BA(Hons) Fine Art- First Year, Part I

I started my degree at University College Falmouth in September 2009. The first few weeks consisted of set projects that aimed to settle us in, get our ideas going, and break the ice. As an example, here's what I produced in a painting workshop:

The idea behind this was to get us to repeat an image, each time making use of different techniques, approaches and backgrounds. I found it really useful but getting all those windows in the right places was pretty soul-destroying after 2 days of it!

The next two were for a two-week project entitled "Transcriptions". Each person was assigned a painting to do a contemporary version of- we could take any aspect of the painting and update it however we liked. 
I was given "Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump" by Joseph Wright: 

My idea was to look at reactions to death. I showed people internet videos of things like 9/11 and images of starving children, and filmed their reactions. Cheerful, I know! I then took screenshots and created two paintings from them:

I decided to do them pixellated to convey the fact that there is a contemporary fascination with watching death on the internet. In this instance, the "death" has gone through several reproductions before it was presented to the subjects, whereas in Wright's painting it was right in front of them.

This was the project that inspired my train of thought when we started Independent Study (left completely to our own devices for the first time- eek!). I began to cut up colour charts and use them to create collages inspired by pixellated photographs:

It's a LOT more difficult to do this than you would think. Teaches you a lot about tone though! This post will be continued...

Foundation- Final Major Project

The Final Major Project (FMP) at the end of the Art Foundation Course lasts about 9 or 10 weeks, and as the name suggests, is supposed to be the main thing that everything you have learnt so far has built up to. It's supposed to be the thing that propels you onto the degree course of  your choice, but in reality the degree interviews are about halfway through the project, and your portfolio consists mostly of the work you did before.

For my FMP I chose to explore "Mistake photography in painting". By "mistake photography" I mean photos where things have been cut off, you have pressed the shutter by mistake, things are blurred or streaked or whatever else that means it's not the photo you intended to take. What I ended up looking at were photographs of car headlights taken on slow shutter speed, meaning that the lights were streaked across the photo, and trying to translate this into painting (I realise this is no longer "mistake" photography, but that was only a starting point after all!)

Here are some of the photos I took and the paintings I developed from them:

I did a lot more work after this, and sadly I don't have the pictures on this computer for me to upload. Next time I'm home from uni I'll try to retrieve them!

So that's all for now from my foundation course. I ended up getting a Merit and, more importantly, getting a place on the degree course I desperately wanted to go to :)

Opulence- Palette Series

I can't remember exactly how the palette series came from the previous strand of the Opulence project- I think it was probably as simple as "Here are some more circles- let's paint them!" I loved the look of my paint-encrusted palette so one day just propped it up on an easel and set about painting it.
This was my first attempt, in acrylics and charcoal:

For those who knew me at this time, this loose, expressive painting style was very unusual for me. I've always been very precise and figurative in my drawings and paintings, yet at the same time always wanted to break away from it. I think this series of paintings marked the end of working how I thought I should, and instead working how I wanted to, and that's probably why it was the first project I was happy with on the foundation course. Anyway, here are the following paintings, all much larger scale than the first and done with a combination of house paint and acrylic:

I think it's the two triptyches at the end that are most successful. The last one was my first real foray into oil painting, which didn't crop up again until recently. 

Well that's all of the Opulence project. Next post- Final Major Project!

Opulence- Circular Objects

This was the first project I did on my art foundation course I was happy with, but I'm going to skim over the details of this because it was so long ago.

I think it was around February 2009 when we were set this title. I didn't think it was very inspiring, but chose to go down the route of visual opulence- basically an excuse to explore my favourite things- paint and colour!

Another aspect of it was seeing opulence in the mundane. I began to collect lots of circular objects and photograph them against white paper:

And also do the same with pastels:

These morphed into a series of paintings (I like the green one best):

And in turn the green painting evolved into a "glass panel painting":

With the rather limited facilities on my foundation course, this never became a proper painting you could hang on the wall. The things joining the corners together (for the purposes of this photograph only) were chopped-up glue gun glue sticks, and sadly it has since been disassembled. However, I'm currently revisiting the glass panel idea, so watch this space for an updated version...

P.S. The watermarks on these images are because they're from my DeviantART page.

Howdy.

Well, here goes, my first blog post!

I wanted to start this a) to keep me on my toes and b) to get my work out in the big wide world a bit more. I hope you enjoy having a browse and please let me know what you think, good or bad. An artiste always likes to know how her work and ideas are being received!

As for anyone out there who is hawk-eyed- yes, the blog title is taken from The XX song "Islands". I chose this because it's a bit like my head and the ideas inside it; secret and secluded as little islands or growing and unfolding into vibrant cities... that's the arty-farty explanation anyway :) I also just love the song!

I'm going to start by posting the work I did on my art foundation course (2008-2009), and in the first year of my Fine Art degree (2009-2010). Then I'll get onto what I'm up to at the moment, with a few oddities and ramblings thrown in.

Thanks for stopping by x