to go in the box.

I was considering the eggshell I was using and enjoyed its fragility. I thought it would be nice to contrast this fragility in some way. The result . . 

It is made from wax poured into an egg shell. I then embedded nails into the still setting wax. 

A bad egg. 

Audition

While exploring metal work I decided to try a very conceptual piece and see how it turned out.

I was preoccupied with an audition I was going to have in the evening so I made a piece of the audition experience I was having.

Sealed in the metal spheres are negative thoughts I always have when auditioning.

The abstract Goblet represents the play and the love of acting - it is beautiful and strong but at the heart of it are always the doubts. One just has to step back and realise how much stronger the love of acting is than the doubt - just accept the doubt will be there and lock it away.

p.s. apologies for the previously tragic grammar in the above statement, my mind must have been elsewhere while writing it!

. . And The Answer Is . .

The guesses were (thanks everyone by the way!!!!):

Sponge
Styrofoam
Oasis

Plaster

Plaster of Paris

Coral

Cement

Rubber 

Clay

Couch Stuffing

And the answer was:

Porcelain!

Yes, the strange spongy looking thing is made from fine porcelain and is incredibly delicate! 

Because porcelain has to be fired at such a high heat, pretty much anything you put in there with it will be burned into nothingness. So, by putting a porcelain covered something in a kiln, you will only end up with the porcelain with an imprint of whatever you put in there with it (badly written sentence but you get the idea). This can give some really weird results with stuff coming out looking soft, spongy or even wet! Good fun! 

QUESTION TIME!!!!

I challenge you!!!!!

Tell me what this is made out of!

(Unless your one of the people on my course who also made things using this material)

Forest of Different Kind

One result of experimental pieces in plastic.

What do you think?

Material Tests: Wood

As part of my current course we are being given the opportunity to experiment with various materials. I've decided to use this opportunity to try and create items that would not ordinarily be associated with the material.

So, I decided to test how how wood could be used to make jewellery as this is something I have rarely seen.

We'll Ride Them Someday

The results of another photography test day.

This time I was in Wicken Fen and most of my photos are of the semi-wild horses that can be found here.

Here's the link the the gallery (the first 6 are from this shoot) - http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/myshot/gallery/363200#/gallery/1233793/

Here's my favourite photo of the day - it wasn't the best composition wise but I loved the horses unusual body position too much.

Trying To Catch Nature

After much playing around with a decent camera - I finally felt ready to spend a whole day taking some portfolio worthy photos. I went to West Stow and tried very hard to catch a snippet of the natural beauty there.

Ironically, though I decided to focus my attention on birds - my picture of the day featured no birds but I suppose thats the way things go sometimes.

Below is the link to the gallery of the best photos of the day on the National Geographic:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/myshot/gallery/363200#/gallery/1231816/

Please let me know what you think as photography is a field I am really trying to improve in.

This is my picture of the day -

Found Objects Sculptures

Marcel Dechamp's famous piece 'Fountain' (a urinal turned on its side) is the most famous piece of Found Object Art.

It is what it sounds like, find an objects and make it art. Name it, subvert it, destroy its use, give it a new use or destroy it - all viable possibilities.

Which piece do you like the best and why??

I did lots of prints!!

So I had a go at etching and screen printing.

Nothing very planned, just playing - here are the results.

My Etching:

My Screenprints: 

Screenprint + Monoprint

Ouch . . . Papercut.

So, I was making someone a card and as I'd been looking at the work of Amy Williams (the artist not the athlete, google will confuse you) I thought I'd do a piece inspired by here beautiful papercuts.

She has said that she gets her inspiration from folklore and fairytales. As I had recently looked at one of my favourite pictures, 'Brita as Iduna' (a lithograph by Carl Larsson), I thought I would try to capture the story of Little Red Riding Hood as the girl from Larsson's picture always reminds me of Little Red.

Do a textiles project in 1 1/2 days! Ahhhh!!!

Well, I've just started my art foundation and during the introductory stage we have 2 1/2 days trying out each area of the Art Academy to get an idea what we want to specialise in.

2 1/2 days is pretty short time to fully explore a project and THEN we found out we were life drawing the first day rather than starting the first project! Pressure!!

Anyways, my first area was textiles and we had to make something in the time out of the materials available inspired by something in Cambridge - which for me was the botanical gardens.

Here I will post my inspiration and then the finished piece - a bag - which I think, for 1 1/2 days ain't bad (especially as I'm noooooo textiles expert!).

First go at life drawing!

Here's a couple of the quick sketches I did during my first life drawing session.

Continuous line drawing :

Sketch of the class: 

Stormtroopers. I like the one which bangs his head in Episode 4 :)

Requeeeesst!!!

My brief was: A stormtrooper, maybe the imperial symbol too. I like vibrant colours - especially blue.

How do you think I did??

It already up in their house so I'm guessing my effort wasn't too shabby!

I went to Spain!

I've been on holiday, yay! And I took my paints and pencils, naturally. So, here's a couple of the quick paintings I did while I was there of things I saw.

The first is fairly obvious what it is and how it relates to Spain:

The second, is what the many old spanish men looked like to me as they sat around having a bake in the sun; seemingly indefinitely. 

Going back to my finger painting roots.

At a bit of loose end today so thought I'd have a childish art moment and finger paint!

Here's my favourite of the few quick ones I did which kind of evolved into a face.

When I watch X-men . . .

A quick little sketch I did this evening inspired by, as the title suggests, my visit to see X-Men First Class :)

Belated Fathers Day

First post-project art piece!

Unfortunately, both me and my dad were busy on Fathers Day so I have only just had time to ask what theme he would like his Fathers Day art piece to be and he chose: cycling!

If anyone knows my dad this will have been fairly predictable as he is Captain cycling/Tour De France/Lycra/Racing Bike man.

Here's the best piece which was his present:

Reject piece of the Tour de France:

"If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story."

Day . . . THE END

As the title of this post suggests (provided by the annoyingly eloquent Orson Welles), the 30 pieces of art challenge has come to an end. Or has it?

There have been good art works, there have been bad artworks but there has always, somehow, been art and I hope you've enjoyed it.

I feel I've learnt a lot from this - I particularly enjoyed having random stimulus provided by people which is why the project continues!! If you have anything you would like to see me try, a commission or a challenge I am still ready and willing to bring you art! The only difference being that I will probably only be doing art inspired by peoples suggestions so get thinking.

I would love to know peoples favourite pieces and thoughts of the overall project.

Thank you and keep the ideas coming!

My post - art project mess:

Yes, someone really got a tattoo done that I designed :D

DAY THIRTY!!!!! : Permanent Art

It has arrived!!! Finally, thirty pieces of art - not quite one a day but thats life.

Possibly some of you were wondering how I could top painting a life size horse but little did you know that I had already designed a tattoo for a friend which she has just got!

I will hopefully post photos of a it when it is a bit less pink! She asked for a butterfly in the tribal style but that was still feminine and I hope I did her idea proud - I certainly think it looks beautiful :)

My original design: