30.11.10

Oh Hello...


Alternative Press Fair last Sunday in Euston. I went in the hope of finding some Mark Pawson books as I found out about the event through his website but, sadly, there were none. However the entire place was filled with tables full of artists books, zines and comics. Ended up purchasing a couple of books, one of which is 'Oh Hello..." by Lucy Porter. Nice drawings, rather sinister:


27.11.10

A way to arrange things.

Still working on the Shrine project with Ben, we put all my keyrings in colour order. If there's any way to arrange stuff, by colour is definitely my favourite. We'll continue looking at this and also how to display my collections, possibly in some kind of structure built in the workshop. Work in progress.

26.11.10

Bought

Purchased on ebay this week. They are really very small, only 1x1cm each. I am also having a stamp delivered of Jesus carrying a cross which I won at auction for £1.48. Currently, I'm crazy for stamps and printing. I am even beginning to type all my lists using my typewriter, rather than scribbled straight into my notebook. For example, yesterday's list:



23.11.10

Oxford


I took a trip to Oxford today with my Shrine Project partner, Ben. With an aim to research arrangement of objects and collections, we visited the Pitt Rivers Museum and Natural History Museum. This should help us find a way of arranging my collections in a way that suits his clean and tidy way of life.








The Pitt Rivers museum turned out to be the most useful regarding the project. It was founded in 1883 by General Pitt Rivers who collected a few things himself but acquired most of the objects from auction houses or from other collectors, mainly travelers. The items are grouped by type or function and Rivers tried to put them in order of technical complexity in some cases. How the objects are labeled and stored in cabinets could be helpful when thinking of how to display my collection. All in all, a very worthwhile and enjoyable trip.

Practicing with eatable type

Following the previous post about building letters, we must all create a piece of type (same character and typeface as other project) to be destroyed. I tried making my 's' out of salt crystals which would then be destroyed by being dissolved, however, this has not worked out.


Instead, I am going to try feeding my typography to a rabbit. This time made out of apple. I began experimenting last night (see photo above), however the apple was a bit soft. So, today I purchased much firmer apples. Tesco Crunchy Granny Smiths to be precise. Tomorrow I'm going to Marylebone to borrow by friend's flatmate's rabbit so hopefully the results will be successful.

I also tried cutting papyrus out of some stale ciabatta I had. Not quite such a good result.

Bad type in the workshop

As part of a Bad Type project at Chelsea, each student was assigned a letter to make in the workshop. We continued using the bad typefaces used in a previous project. This left me with lower case 's' in Papyrus. It was great fun in the workshop sawing and sanding the mdf into shape, despite all the nooks and crannies of my letter. Each letter will be painted white and the class will have a 'family day out' around London photographing where we go. More posts to follow.


22.11.10

Just because I love Nan Goldin

That is all.

Back in 2002...

I went home to Newcastle a couple days ago and was looking through my magazine collection and came across these. This is the sort of thing I was reading aged 10. Clearly typography was not an issue back then when choosing a magazine. Nor am I a huge fan of colour now and every page in these is saturated with the brightest colours on the spectrum. Half these magazines are filled with flow charts, for example, 'What is your pyjama style?' as seen below. The rest is 'Cringe' stories and posters of noughties pop stars like Blue, Gareth Gates, Sclub 7, Steps....you can imagine the rest. Or maybe don't.


St Pauls


I took a little night walk around St Paul's Cathedral the other night. It looks even grander at this time when lit up by the floodlights. I thought the last photo looked really interesting when turned upside down, just an idea. Night walks in London, especially by the Thames, are something everyone should do a couple times a year at least. I love this city.


18.11.10

I heart rubber stamps


A couple of days ago I received a box of rubber stamps of the alphabet. The greatest present I have been given for some time. I had already thought about starting a new collection of rubber stamps so this surely is a sign I must do so, Mark Pawson style. I have since ordered little bird stamps to print Christmas cards which my parents are commissioning me to make for them.

Shadow Catchers

I went to the V&A last week to see Shadow Catchers. The exhibitions showcases work from five contemporary artists who work without a camera. Instead, they create images on photographic paper by casting shadows, manipulating light or chemically treating the surface of the paper. It was amazing but at the same time amazingly complex how such images were created, especially the work of Pierre Cordier who uses the chemigram process. I still don't fully understand it so here's an example of his work.

13.11.10

Letterpress Day

Letterpress day at the New North Press in Hoxton. We went there as part of a project called the Cockney Alphabet. Each of us was given a letter and what is stands for. For example:

A for 'orses
B for you go
C for miles
...etc




I was given the letter M. In the alphabet, 'M for sis'. I then had the task of finding suitable typefaces to visually represent this, or at least make it look pretty. We had to work within a certain space to create each of our letters so they could be printed in a grid on the final poster. Our work will the exhibited on the 9th December in an exhibition.



I had a brilliant day and letterpress is definitely something I'd like to learn more about. Last year I went on a Printmaking course at Edinburgh College of Art summer school which sparked my interest in printing. The physicality of it is much more satisfying than working on a computer, generally. Hopefully I'll be posting more prints on here soon.

11.11.10

No Ifs, No Buts, No Education Cuts

I joined the student demo on 10th November to protest. Along with 52000 others, we marched against Tories' proposed 30% cuts to the arts council budget and an increase in tuition fees by £6000-9000. Students all over the UK, from Edinburgh to Plymouth, joined the procession. I carried my 'arts cuts: worse than comic sans' sign, which turned out to be very popular. And Very true. We gathered at the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square and marched down Whitehall to Westminter then ended by Milbank Tower, Tory headquarters. Paige and I bought snacks and watched the riot kick off then left for Chelsea as the police arrived. Unfortunately the protest turned violent with 35 people being arrested. The tuition fee increase is not set to take place until 2014, after I graduate, however, how the government expect anyone but the upper classes to pay that for a degree is beyond me. Without getting political, it was a brilliant day and I loved being part of a cause so worthwhile.



UAL and other arts students met at the Fourth Plinth


Protesting outside the Houses of Parliament


Protesters on the roof of Milbank Tower


My friend Lara has written an article for the UAL magazine, Less Common More Sense. It sums up the day perfectly so please follow the link below.

http://wearelesscommon.com/2010/11/nus-demonstration-against-education-cuts/


I'm just nuts about...


Brief: do a 3 minute presentation about something you're passionate about. I chose Collecting and made a short reel of images showing a small proportion of my items. Other passions included pet dogs, fat cats, fire, shoes, chicken, leggings, grandma's apple pie, tea, cake, iron bru, butter, playing live music, oreos, home and painting. To name a few.

Part two will be to create a shrine to our passions in pairs. I was paired with Ben who is passionate about being tidy, he probably has OCD. I'll post whatever we come up with in due course.

9.11.10

Vogue Cover


Cover illustration by Georges Lepape. Designed for Vogue USA, February 1929. Seen at the Drawing Fashion exhibition at the the Design Museum. Only managed to get half way around the the display but the work is definitely worth a second visit! Very beautiful illustrations from 1920 to present including amazing images by Antonio from 60s-80s.

Logos: conclusion



Continuing from previous work on the Logos project, I ended up creating a logo based on the word 'wahooo'. It reflects the excitement and ups and downs of higher education/first year graphics. The above two images are experiments I did before creating the final logo.

Below is the final logo I submitted for assessment. I was not as satisfied with the result as I had hoped so will work on it further. Letter thickness should be greater and the word more rollercoaster shaped. More like a mixture of the above two images.

8.11.10

Toy Soldiers

Lead toy soldiers from Spitalfields market. Temporarily misplaced but at least I have this photograph of them heading into battle until we are reunited.

Frank


This halloween I dressed up as a bloody Frank-N-Furter. 'Boss' tattoo and all. I think the make-up is a piece of artwork in it's own right, thanks to my lovely friend and flatmate Anna Ross. Although I generally hate musicals, I love the Rocky Horror Picture Show, somehow the sinisterness of the film and weird characters makes it very enjoyable.

At Chelsea College, we currently have a project about iconic photographs where we each must reenact an iconic image of our choice. Dressing up as Frank was one of my ideas but don't think a girl dressed up would be as humorous as a man in drag. I have a few thoughts and will post the photograph from the shoot in due course.

6.11.10

Swarm

Swarm by Tessa Farmer, 2004. Seen during a visit to Newspeak: British Art Now at the Saatchi Gallery yesterday afternoon. Made from desiccated insect remains, dried plant roots, and other organic ephemera. Each handcrafted figure stands less than 1cm tall. Very beautiful.