Experiments

Stick drawings

We did a form of loose drawings by wrapping equipment we could draw/ paint with on a stick which was about arms length. I found the outcome of this experiment to have been a expressionist drawing with more sense of freedom and exploration without being concerned to much with percision.

This is a collection of images taken from my window instalation. The equipment i used was felt tip pens and mixed paint applied with cotton balls, i found it really hard to control the stick in which direction it was going, to get it near to my initial target i had to slowly point the stick towards the paper rather than going in like i would if done by hand. This was rather a hard task as it was more about the position of your body and how you move you whole arm rather than just the wrist or hand, every material used worked differently as had little control over the pressure you had when impacting the page or percisely where you was going to.



Mark Making Experiments

For this Experiment i used different objects which can be used to make different effects other than using a brush




Experiment I

The items i used here was a zig zag roller sink mesh and a toy car. I used different colours to explore more in what the objects could be used for and quickly annotated using keywords of what I thought about it. I found the zig zag rolled very difficult to use as it didn't fully place the design on the paper or using to much paint filled in the gaps between the zig zag design on the roller and it came out like blob of paint on the page, I ended up using a brush to fill in the gaps where the roller failed to cover. The sink mesh didn't create a perfect design like i would've hoped because the paint seeped under the mesh and blended the different individual colours i was using so didn't rest in where I initially placed it, I also had a problem with keeping the mesh steady I often had to hold it down to get the paint in-between the gaps. Both of these objects may be used to deliberately make imperfect designs, but at this point that's the only advantage i can see using these objects.

Experiment II

Items:

• Nail brush
• Toothbrush 
• Comb

I found the experiment on the left hand corner in red particularly interesting. I used the nail brush to repetitively dab the paint on the page which created a refined blotchy velvety design. The comb I found could be used to create very intricate designs when scraping the paint in different directions looks much like woven material. The toothbrush funny enough created more of an even surface for the paint rather than the lines you would expect to see from the  brushes hairs, but when leaving the page it created this imperfect design especially when you curved the brush, i later layered colours (red) on top of the yellow and it sort of looked like flames.

Experiment III

The experiment on top was made with a piece of rectangular foam (vaguely illustrated in the right hand corner) I used acrylic paint to layer the colours which were individually left to settle on the page then  layered other colours one on top of the other in different directions. It created a smooth velvety texture which also looks quite natural.




The circular shapes on the bottom was an attempt to make a design out of a sink filter but because of it's shape the individual holds didn't meet the page effectivly enough and the paint seeped through into the other holes. 














Experiment IV

the design that looks as if the paint has been scratched into the paper was made aluminium kitchen sponge used to clean difficult stains off of dishes, it had created an uneven and blotchy texture  as well as a jagged effect created when brushing the paint. The series of rectangles in purple and yellow was created using a wooden rolling pin which i found was relatively good for making even pattens if the paint was evenly placed on all sides of the pin.


























Experiment V


For the following experiments we took the tools we had used previously to making observation drawings of leaves.

This first experiment was made using a piece of rectangular foam and a toy car to make the leaf's skeleton. I attempted to use the same technique I used in Experiment III where I let the paint settle on the page before I layered colours over them. 















This experiment was made using the foil sponge and a miniature foam board I used a combination of blotching to represent the leaf's deterioration and light brushing for the skeleton and the stem.
































Mono Printing


mono printing is a process where you place a piece of paper over a thin layer of paint preferably rolled on and you draw over the paper to get the print.

I took the outline from my paper cuts, traced it and coloured it in. It created this cool imprint from my finger and a ring on the end of the page that looks like a coffee stain.

This piece is the second attempt to making a loose interpretation of my alpro soya box i think this was more sucessful that my first attempt as i wasn't concerned wth making it percise. The image was made without having the pencil leave the page then doing the same with another colour (red)  making for a very lax drawing and standoffish effect from the overlapping of a bolder colour.

This is one of the characters off my M&M packet in my first installation i thought it would be intersting to draw. With this print the paint smudged where I was resting my hand on the paper the blue paint also was to to slightly wet 

Cliche' Verre

The Process:

• Choose image of which to draw from.
• Place transparent paper or clear film over image and tape the edges to keep it in place.

• Use permanent marker or acrylic paint or any opaque substance to trace the image on your choice of material (the outcome of the selected areas blanked out will come out white)
• Take completed image to dark room and place image on top of light sensitive photopaper
•  Set the gauge to how dark you want the image to be and press start
• take image and submerge in beach mixture tray leave until image is completely shown
• put it in the fix mixture and leave for 3 mins
• The put image in water and leave for 2 mins
  This image was taken from my

this was taken from the pictures in my summer journal
about my trip to the history museum using a  permanent marker. I think if I had reversed the print blocking out the background and parts of the dear that this would've made a better print but instead i played towards the obvious

this is another print taken from my summer journal of my mum's car. what I like about this print is the broken down and simplified outlines of black and white which i think especially works in this negative.                                    

This is from my installation of a kinder bueno wrapper using red acrylic paint I think the paint in some areas worked really well to block out the are's that i didn't want to come out but in others the paint wasn't thick enough i think with paint especially you have to keep going over it to insure a clean result.



Summer Project

My summer Diary 




Week I

I started my short video logs surrounding my boring everyday routines which generally consist of watching TV, eating, ignoring the sensibilities of getting summer homework done early and taking a nap in-between.

Eating the final 13 chicken nuggets out of the 20 'share' box I got from Mc Donald's the previous day was one of the highlights of my week, along with going with some friends to M&M World which was a hassle to get to as it wasn't put in a very noticeable place, and in the whole frustration of my phone failing to bring us to the location we eventually had to ask for directions. I didn't buy anything at M&M world but I did happen to make it up by spending  my money on food, subway, CocaCola, and a Hong Kong waffle that I got from Trocadero (by which we found out that their arcade had closed down).

Back to my healthy breakfast of Mcnuggets that i reheated at precisely 1:10 seconds in the microwave to clarify i didnt keep the box to use later in my art work because it wouldn't have been to sanitary so though this is irrelevant I will briefly record the 5 senses now:

Smell - crayons ( the box)

Touch - note to self, before you nearly burn the tips of your fingers again it would be wise to let them cool down awhile, steam isn't always inviting, it's mostly a sign of caution!

Taste - like a Mcnugget

Sound - sizzling from the internal to external heating process of the microwave

Sight - the box sagging on the bottom from the heat near turned to water vapour, the golden crinkled near perfect circular shaped crafted by GOD him/herself/thing/energy spirit thing.

This week I also felt inspired to write down the dribble that was in my head and called it 'The notes that nobody is meant to read'

“Right so this is the beginning of 'The notes nobody is meant to understand or meant to read' I've noticed from watching Ryan Leslie and others (not that this is a new realisation) that Hip Hop beats ( not just HipHop beats Khannah) are all built from a single idea (like everything). I thought it best if I actually wrote this down then just having it in my head every time I have an idea for a beat. I can choose for it to be and sound organic e.g. piano, drum kit. Electronic or both, either way awesome, but before I get started I should have an idea of structure actually not just an idea of structure an IDEA which basically something that IS going to happen then just having being jumbled with the rest of the crap in my head. Structure means to me NOT just how I plan for it to go melodically but also the instruments I plan to build up on it. I will find this very stupid and unnecessary when I look back on this, but damn it future me don't you dare get rid of this this is how you think so deal with it.” Makes no sense, but I like how I slightly verbally abuse myself in the end...

Messing with Mum

Week II

I DID NOTHING!! there was nothing to do but kind of get a clue and realise that summer isn't for ever so I read a little of 'A Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood ( which is an assignment for English Lit) I got to page 50 in one sitting, but it starts on page 13 so I don't really see this as an achievement, the fact that I! me! started doing what I was told without any pressure of time I would say is an achievement though. I went to the dentist for get a filling replaced from my temporary one, I suppose that's something...I ate an ice cream cone I didn't like because it was a Cornetto which means it has a frozen cone which I'm not to fond of, I much prefer the waffle cones that you get from ice cream vans, they're a lot user friendly as they don't cut the roof of my mouth and taste like flavoured, frozen, brown breaded cardboard! My tooth (the tooth with the impossibly small filling) I found later in the week is quite sensitive to both cold and heat I get a sharp sour pain I might, if this continues have to go back and see what's wrong.

Week III

So i started off the week by going to the Doctors surgery to get a referral for a allergy test which i later found out from my doctor that i didnt have an allergy but was kind of a relief because it had been a nuisance for many years now,  9yrs to be exact ( I'm 17 you do the math ) I being the oblivious person i am didnt take notice to the build up of traffic and exceptional amount of buses coming down the main road on my way home as anything but normal later i heard that there had been riots for the last 3 days!! I spent the rest of the week bumming around the house with my paranoid mother who wouldn't go to work because we worked close to the magistrates court in Camberwell, but we eventually went on Saturday.

This is the only use I could find for this Jehovah's Witness

leaflet.

The Magistrates court was packed with these vans

They were handling serious bid'ness

After work we went to Sainsburys and I found this cereal which I thought was to appropriate for bran flakes.

Week IV

 I went National history museum with a friend to make up for the plans that got ruined because of the riots last week. I met up with her in Balham and we made our way there by tube which were humid and crowded, I usually walk towards the first carriage to avoid such problems, but she told me I was being 'anti-social', strange that after the whole cramped tube experience that suddenly on our way back anti-social = free seats...sometimes they need to learn the hard way. when we got there we had no idea of which entrance to go in through and I'm surprised we get anywhere with our navigation skills. I didn't have any particular places I wanted to go but my friend wanted to go and see the life sized blue whale which we had to work our way up to because they organised the areas into sections and there was really only one direction you could go so we had to go through several other zones to get to where we wanted to. When we got to the blue zone I wasn't so much impressed by the blue whale but the name of this dear. I know it seems childish, but how do these things come about?who decides these names? I mean your just encouraging for easily amused people like me to laugh at it. For lunch we decided to go to subway where I had a chicken sub with sweetcorn, lettuce, olives, and BBQ sauce, we found a convenient place to sit at the bus stop where most of my sandwich ended up on the floor, we returned to the museum to look at the rest of the exhibits and staying away from the creepy crawler section because my friend is terribly afraid of spiders and it didn't help that that was the first thing you saw through the archway leading to it.  This week was also the week where I got my exam results where I extremely failed in English and felt really disappointed for the whole of the week, but it did help that I had friends around and fast food to keep me company, why not eat when your in a state of depression.

I don't know why but I must of had a craving of nuggets all summer

^

I tend to play with my phone camera when I'm bored waiting for my mum I thought I captured some good shots playing with the focus and colour

v

According to my friend this is me, I casually pointed to the statue of Medusa and said "That's you" 

^


Heehe...Dik-Dik


v

Week V

I wanted to go to the Toy museum so I dragged the friend that I went Natural History museum with me, before we went I asked her if she could look up its location, surprise that when we got there it was just a small toy shop/ museum and we had to pay £4 for entry, this was maybe the most awkward moments deciding whether it was worth paying for or not, but we did just for the sake of being there already. Apparently from what I gathered from my lack of paying any attention to the current surroundings that all the toys were made from this guy named pollack, but I was distracted by the fact that I had soo many questions like "did the website look like a publicly funded national institutional professional website with updates of upcoming temporary exhibits?" and "I know you said on the site that it was free entry but...?"

After the museum we went to find some food I decided to take a risk and get Mac and cheese that I saw in sainsburys to eat at home, it tasted like processed cheese with macaroni, but I'm not complaining it was all right. 

Later in the week I went to see the Smurf Movie with a couple of friends, it was a standard family film and well it didn't make me hate myself for spending money on it. I always found it strange that Smurfette is the only girl Smurf and was kind of 'adopted' by Papa Smurf because he 'saved' her from her creator Gargamel the evil wizard, (she was made to seduce the other Smurfs so he could take their blueness or something) and how did he name all of his kids after their traits? Clumsy Smurf couldn't just trip out of the womb, but the film was Smurferific.

Even the Doll's were scared to be in that museum (don't ask me why they're naked)

I remember playing super market with stuff like these in Primary School, the little plastic fruit and boxes of cereal and soap powder, then you'd go to the Till and pay with monopoly money and Lego pieces and do it all over again...Good times.

I was in the pound shop with my mum getting a few items, one I remember specifically was leather sofa cleaner anyways the price of this Charlotte Church CD made me laugh. Oh how far she's come after the flop of her album...and TV show.

Professional photography moment I had in the car. My mum left the car window open and I started to rain, at least my seat wasn't wet.



http://www.spicynodes.org/a/69af2a76fb18ea820b2be6fb0eb6b864

http://www.spicynodes.org/a/69af2a76fb18ea820b2be6fb0eb6b864

LIFT Project and Artist Analysis

Intro to the Artists
The three main artists i will be analysing are the LIFT organisation artists Dan Scott, Edaward George, and Sue Mayo who were also the artists of which we spent a three day session understanding the importance of process and archiving for our memories project.

Sue Mayo

Sue is our lead artist on the project.  Since 2008 she has been developing innovative participatory work for the LIFT Living Archive, exploring ways of bringing to life the collection with educational and community groups. Sue is a theatre maker and community artist with 30 years of experience and endless energy.  By bringing together different art forms she enables diverse community groups to create their own work; writing, performance, visual practice or site-specific work.  She is Associate Artist for Magic Me, the UK’s leading inter-generational arts organization and Associate tutor on the MA in Applied Drama at Goldsmith’s, University of London. - http://www.liftfestival.com/events/past-events/and-the-winner-islondon/the-artists

What Sue says about the project:

"The work that the participants discover through the archive opens their eyes to new ways of working, and making performance.  It has been exciting for us as artists to use different shows from the LIFT archive in each school, and to develop completely different pieces in each place."

Dan Scott

Dan is our sound artist on the project. He has been working with the children to create soundscapes of their school environments, record interviews, and make unusual sounds using everyday objects.  Dan completed an MA in Sound Arts at the London College of Communication and has taken his recording equipment all over Europe for performances, exhibitions, concerts and residences. He has lead several workshops and is a tutor on listening and aurality at Central School of Speech and Drama.  Look out for his work at the Roundhouse for NetAudio 2011. 

Music For Doorbells

"This track is based on the sounds of the doorbells found in two of the four buildings here at Sproutbau. We walked through each of the buildings, recording the wide variety of tones, pitches and rings from the bells, working our way slowly through all the apartments. The final track uses bells in just one key, and explores the resonant effect of different spaces, and different connotations of certain sounds." http://sproutbaurecord.blogspot.com/

Link to the Dan's site and the track

http://www.trishscott.org/sproutmusic.htm#

First impressions

The piece reminded me of the strange minimalist music that often have irregular rhythms with reoccurring sounds the various sounds put together aren't generally complimentary and so sound dissonant and often clash creating an unsettling atmosphere.

Description

• Uses effects such as panning manipulating the space of sound 
• Uses various generic door bell sounds
• The different melodies are partially combined to make different rhythms 
• Constantly irregular in rhythm
• Simple melodies turned complex 
• The various sounds are often reoccurring
• Unsettling tone
• Clashing of different melodic sounds 
• Certain sounds are startling due to the irregular rhythm 
Attention is drawn to the various doorbell sounds

Facts

• Uses generic doorbell sounds
• Edited using sound editing software
• Collaboration piece of 50 sound artists including Dan himself
• Each individual sound was recorded separately  >> http://dai.ly/l4c2Kz
• All in one Key

Analysis 
Its hard to determine the mood as it doesn't really follow the rules within contemporary music and it's more rhythmically oriented but, I think the piece is very experimental and its kind of unsettling in that sense that were not used to hearing such music. the sound was created by taking different doorbell sounds which were individual melodies and created a new piece based on them. Getting the sounds all in one key and deciding on the pieces structure I believe must have been the hardest part in the production of the composition. The media used was probably microphones an empty space and music production software and I think the artists have done well in collecting the different doorbell sounds and working together in putting there individual touch on how to structure the sounds and taking a single idea and somewhat exploring it. Edward George

Edward is a visual and sound artist, writer, director and producer.  He co-founded the multi-media arts group Flow Motion with Anna Piva in 1996 and their sound art performances have taken place at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, and the Science Museum Dana Centre in London as well as other international destinations.  Edward was Artistic Associate for the Bernie Grant Arts Centre in 2010 and is currently working on a collaborative on-line archival project exploring the theme of the Promised Land. - http://www.liftfestival.com/events/past-events/and-the-winner-islondon/the-artists
Promised Lands project - http://www.iniva.net/pl/intro/
First impressions The site explores the theme Promised lands and how it has transcended through time in music through the ages. I think that it is kind of daunting and inspiring how one idea has effectively been and inspiration for composers  in music for centuries and this site is used to trace back their earliest findings.
Facts: They've traced 100 songs relating to the theme  The website was created in 2008  The two artists involved are Edward George and Anna Piva  There earliest finding so far is in 1707 created during an artist research residency at the international institue of visual arts (Iniva)  Description:  Basic site filled with information about 'Promised Lands' Calming single images on each webpage that may be related to the theme promised lands Has introductory to how the project has progressed Archives music related to the theme 'Promised lands' Analysis: The site has both a religious and secular mood, religious because it is has proven to be a significant influence in music through the ages and secular because it explores a theme of interest that continues to be of both influence and importance. I think the site is very informative and uses archiving as a form of documentation in how a term or phrase can be interpreted throughout the ages through time. The hardest thing I believe was the researching and locating of music throughout the ages relating to the theme, I think they have done well in getting a broad range of content from the 18th century to present day.