Glow sticks they said.. be grand I said...

Its Halloween so what the heck, lets go a bit crazy with my project!
I got a crazy notion into my head when looking at blurred motion and lights. Why not use glow sticks to create a blurred light movement! So off I went and got myself some glow stick.
At first I just moved them around a black page to get motion:

One glow stick.

 Two glow sticks.

Then I cut them up to draw with the liquid:

 Drawing with the liquid from the stick.

 Held up against a window to get the glow effect.

 When a piece of paper is held behind it, the lines glow. 

I loved the movement created in the drawing and the light created. Even though I would love the cut open more tubes and make a massive piece like I had planned, but the smell from just one stick was enough to make me open every single window in the house and still feel drowsy after it. When I cut it open the tube burst and I destroyed the kitchen table, thankfully my mother wasn't at home to see her table almost radioactive.

 Safe to say I won't be cutting up anymore of those smelly chemical tubes! I want to keep my nose away from that smell. 

Blurred pictures

These are just some blurred pictures I took of dogs, people and a car wheel moving. 

Issey Miyake

I was sent an email from one of my tutors recommending this video:

The way the shape of the body is portrayed is so simple and effect. The movement and angles are evident and the way the form is manipulated to form other shapes, and even abstract ones is something that triggers my curiosity a bit. Words in white contrast with the black background and the light created from this simple thing is fascinating, it highlights the key parts of the body. This video is really intriguing.

Progress Review

So today was the day I had my progress review and to be honest, I was nervous about it. I didn't know what to expect from it. Two tutors came to look at my work. I had written out a statement saying what my concept was and how I was trying to explore it. Then I talked the tutors through my sketchbook, contextual and the pieces on my wall. They liked my photography which I was thrilled about! I had previoulsy been told to ease off on the photos but from I was told today, photography is the way to go!

I was shocked when one of the tutors asked me if I enjoyed doing my project and did I like it. Of course I said yes, but I bit the bullet and said straight out that I had no idea what angle to tackle it from and it was something I had to put effort into. He knew that, he said that by just looking at my sketchbook and sketches that I wasn't enjoying what I was doing. I completely agreed with him because frankly I don't like what is in my sketchbook and the angle I have been told to approach this from by others.


From that point on I was given really helpful tips into what I should be looking at with my project. Photos I had already taken of fast moving objects and blurred lights really interested the tutors and they advised me to go down that route. How motion is blurred.
They looked at my blog too and they said that my photos had a much bigger impact on the computer screen than on my wall.

Another thing that one of the tutors said that struck a cord with me was that instead of trying to show what my sight is like I should try to invent ways in a 3D way that people can experience blurred vision for themelves. I love this idea!!

Today was a massive help to me and I have a renewed interest in my project. I'm looking forward to exploring this new angle.

Charocoal gone... BIG.

I really like the idea of blurring and smudging charcoal with my fingers and this led me to make a large scale drawing of a forestry using just one piece of charcoal. I used A0 brown paper but I had to cut a bit of the page off as I made a pretty big mistake by smudging the majority of the other side of the page with my arm. Drawing this size wasn't a problem for me just because I love working large scale and zooming in on things.
As I'm a bit if a perfectionist when it comes to drawing, I'm never happy with what 's on the page, I must always have my rubber within arms reach so I can rub out something every few seconds. I'm trying to push myself out of my comfort zone by trying NOT to use my rubber at all so doing this piece was a bit of a challenge for me. Instead of a rubber I just used my finger to smugde it out making the mistake still visable just less prominent.

 

 Close up.

An area that was smudged out.



Charcoal Experiments in my sketchbook

The last two days I've been experimenting with charcoal by just drawing to try and improve my drawing skill and technique with charcoal, like my tutor had suggested.
I really liked using charcoal and the lines it created on the page, both thick and thin were created by rolling the charcoal along the page and just letting it glide along. When I made a mistake I didn't use a putty rubber to fix it I just used my fingers to blur it out. This created something really interesting.. a sense of depth and blur. The drawing wasn't perfect and wasn't defined.
Charcoal will definately be a medium I'll be using a lot more in my project.

 

 I used chalk pastel just to see if it would have the same effect but it didn't.

Antony Gormley

Antony Gormley is one artist that to be honest, I didn't perticular look into with great detail because his work didn't catch me. However in the last few days I found a book called Blind Light and the pieces shown in it made me rethink what I actually thought of his work.
I read a piece in the book titled Blur Space: Blind Light (2007) which talked about how Gormley transformed sculptural space into an area where our senses need to heightened as our sight became useless as the area itself became a 'blur', disorientated.
When I read this I instantly thought "THIS IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO ACHIEVE WITH MY PROJECT!". Before now I was finding it incredabley difficult to find artists that had explored this sense of being blind and how when our sight is altered the world around us changes.

Blind Light 2007

 

Another piece I really liked that related to my project was of a room that Gormley had filled with metal bars sticking out from the floor, walls and ceiling. When you can't depend on your eyesight your hands become the next major sense. There is so many bars in  room that you have to feel around to make sure you're not going to walk into one.

It also gives the sense of fear which I'm also trying to portray in my project. Fear and disorientation is a huge factor when you don't have your sight to depend on. This room creates fear.

 

Hatch (detail) 2007

 

 

David Lilburn

My tutors suggested I look at an Irish artist called David Lilburn. I looked at his book Walking Memories, A Ballynahinch Sketchbook in the library. He's style of drawing is walking drawing. He draws while he walks to create fast movment and quick lines:

 

 

 

 

I really like his style of mark making. He's work gave me inspiration for my own concept and how to improve and work on my sketchbook. The quick lines create movement and its hard to see what the drawing is actually of. I need to work on my drawing technique to try and create this style in my own work. He works with thumbnails and then develops ideas from there.

 

 

A weekend trip that turned into photo craze!

Over the weekend, I went to a car drifting event in Rosegreen in South Tipperary.
On the way down in the car, I decided to mess around taking photos of the hedging and roads from the moving car we were in and I was suprised when the photos actaully came out brilliant and had relevance to my concept! :D Even the photos I took at the event itself had relevance!

 

This Picture was taken through the car windscreen. The suns rays glare through the glass.

 

This photo was taken at the car event. The lights of the car blur and create this illusion of moving light.

 

The car was pulling a u-turn. The car blurs as it moves, its really hard to define the actual shape and outline of the car. 

 

The background is blurred but we can still see the car and its shape even though it is slightly blurred. 

Dan Flavin

Dan Flavin is an American artist. I really love his work and the subject of his pieces. He uses florescent lights to create lights in a space. It very effective in catching our attention and curiosity, he doesn't use the traditional style of art like painting, drawing, sculpture, etc and that's why I really like his work. Even the colour of the lights used is attractive, it changes the space inside the gallery.
The lights reflect off the walls and floors and create a sense of magic. My project relates to his work because of this. The lights reflection becomes one with its surroundings just like how I see with my eyesight.

Friday morning crit

This morning we had a group crit with one of the tuturs. We were put into groups of three and four and we had to evaluate other people in our studios work. It was really interesting to see how the people I see and talk to everyday interperate the term 'space'.
When it came to my turn I was told that I need to get away from the object of the glasses frame and to look at just the lenses. I was also told that I should look more into photography and the camera lense and then maybe look at how the the object in front of the lense moves.
My plan for the weekend is to go to my local Specsavers and ask for old lenses that they would be trowing out and use them in my project.

Wire glasses

Today I made glasses from wire. I made the frames larger to give that goofy vibe and the sterotypical 'geek' look that is the trend at the moment.
The legs of the glasses can be folded back to make them compact and realistic.

 

 

Photos portraying space!

I took a few more photos to help with my understading of the brief. Not all of the phtotos have to do with my concept but I felt that they would help me get a better understanding of the term 'space'. I like to experiment with photograpy and see what objects and subjects can portray that aren't the usual tradition of them having one meaning.

This photo was taken in an area near my house. At the end of the photo you can see an opening, like a gap between the trees. I think this photo is a great rerpresentation of distance and depth. The road almost seems endless but the light at the end breaks the space between the trees.
I can't clearly see what's in the back of the photo as the trees seem to blur into one another and the road fades to a halt into the light. It's almost like the idea of being short sighted, you can see what's in front of you but everything father away blurs together. I'm short sighted.

 

I took this picture one evening when the sun was setting. The shadow of the tree was reflected onto our house. The shapes of the leaves are really interesting, although they have a spooky feel about them they look 3D.

I like the way the reflection of the tree on the house changes the man-made structural space into one that looks organic. The colour is changed too from a magnolia to a dark grey to a pastel yellow/orange. The space and shape is changed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love the way this picture reflects the colour of the sunset. The colours blend into each other and the cloud but also define the shape and space of each individual cloud at the same time. The clouds in the distance shrink and fade into the light and eventually dissapear into the horizon. This photo also shows distance and space. In a way it can relate to my concept of  my visual space and my short distance sight, even though the clouds are defined, they're undifined at the same time.

 

 

This is a picture I took of lapping water at the edge of a lake. We can't clearly see the stones on the bed because of the water over it, creating a glass like effect. The stones are hard to define and as the tiny wave comes in over them the stones beneath become blurred and look magnified, it looks like I'm looking at something through my glasses withough having them on.

 

 

 

Hit a chord

After talking to my tutor today, something she said really hit a chord with me. She said that I need to start contrasting my work and comparing photos I took with each other, for example: take a photo then take the same photo blurry and distorted and compare the two and see how they differ.
Before now I had just been taking pictures of my surroundings and NOT comparing them, but this didn't really show what I was trying to convey.

camera work

The last few days I've been messing around with my camera, taking photos of everything and shaking the camera while im taking the picture to get blurry photos. I want to try and show how everything is blurry through my sight, how colours blur into each other, depth of field and how lines become undifined. I took photos of my surroundings.

The colours from the sunset blur and the light interfears with the landscape.

Blurred.

This was taken throught a window that had rain drops on it. This is like when you look at a light for ages and look away you see dots everywhere, this gives the same effect.

Camera shot

Today in the studio I took pictures of my shoe to compare and contrast photos with my glasses lense on and off the camera lense.
The first photo I took was just of my shoe:

Then from the same distance I took a picture of my shoe through my glasses lense. My shoe has shrunk in size and  looks slightly distorted:

 

 

There is a massive difference between the two photos.