Two weeks of print over and now onto animation!

So for the last two weeks I had been in the print elective with Des and Fiona. I learned so much in print, how to do drypoint, woodblock and I improved on my monoprinting technique a lot.  We didn't need to use our blogs much so hence why I'm only updating my blog now! 

 

Animation:

So yesterday I started animation. We have to create a 15 second stop motion. The heading I picked was I opened the door and... so I got to brainstorming and came up with a whacky random idea! I talked to Paul about it and he told me to go for it, no matter how crazy it was. The crazier the better! 

Okay so here's my story so far, well knowing me I'll probably add a zombie penguin or flesh eating marshmallows somewhere along the way! 

• A cat is walking along and suddenly spots a door with a sign saying STAY OUT written on it. The cat stared at the door for a second and then looks back at the camera with a cheeky grin. 
• The cat opens the doors and walks through it into a seemingly empty room. 
•  He comes across a wooden box and he stops and stares at it curiously before dropping to the ground and crawling towards it. 
• The box starts to make noise so the cat pokes it. The box then jumps into the air and continues to make noise.
• Suddenly a penguin flies out of the box sitting on a UFO. The penguin hops off it and walks away. 
• The cat stares in shock as the UFO slowly moves towards him.
• The UFO stops over the cat and shines a beam of light onto him. 
• It ends with the cat staring at the camera scared and confused. 

Prints

Sorry I haven't been posting over the last three weeks, I've been so busy over Christmas that I've been neglecting my blog a bit.
Anyway, I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year!

I got some prints done over the holidays, but some of them didn't work out but at least I tried!
I tried etching but that didn't work too well and I also tried using white spirits as a drawing tool but that didn't come out as planned either... BUT! Here is what I came up with:

Collagraph...

Recently I made a collagraph as an experimentation of lines and dept.
I covered MDF with polli-filla, cardboard, strips of wallpaper and strips of paper. I pushed wires into the polli-filla to get lines and i also drew free hand onto it.

I talked to my tutor Mary who suggested I talk to Des about it and how to print it. So off I went to find him, and find him I did! Des suggested I come down to the print workshop the following day to see how to go about printing it.
At the workshop I was shown how to ink a collagraph which is done very differently to other types of printing. Des told me that the whole board itself would take over an hour and a half to ink and it might not work so I was sent to the materials store to get it cut up into 6 small pieces to make the process quicker.

 When I came back I inked up one of the pieces which unfortunately was an incredibly slow process.
Finally I had one inked and off I went to get Des. He had to use a presser and press is several times to get the print to come out. Because the collagraph was deep a lot of it wouldn't print so I was told not to print the rest of them and that the board itself was effective enough.
This is the print I was left with:

I really like this print and even though it doesn't really relate to my cats eyes it does give an effect of lines that aren't defined. 

Electrical Tape on a Wall... Exciting Stuff!

This was a project I did last week and the week before but because my memory card broke I'm only putting up pictures now.

First I put two A1 sheets together and stuck electrical tape vertically on it but as it progressed I started to put a slight curve and wiggle into the lines almost like an illusion. 

After that I put it on the wall outside my studio and continued to work with the tape on the wall continuing on the lines into a curve.

At the end of the curve I overlapped the tape to create texture and a contrast to the smooth lines. It ended with black tape meeting at a point. I did this to create the idea that the tape had faded and was lifeless, something filled with movement, illusion, colour and line was now dead and ordinary. 

The overall piece: 

I loved making this piece! Its based off the pictures I took on the motorway of the blurred cats eyes.. how the lines go from straight and smooth, to curving, to overlapping and tension and then to fade into the distance.

Plaster Cast

I spent most of this week in the casting room trying to make casts of lines using wool, cardboard and stripped cardboard. Unfortunately it took me the majority of the week to eventually get the hang of how to cast. But, I did get some pretty cool lines with the cast cardboard.
I dripped ink down along the hollows to emphasis the lines a bit more. I think it's interesting how the ink took its own path and spread out into little veins along the high ridge.

 The coloured ink cast from behind. I really liked the shades of them and how they came through onto the other side.

Discipline Talks.. AH DECISIONS!

On Tuesday and Thursday we had fine art and design talks and how each subject works as the years progress. At first I had an idea of what I wanted to do but now after going to all the talks, I have no idea. All subjects grabbed my interest and now I'm completely lost in what to pick for my three electives after Christmas! Great! It doesn't help that I'm the most indecisive person ever.

Design is the area I think would suit me better but I did like what some of the fine art subjects had to offer like sculpture and print. Ah! I'm so lost. I know that the two weeks are only a trail run to get a taste for the subject but I just hope I can pick three that will give me a thrill.

Its going to be a long weekend deciding what three I'll pick. I hope I'll pick the right three and don't waste two weeks of a subject that I'm going to hate.

Line instillation... sure what else is a stairs for?

I had a very productive weekend this week! I built a HUGE instillation (14ft  x 12ft) across a staircase and a balcony using coloured wool and wrapping them around the banisters.

The instillation is based on the cats eyes on the motorway and the lines created. 

I loved making this piece, even though after 5 hours of throwing wool up and down a stairs and over the balcony I started to get a bit sick of it! But I'm so happy with the result!