Week 5- Cardboard Catwalk

Over the weekend we were told to visit galleries, I chose the Whitworth and the Dark Matters exhibit was actually really good, lots of installations and video work.

Anyways when we got back on Monday we were told to get into groups and experiment with Cardboard and how we could change it. On Tuesday we had to pick two (already paired) artists from a hat, I unfortunately picked probably the two most awkward artists possible : Ed Ruscha and Paul Nash....yeah text and trees.

We did our best, and also I had to be the dead tree...

Week 4 - Performance Drawing

Charcoal Claws!

Metre Stick

I believe this is called the Angler fish method...

Day 1 - We were asked to do a great deal of strange things...walk in slow motion to pick up a plastic cup of water, take 5 minutes to drink it, stare at the person opposite for a minute. Clearly the MMU tutors have a bit of an obsession with Marina Abromovic. When we actually started drawing we were told to do as many different types if line with pieces of charcoal as possible eg. the faintest line, the strongest, the straightest, to copy the line above etc.

Then we had to draw with our eyes closed, one hand on our faces, one hand on the paper drawing our face through touch. After that we had to draw different body parts in a variety of ways (print, with foot, with hair etc) only using charcoal.

VERY strange, but interesting day.

Day 2 - We made tools.
Then we painted the tools using the tools...

Day 3 - We made paint/pigment, and painted pictures of our individual pets...
One thing I did learn,Toothpaste is amazing, it mixes with everything!

Update: I found this page of research in my first Notebook! No wonder I never got any sleep with all this extra effort I put into notebooks...

Week 3 -Weekend Text Signs and Symbols Project

For this project we had to describe/illustrate a collection, journey etc using text signs or symbols. I chose my record collection/musical 'journey'...as pretentious as that sounds, I was basically trying to show how I got from one band/album to the next. Its an ongoing project for me because I really enjoyed doing the tiny illustrations.

I decided that the album covers were symbols and I tried a few different ways to illustrate the journey, including a web using thread but that was far to flimsy and confusing...

By Monday I'd managed to make about 15 covers and arranged them into a concertina fold, because it was pushed together it looked like a mini set of records.

Week 3 - Drawing week

We started off the week with measured drawing of our pets using lengths of wire...little did I know that apparently shading was the ultimate faux pas. Ah well I survived, with a reasonably accurate drawing of a lot of strange creatures as memento.

The next day I was ill and missed ,from what I can gather, a confusing 3D drawing day. I say confusing because frankly I still can't quite understand what they actually did...

Anyways, moving swiftly on, the next day (Wednesday) was Moving image drawing, which I actually really enjoyed. We basically used anything and everything we could get our hands on to do 3 or more fast drawings of each video. Although you probably can't tell the videos included: old footage of water, an aerial view of a war torn country, a dancer, dracula, koyaanisqatsi, explosions and fighting.