More Pens!

scan of the week schedule

I went into the studios today, to get some more of the ZIG pens. Though I was able to get some, I was told by the print room technical that they would not be getting any more for at least another week. Hopefully the 8 or so pens I currently have will last until then.

The rest of the day was spent telephoning the Danish tax ministry (SKAT) and student loans office (SU) to work out some confusing as to me somehow still working in Denmark while studying here, and to confirm that i like in the UK and not the US... which makes logical sense that you can confuse someone living registered in the UK to somehow also spending all 3 years in the US. Ah government bureaucracy. When I got home, I spent the rest of the evening doing a bit more research for the science poster and finding a few more relevant topics. I have not had any real interest in science for a good few years so it was tough to get the research done. Thankfully a Channel 4 program "Genius of Britain" helped me find inspiration. As (briefly) it outlines some of the greater contribution of British scientists to the world in through the ages, ie. Darwin's theory of evolution, the steam train, the computer and penicillin.

 chemical structure of penicillin (wikipedia.org - penicillin)

FMP IV - science

Today I worked late into the night, on my next poster, the theme of which is science. I started around 4 o-clock and worked late into the wee hours of the morning.

photograph of my science poster

Now to the trained eye it might look like I am working from a kitchen and not from a studio... to this I have to say that not only are you correct, but you also have a keen eye for kitchen table tops. The main body of my FMP drawing is done in my kitchen, this is for a number of reasons. One being that I like to work into the night (something I cannot do as our studios close at 19:00, though that has now been changed to 21:00). The second reason is that if I were to work in the studios at this point I would get too distracted by my peers, a bit antisocial yes, but! this way I get more work done. The last reason is that there is a coffee machine and fridge in my kitchen, making it possible for me to eat/drink while working. I would have gone broke a long time ago if I had to buy from Costa everytime I fancied a tea of coffee.

6 hours later my poster looked like this:

photograph of my science poster

All in all I am quite happy with my progress today... though I am quite a bit sleep deprived.

Jonny WIP

Today I had a work in progress session (WIP) with Jonny Hannah. We were about 7 people in total for the group, all waiting for assessment. Before we began Jonny updated us on our schedule next week.

Scan from my sketchbook

The meeting began, where we would each in our own words present our work, why we did it, and what we still had left to complete. With the exception of one student in the room, who seemed to have quite  a lot of work and research, everyone had either the same as or less than I did. Which came as a strange surprise, as I consider myself to be cripplingly behind at the moment. I do not know what to say as I cannot think that all 6 of my peers had a good reason not to work over Easter. It was clear that Jonny did not take this news well, which all things considered is understandable, what I did not understand was why he chose to have a go at me. What I did not appreciate from Jonny was his response to my saying "well I did loose Easter due to my family and my grandmothers death" and him trying to tell me how to feel, and to just keep working after seeing her die. I was very angry at him, but I will give him the benefit of the doubt as it is clear he has been under a lot of stress lately... that and so few of us having a decent amount of work must also have added quite a bit. Nevertheless he did like my work and where I was going with it, though saying that when printing the war poster again, to use a paler background colour, and perhaps considering to use another foreground colour than black.

Afterwards I was able to have a quick meeting with Alexandra, where I showed her a quick preview of this blog. She said that my PD seemed to be going in the right direction now, and that I should continue with it, following these guidelines:

STRUCTURE HELP FOR THE PRESENTATION DOCUMENT
Make sure you have the following sections in your presentation document


1. Cover ( in case that you have a bog that would be your header)

2. Content page (page numbers of the different sections 3-7)

3. About the presentation Document

4. About yourself /about the author (connect your project with yourself as a person – talk about the connection between you and your references-artists theorists)

5. Reflective journal (write and show visually your process)
Consider having a small summary in the beginning of every week with3-4 bullet points.

6. Conclusion (summarize your experience and your thoughts overall- look back at your work and tell us how you feel about the descisons you have made, talk about the presentation document and if the visual and writing process helped you to rationalise your thoughts and processes.)

7. Bibliography (references of artists)



Tips and suggestions

Visual journey: Make sure that you showcase visually your process including your sketches, visual progress of your work, visual references.
Make sure you annotate your visuals and clearly connect them with the text.

Written Journey: Make sure you clearly describe the narrative of your project, be critical about your work and your references.


Submission type: blog form, word doc, or physical books 

Guest Speaker - Tozzy Bridger

The day started with another degree show meeting, I dont honestly know why though (Pete already demonstrated how to hand our work, what else could be left?) though this time it was with Jonny.

Scans from my sketchbook

The meeting started off with Jonny telling us about some events which are going to happen after the FMP hand in deadline on the 18th of May. For example there will be an illustration day out to the Isle of Wight on the on 19th, as a chance for all of us to enjoy the end of our project. There was also some practical advice for the degree show, which can be seen above. Jonny also mentioned that we needed to fill out a brief form stating what our degree show is, and what we will require if anything.

Our tutor Derek also introduced to us the concept of a identity for our degree show. The last years one was "VIVA" Illustration. They showed us the cover they intend to use for our degree show catalogue. They had chosen a painting of the earth seen from space, done by fellow student Simon. Personally I do not exactly like this image, but at this point I do not want to bring it up. The tutors also mentioned that we should think of something to use as a title, and that at a follow up meeting where we will vote on a title.

We were also visited by print maker Tozzy Bridger

Tozzy Bridger (aa2a.biz)

scan from my sketchbook (and a doodle of Tozzy)

Tozzy's talk focused mainly on her implementation of nature in her work, how she would use found objects (such as leaves) as texture and layering tools. She was particularly keen on explaining to us how she has begun using photoshop in combination with her physical prints, and how when combined it makes previewing techniques and colours easier.

After her meeting I went to the print room and tried to print the poster I drew yesterday (see last post). The result was pleasing as it proved that the ZIG pens work like a charm, and that if I use them I will be able to cut my work time in half (as I no longer need to retrace the images I draw). I did a little dance of joy as I saw the print work and specifically how clear the thin lines were. I need to get my hand on as many of these pens as possible because with these I can actually see myself being able to complete all my posters.

just making sure you know this image is mine... I need to write this for PD reasons

FMP III

I was able to get my hands on the new pens I mentioned yesterday (here). They are named ZIG opaque pens and fabricated by Kuretake.

 Photograph of opaque pens on my desk.

I threw together a quick design, just to test whether the pens would be able to come out well in the printroom. My main concern was if the fine lines would come out well (see design below)

my quick design using the ZIG pens.

Tomorrow I will go into the print room, and after the guest speaker, and try seeing how the print comes out. I feel that these pens are too good to be true, a way to cut my work time practically in half with no loss of quality, that just seems too wonderful to happen. But the technicians assure me they work, well tomorrow we shall see.

War Print test

I spent the day in the print room trying to make it so I could test whether the line work was correct on my war poster. Bellow was the result:

photograph of my war poster (screenprint)

Though I am happy that the lines came out well. It does strike me that I used the wrong colours, as there appears to be too little negative space in this picture. The second thing is that the image might be a tad too crowded. But at this point there really is very little time to do any sort of change. 

I have also decided to cut down the number of posters I am going to produce down to 6, and forget the idea of doing a book.

While printing, Peter Lloyd started telling me about some new pens available in the print room, some which supposedly are made for screen printing. If what he tells me is correct is that would mean i could draw my designs on drafting film without having to retrace it. 

There was also an art sale on in the studios where I was able to pick up and A3 portfolio fairly cheaply. Something I have been worrying about slightly as I have not gone to London on one of the tutors "portfolio hunts".

I also submitted my image for the degree catalogue, I used the image (here), 4th image from the top. Jonny told us that we would have a chance to see the catalogue before it is sent off for printing at some point in the next few weeks. 

Degree Show Hanging Talk

Scan of the schedule for the week.

Today Peter Lloyd had an early morning talk (too early) to us about the how to hang the degree show which is now only a few weeks away. He ran through the many different techniques, their advantages and disadvantages and some basic dos and don'ts when hanging a show (see below for notes)

Scans from my sketchbook

From Pete's talk I have decided to use magnets to hang my degree show. This seems to be the most elegant solution, and as an added bonus one that is very easy to pull off. Though I will need to order the magnets online as it is apparently impossible to buy them in Southampton.

I also managed to completed my war poster late this night, spending another 6 or so hours on it. Now all I need to do is test whether it prints well, and if it does I am 1/6 of the way to go... yay (sarcasm).

FMP Work II

Having spent most of night working on my war poster, I am pleased to see that the first layer is almost complete. Thought I know that I am miles behind everyone else at this point, I am still pleased that I am making progress now.

First layer of my FMP war poster

FMP Work I - War

Today I spent another few hours working ony my FMP. Still working on the war poster.

My FMP war poster 

Almost all the elements in this poster have a reason for being there, and I will explain this once the final print is done, so it will be clearer to you (the reader) what is going on. In my mind it make more sense to do it this way, as it will demonstrate how the research was used. Instead of the reader having to scroll backwards to figure out where that element came from. Much to impractical.

Presentation Document Disaster

The day started well with me presenting Jonny some of my work as my submission for the degree show catalogue. He liked two of my images (see below)

my work

He suggested perhaps combining them, and playing around with some of the colour functions in photoshop. After a few hours fiddeling we managed to reach this:

First test (my work)

He then told me to continue tweaking it it Photoshop and to show him once I had something I was happy with. I finally settled on the below image, where I think the image as a whole is more powerful than the one ontop, and the off red allowing to see the complete design of the background image.

Final Submission for degree show catalogue, to be submitted on monday

However the day came to a bad end when I had my presentation document meeting with Alexandra. I brought in my presentation document (a book, the scans of which are plastered all over this blog) to show her. Alexandra looked at the book, and told me that I had misunderstood the entire concept of the presentation document. It seems that weeks ago there was a second meeting, shortly after the introduction (here) where a guideline document was handed out. This document I do not have. By the end of the talk I had come to the conclusion that I could either rewrite the entire thing in either a new book or blog format. Or I could try to edit my old one, which would prove very difficult as the only way to do so would be to physically add more pages to the book itself. Alexandra expressing that she would like to see certain elements from my old book carried through, I decided that I would do a blog. That way I will be able to scan in the images of my book and reuse them later, instead of them being a complete waste of time. Below are some of the notes I took:

scan of my sketchbook (ignore the green writing)

When my tutorial was over I left feeling quite empty inside, that changed to anger/frustration at the fact that all the work I had put into my old presentation document (56 A3 pages) was more or less a waste of time. Now not only do I have to struggle with my FMP being very behind, now I basically have to redo my presentation document. I am going to go home and sleep, I can't deal with any more bad news at the moment.

Catalogue Tutorial

Today was our first official day back at university, and we started off talking about our degree show catalogue. Jonny briefly explained to us that we will get  a double page A4 spread and we need to start thinking about submissions. I had hoped that I could use some of my FMP for that, but being very... VERY behind at this point, I just need to concentrate on actually getting it done. I do wonder how they will chose a cover.

2010 illustration catalogue cover by Jon Clark (http://jonclarkdesign.blogspot.co.uk/)

We also had a fundraiser meeting later in the day to talk about serious ways to raise money. We are still far short on our £3000 target, and as far as I know no one has any real suggestions. There have been many talks about trying to raise money by selling work at the university, but nothing ever seems to come from it. As I suspected we did not have any real suggestions this meeting, but we did seem to waste a lot of time repeating ourselves. At this point to be honest I don't think that we will reach our target. Either there will be no London show, or we will all have to pay out of our own pocket to make it happen. Derek our tutor did suggest that we could raise money by holding club nights, as the last few years of illustration have raised large numbers at these events. He mentioned that he might be able set something up with one of the local night clubs... though we all know that might just be an excuse for him to DJ again.

FMP Work Begins

Today I began working on my FMP, not research, not a side project, but actual work! I started on the War poster, and started off simply with permanent markers, and later I will start using Acrylic paint to add a more rough feel.

photograph of drafting film sheet, containing part of my war poster.

I wish there was a quicker way of drawing, as unfortunately even after extensive experiments (see below) the fastest way to get a proper image onto drafting film is to use lumocolor markers, and they need at least two layers.

Drafting film covered in different ink tests.

The only thing that works better than the lumocolor permanent markers, is black acrylic paint, which only needs 1 coat. However the same level of precision cannot be achieved with the paint... well certainly not by me and my meager painting skills. This unfortunately does mean that when I do create a poster on drafting film, it almost takes twice as long due to each drawing needing to be traced twice. There is the alternative of doing it digitally and printing it... not only would this be very expensive for me, but there is nowhere near by that can print drafting film up to A1, and multiple sheets of A3 will be nigh impossible to line up.

The End...

Today I got the phone call that my Grandmother passed away at about 09:14 in the morning. Her funeral will be held on Thursday, an event I cannot afford to go to... one I do not really want to go to, as my aunt and her son will be there. Both individuals who have split my family in two for the last many months, and who are largely responsible for my Grandmothers death, and my grandfathers condition.

Back...

I got back from Denmark a few days ago... I have not made any progress on my FMP, neither have I written down anything for my presentation document for quite some time. The reason for this was more or less a repeat of what happened last Christmas (Negotiated Study), though worse. Upon coming back to Denmark I learned that things had changed quite a bit since last time, for example my grandmother was diagnosed with liver cancer quite some time ago apparently.

While in Denmark I spent all my time either visiting the hospital, either trying to spend some last moments with my grandmother, who by all accounts has got 2 months left to live at best... however with each passing day she changes from the women I once knew, to a yellowing corpse. I can truly say I have never seen anything so tragic in my entire life. On the day I left for England I said my final goodbyes to and old women who practically recoiled in fear from me, believing me to be my aunts junkie son.

To make the whole matter worse my grandfather has chosen the side of my aunt, barely visiting his wife in hospital, instead turning to woman who only a few months ago poisoned him, and abducted him for several weeks. It disgusts me to see a regular figure in my life in such a new light. I was never more heartbroken than to in one week have to say goodbye to my grandmother, and emotionally give up on my grandfather.

Yeah this is why I have not found the motivation to continue working on my Final Major Project.