Developing Structures!

Well I've not updated my blog in a while, shame on me!

I have been working on my last project of this year and loving been in the workshops and experimenting with materials once again.

My concept for this project is Structures and comparing buildings to the human structure.

I've been focusing on the features of each and selecting my own  photos and using anatomy books for inspiration. 

Looking into our Skeleton and using this as a starting point for my samples to develop.

Here are some of my samples so far and my bay!

Right now I'm at the development stage of my project so I need to finalize my concept and start designing!

Visit to Biscuit Factory.

Hey guys! well this will be my first post of many this week. I have lots to show on here but I've been too busy to sit down and browse through the lovely blogs I follow on here(:

I wanted to make a post about the Biscuit Factory,  lovely gallery in Newcastle. I took some  photo's a few weeks back at some interesting work I found really inspirational and interesting.

Thisis a great gallery for applied artists or mixed media artists looking for new designers/artists.

I was recommended to go there by a few friends and this was my first time visiting,

I will defiantly be going back!

This week..

So this week has been very busy with my contextual project due on the 25th March, also in my main project on my course I've started to feel more comfortable with where my project is going. Last week I filled a few A3 sheets of paper with drawings for my mind but the twist was, I wasn't looking, I drawn whatever popped into my head, I did these in the car on the way home from Uni.My tutor thought it would be a good idea if I photocopied these markings and enlarged them, I found some interesting shapes and she suggested I should make them out of wire.

I also flattered some of the wire using a hammer and flat plate where the pencil gets blunt or I'm applying pressure. I really like the idea of this, I also got a book from the library called ''N3W RINGS by Nicolas Estrada.'' It's has some beautiful forms and ideas inside, very inspiring and reminds me of the standard of designers around.

Here I used a mixture of colours and did this sitting down on the ground with the TV  in the background  

and it took me 10 minutes.

(The Big Bang Theory to be exact)

This one took me 5 minutes with the same environment.

 I created this one in 10 minutes and standing up with music on in the background. I only selected a few colours and I thought the black cancelled all the others so I picked yellow, green, red and blue. It was nice to see the lines overlapping and imagining it in a 3D form.

I'm finding this project challenging so far because I'm used to having control over my drawings and content in my sketchbook, this is very mind boggling and there's so many ways of expressing different sides of 'surrealism', it's very hard to minimize it down for a few month project.  There's so many meanings to symbols and no one is right, it's interesting to hear what others think certain markings look like and seeing their perspective.

In other news.. I have been enjoying blowing bubbles in my room whilst it's raining outside :')

Lately..

So this week I saw my glazed tiles, considering this is the first time I had mono printed onto clay and glazed anything, I was pretty happy with the turnout, there were a few things I would have done differently but I'm glad I had quite a few samples to try out.

Here we used commercial (ready made) molds and porcelain slip, after the box had got leather hard I painted the outside with green slip. Next I mono printed a clown blowing into a trumpet and was quite happy with the turnout. After bisquing the box I glazed it with a gloss and put it in the kiln to be fired, I've actually re-fired my bottom of the box with platinum luster on the bottom, lets hope it works.

Yep, Thought I'd make my way to the scariest clown.

And here I also scratched away some words from my clay tiles, I filled some of the words with commercial stains mixed with water, I like the effect of them bleeding into the clay.

In Jewellery I also made a ring, I pre-made the embossed lace on the copper, but I wanted to make something out of the scraps, the lines reminded me of a lions maine or some kind of animals furr, so it was nicely fitting.

 I've also been experimenting with alot of layers in textiles so I wanted to express the same technique in metal, I tried wrapping very thin wire around a thicker piece to create a scribbily caterpillar shape, I really liked the effect and enjoyed making them but I thought they were very chunky so I decided to thin them down with first a mallet then a metal thinner. I find then quite interesting when I look close, may take these samples further.