Stressing is depressing

It's the run up to Christmas and I am running on steam. Deadlines are piling up and my extracurricular activities are starting to take precedent. But after this week I will have half finished my Neo-realism essay and can focus on the Newspeak brief. It finding time to do everything that seems to be the issue currently, I will need to work on my time management especially for next year's studio practice 2 I can't be putting this much stress on my shoulders it's not healthy.

Facepaint

 

After considering all my potential options for the Newspeak brief (for a costume design aspect), I have decided to look into using face painting as a way of communicating my emojis. The idea that I was thinking of was sticking with my poetry, and making up an emoji poem with my face and various props. I am quite familiar with face paints having done it every summer for the past four years at kids parties. The images below are what initially inspired me and I want to get to this level of accuracy for the final piece, none of this half-hearted pulled together nonsense. 

 

Branding

So this week we have to go and have a look at company ideas and essentially ways to sell our art to the outside world for commercial use. In all honesty I have been planning my ideas for a wee while, I want my brand to be a reflection of what I am like. I imagine my business cards being sharp clean and simple with just a touch of colour or gold. Just to add a bit of glamour. I got one of my friends to help in designing a logo that has my signature in it, but is for security purposes you can't see the full signature. I think once I get the card sorted the rest of my stationery designs will fall under the same or similar design.

When you get grades the hope fades.

The grades came back for Non-place and I passed but with a 3B which I was not too enthused about. It is incredibly frustrating because I know exactly where I went wrong - that final display was just abominable. All I can do is pick myself and keep going otherwise I think I'd just give up. But mumma didn't raise a quitter.

If I don't learn from my mistakes I won't ever make the grade, it's as simple as that. Yet I am going to allow myself about a week of wallowing in my own self-pity.

Good Grief

Remember how I said I'd stick to my guns and do what I know. That is not what happened.

Instead I am absolutely clueless as to what I might do, I have to do it from a costume design perspective but it doesn't really lend itself to the whole costume design medium. Everything I am thinking of is either installation or digital which I know nothing about.

I do however think that I have found the main subject for the brief as I'm going to look at emojis as a form of language. For the record I do not like emojis at all I find them to be the most irritating little pictures in modern life. They eliminate the craft of writing. Words = good. : D = BAD

New Briefs

Got our new briefs this week. There was me thinking that Non-place was conceptual. I feel like I need to take a course to understand these briefs. I have however taken comfort in one of them which is based around Newspeak from George Orwell's novel 1984. A book which I have read three times. So I think I'm going to stick to my guns and do what I know.

Disappointed

Well my hand-in was an absolute shambles. First of all I'm not an electrician, so my LED lights wouldn't work, I spent all my time trying to make them even flicker. That then meant I had no time to draw detailed final designs or finish my sketchbook properly. Needless to say I was rather stressed out at this point. But, fate dealt it's next hand.

You know the moment when you just feel like hi-fiving someone...in the face...with a chair - I reached that moment. When I was told my exhibition space was in a spot that I couldn't put my model box as there was limited access for wheelchairs (which I totally understand but it was not the thing you want to hear under that pressure). But, what I feel I should also explain was that I had originally had another spot that I had booked out for about four weeks prior to the hand in as it had access to sockets - which had been moved for another display and couldn't fit my work on the same wall. I was at this point left with no spot and very little time to finish my work or even make a half decent display. If it wasn't for the help of my class and friends in the college I don't think I would have gotten through it.

In the end I managed to present something with the help of an extension cable and designs that were speedily drawn/coloured with pastel. It in many ways is only fit for the fire. I am so disappointed.

Sketchbook

 Some of my favourite sketchbook pages, finding this one easy to doodle with.

Bright Lights and a Bigger City

I was doing some explorative work into moods and colours of certain Non-place. The more that I thought about it I thought it would be really dynamic if I created a set that could define the mood of the scene. The best way I thought was LED lights, but the textures I was going to use on my set wouldn't bring it out well enough. It was back to the drawing board.

Then it occurred to me, the lights would show up nicely on white. So my sets all white now which I think makes it look fresher and helps add to the story.

Neo-Realist film

Over the past two years I've developed a more academic respect for film whereas before I just watched films for entertainment. Last year I looked at Akira Kurosawa and John Cassavetes' work, and I started to really appreciate the craft of film-making - the amount of thought that goes into each scene, the story, even what it is being filmed on. Film is considered to be the absolute art as it involves everything creatively both through the digital mediums and physical works. This year I have in a way carried on from my previous year's studies by looking at Neo-realism.

Neo-realism first came to light in post-war Italy with directors such as de Sica, Rossellini, and Fellini being the founders of the movement. Its aim was to show the world the reality of life in Italy rather than the illusion that film had created to hide the socio-economic issues of the country. They used real locations with unprofessional actors to play out some of the rawest story that cinema has ever encounter. It is a movement that I find profoundly interesting and I rather look forward to writing about it.

The Evolution of Eddie

So following on from last week this Non-place story is growing arms and legs. I am fascinated with different patterns I have found on the street, pavement, buildings, etc. What I seem to be noticing most of all is the amount of Non-places there are, an empty spot no longer has no meaning! It's driving me a little bit insane.

Anyway I digress - Eddie's character has gained a characteristic that I sort of stumbled upon. I just so happen to be a massive fan of poetry both reading and writing. Whilst trying to fill in my sketchbook I started having a bit of fun with little rhymes some of them my own others from songs, and I couldn't help but think my lecturers are going to think I am demented. Then I thought what if Eddie was the same, what if people thought he was demented but in reality just struggled to communicate like everyone else. His character would speak entirely in rhyme, whereas everyone would speak in the normal format, the only one who would understand this rambling old man would be a child who has not learnt the conventional way of converse.

I want to make them quite normal looking as well so as not to take away from the setting or the real aspect of the story. There are still so many ideas I'm looking at

Light...Bulb

I had an epiphany! Doesn't happen often so this is rather exciting stuff. Non-place is all about people's relationship with a place and the emotional connection with said place. So keeping in with the theme of homelessness I am making a story about a homeless man named Eddie - inspired by a Glaswegian I met on the train. Eddie sits on the same spot everyday, he meets a variety of different characters while sitting there, ranging from a mother and child character to Bert and Agnes the bickering elderly couple. It will be set out like a play so in the second act I want emphasis on the non-place aspect with the death of Eddie and how no one notices it other then the child that he had once helped. I'm still working out a few odds and ends but I'm full of ideas for this one. Could it be that non-place is actually going to be interesting for me. I'm feeling hopeful.

Non-Place. Non-Hope.

Caught up on my sleep to face another brief this week that comes in the very conceptual form of non-place. I genuinely have no idea how I'm going to tackle this one. Others in the class are even struggling with it, which is sort of a relief. I think I might look into something to do with homelessness and streets. We'll see what happens, but I'm not holding my breath. This could probably be the biggest test for trying to do costume and set design.

Scribble: Concluded

The finished display

Prototype 1

Sketchbook work

The Pencil Sign Off

Well after possibly the most panicked and sleep deprived state I have experienced over the last two years, I have somehow managed to finish with a day to spare. don't ask me how. Somehow I managed to get inspired with a few coloured pencils and florist wire which I have to say I am rather proud of complete with it's very own fashion illustration. Pictures are still to come so watch this space.

Final Year Freak Out

Final year of my course and the fear has begun. Started with a bang as always with a brief based on pencil markings. Looking at the make up of the pencil. The look. The touch. The feel. I'm kind of struggling to make something costume based for it so I might have to do a more fashion based piece. I like the idea of the scribble and the various marks you can make from that. I also think that I'm going to a bit more experimental this year so let the panic begin.

London

Just came back from London, with a fab group of people, lecturers and fellow students alike. Here's a few cheeky pics from the trip. Have a perusal.

Protest

So, as I probably neglected to mention we all received a bit of a shock a few weeks ago when we went to our second class on a Wednesday to find a delightful second brief waiting for us. Protest.


That wasn't our reaction, that was the name of the brief - Protest. We had to choose a topic that we felt passionately about and create a 2D piece for said topic. After a lot of humming and hawing I decided on cyberbullying, after a friend of mine was being trolled on all social media fronts. I saw the effect that it was having on her and it inspired me to help make a campaign. I'm not sure what the nature of my campaign will be, I'm thinking a design for campaign shirts potentially.

RESULTS

The results are in. The votes have been counted and verified. And I can now reveal the grade of my Multiples hand-in. Wonders will not cease as I have managed by some sheer fluke to get a 2F!


I forecast a migration of flying pigs tomorrow, keep your eyes to the skies people.

Time to take it personal

Working on our new brief now - where have we come from, what are we, and where are we going. I really don't like personal projects like this, I prefer basing my work on topics that I have an interest in not basing them on myself. I decided that this time, however, I'm going to create a body adornment piece and hopefully I'll feel less despondent by the end of the project. Time will tell on this case.


I've had a look at a few topics so far I'm drawn to the theme of childhoods and the transition from my parents era, to my childhood, and finally what the modern childhood involves. It is as comfortable as I think I'll be with a personal brief, I don't think I could base it all around me.

So now the end is near and I must face the final deadline...

It's handed in. It's done. It's over. And I am 100% sure that I have failed. It is some of the worst work I have ever produced, I am so embarrassed to even be associated with the coat. In the final photo-shoot for it, I look like a character out of the Human League video! I didn't do justice to any of the writers that I researched and I came up with a much better design right at the end. I just couldn't design a performance piece. If I pass it will be a massive shock to my system.

Eat. Sleep. Stitch. Repeat.

The Multiples project is finally coming to a close. I feel sleep deprivation and an almost unhealthy amount of tea (with additional offerings of cakey biscuits) has been the only thing giving me will power. I should be on track for handing it in on time.