de do do do, de da da da

so latest pictures from my set design. i feel ready now to start test filming some things with the park scene just to see what i can do and how my animating looks, things i need to work on on the set and in my technique animating etc. i have already seen just from taking these photos that the park scene would look betterwith more leaves on the tree. looking at it face-to-face you cannot notice this butonly from a photo can you see.

in the pub/bar scene i have made the stained glass windows for the doors. like with the leaves on the tree this does not look as good on a photo. i think i shall have to have some back lighting for animation to make this secction stand out more.

today i  went to see the exhibtion 'the people you're not' at the cornerhouse in manchester (http://www.cornerhouse.org/) part of this exhibtion was an idea by harry hill which involved set designs. what i likes about these designs were the different levels within them, like old puppet theatres with areas going into the background of the scene. i want to bring these different levels into at least more of my sets although how is another question!

i have recently read quirkology by richard wiseman. (http://www.quirkology.com/). wiseman is a psychologist who looks into the weird in everyday life. some of his studies have included whether star signs/ date of birth actually have any effect on your personality, which city has the fastest pace of life and the power of suggestion. the experiments into the power of suggestion caught my attention. one particular group of experiments involved making participants believe there were spirits in the room just from suggestion, this was done by simple trickery wih objects on a table then making participants believe and actually see the whole table move just be saying it was. another section that interested me was research as to why some people claim to see ghosts and feel 'something' in the room. this was found to be a particular very low sound wave that although we cannot hear it our bodies can feel it. it is sometimes refered to as the brown note because of the effects it can have on people's bowels when listened to in large doses! people were found to feel more moved by a piece of music when this note was played and it has also been found that you can hallucinate and see ghostly mirages when hearing this note. my research into this field continues...

hang me up to dry

first things first, my animation. i've taken a break from the burger place until i decide what else i need to make and i have now started to make a bar/pub set and a park set. so far in the bar/pub i have made some laminate flooring out of lolly sticks and in the park i have made a tree in one corner and i'm starting to make grass. i came back home the other day and i've spent the time writing the storyline. so far i just have the basic plot outline, i now need to pad it out a bit and get details down so i know exactly what to do when im filming.

recently someone from my class has been organising an exhibtion at the art corner in fallowfield for late april. after much deliberation about whether to have a theme or not all of us who are involved decided on the colour 'red' as our theme. this means all our work can be tied together but still have chance to be diverse. we had to write a proposal to be part of this. i have decided to use the skills i learnt in bookbinding to make books looking at the colour red. i have been looking at collecting red objects and also looking at anger. however, this is still early days and there wil be more to this in my final pieces.

last night i started to experiment with book making and have a go at making hard back covers. i just made a simple brown paper bound hardback notebook and also a book made of plastic pockets. i thought having a book made of pockets would be another way of displaying found objects. this was harder to make then i first though because the pockets are made of shiny plastic so it was hard to keep them in line whilst trying to sew them.

at uni there are films shown every monday evening and i went to see la jettee by chris marker. it is made up almost entirely of still images telling the story of a man who is sent into the past and the future to try and save his own time after world war 3. i found the film captivating and it draws you in to the storyline. because you are not seeing everything or hearing any dialogue apart from a few mutterings you make uo your own parts to the story.

last tuesday i went to the whitworth gallery to listen to their tuesday talk. it was by a curator called gabriel coxhead. parts of his talk were interesting but mostly it was fairly dull and him pausing to try and think of longer words to say to sound clever.

on a better note as a class we went to liverpool on thursday. we went to see the nam june paik exhibtions at fact and tate liverpool but we also went to see the underwater exhibtion at bluecoats. we started off at the fact museum. i was very impressed with the laser cone in the first room and enjoyed sitting under that and looking at the shapes created on the fabric. the rest of the works were video art which i can appreciate but are not really my thing. we then went to the underwater exhibtion (which ironically had video art which i liked!) the videos i liked were jellyfish lake by dorothy cross, becoming light by bill viola and he drowned in her eyes and she called him to follow by janaina tschape. my favourite of these is jellyfish lake. this is because it looks so serene and beautiful, this is due to the images but also because there is no sound in this piece. i think sound sound have shattered the calm feeling of the piece. finally, we went to the tate liverpool. after seeing the video art by nam june paik at fact we didnt really want to see any more or pay the entrance fee so we just looked round the permanent exhibtion there. my favourite piece there was axehead by tony cragg. i liked this because he's collected all of the objects and the differences between them but that they are bought together in this one piece.

...update...

so a slight correction needed from my last blog about the whitworth. it was not alec finlay giving the talk it was tim machin. i arrived late to the talk so i didn't realise they had changed the speaker.

now update on the animation...
i have started making one of the sets to my piece and it's taking slightly longer than i first thought!
i've started making the burger place where the spoon will work... here's my progress so far:

so yeah this has taken me 2 days to do!
saying that it has been quite fun and i'd prefer to spend longer on it and it look good on the camera than really bad!
(i also like how in this photo you can see the evil clown (arch-enemy to spoon) just poking out from the side)
ill post more photos when ive completed this set and when ive made more sets, props etc

now... on wednesday i eventually had a book-binding induction. we got taught how to make some books just from a single sheet of paper, how to stitch books and then we made concertina books with hardback covers.
i really enjoyed it, especially seeing some examples of different types of books we were learning how to make. inspiration for the scope of things i can with a simple design.
i got a couple of books about book making from the library so i'm going to give those designs a go and see what happens. watch this space...

outing to the whitworth

after umming and ahhhing about whether to go or stay in bed i decided to head on down to the whitworth art gallery for their tuesday lunch time talk. the artist this week was alec finlay.
after initially not liking his work i started to appreciate the thought process behind his pieces. hiw works are quite minimalist and he likes to make something out of nothing so flyers, leaflets and a large amount of blutack are in his work. the piece i liked most from the ones he showed us is called 'birds' and is silouhettes or british birds cut from a birdspotting guide and stuck onto a wall. although in terms of style it was no different to his other works for some reason this one i felt was more beautiful and was more aesthetically pleasing.
although i not sure i like how his works look and the execution of them i do like the fact that he uses 'normal' everyday objects in his work, turning the everyday into a work or art.

now for my project, yesterday i had a mid-year review of my work in front of 2 members of staff and about 6 other students. i was happy with the work i showed and although i hate presenting anything i think it went ok. i did realise however how scatty my work is and that i do flit from one project to the next very quickly. i now see the need to keep at a project and push it forward and not just abandon it.

and now back to reality

after a busy, fairly tiring but fun christmas and new year break i'm now back in manchester.
my schedule during the holidays has meant my work has been somewhat limited but i have found a few items to possibly use in my animation. i've found charity shops have been the best source for things to use and i found in my local oxfam a scary china clown that turned out to be a teapot.
i have still been thinking about what to do for my animation and i'm torn between a few ideas but in the next few weeks i'll have the time to experiment and try to eventually learn how to use computer animation software properly.

over new years i was in rotterdam in the netherlands for a taize meeting. taize is a community in france and each year they have a european meeting over new year in a different city around the continent. each year thousands of young people accend on a european city, this year there were around 25,000. i loved the fact there were so many people especially in the prayers with all the people singing together. i like the idea of so many people being unique and individual but coming together to make something new.
after the meeting i stayed with a friend in groningen which is in the north east of the country. it is a university town and still has lots of the original architecture (only a small section was bombed during the war). it is quite a pictureesque town especially along the canal where my friend lives where there are all the old warehouses that have been converted into houses.
whilst in groningen we also climbed the martinitoren (martini tower) which is one of the oldest towers in the town. despite being slightly scared of spiral staircases i managed to get to the top and get down again.

because of being involved in the taize coomunity i have friends from all over the world. whilst seeing a lot of my friends in rotterdam i thought i could show about the journeys people made to get to rotterdam or the journeys i have had and will have seeing them in their own countries. this is still early ideas that are forming but i wanted to do something to bring together the exerience i had in rotterdam.

lastly, a few days ago i watched an animation of peter and the wolf directd by suzie templeton and a short film called cashback directed my sean ellis.
i loved the animation style in peter and the wolf and the lack of speech in it made it much more beautiful and made it have a dream like quality. the whole 'look' of the film is very cold and dark but that doesn't stop there being beauty in it. i especially loved the ice skating scene and the animation here.
cashback is about an art student who works the night shift in sainsburys to pay for his course. to make the time go faster he imagines time has stopped and he can imagine what he wants. in parts this film was enjoyable and funny but i think more could have been done with the main character stopping time. in the film he stops time, undresses female customers and draws them, i think i would have enjoyed the film if he had stopped time then made something funny happen. the rest of the film is funny and entertaining but it completely changes when he stops time which spoils it slightly.

so these next few weeks will be ones for experimenting and hopefully having a finished animation at the end!

merry christmas!

today was the day of my presentation to liz from manchester art gallery about the mary greg project and my ideas for platt hall. yesterday we all put our work up in the link gallery so she could see all the work together and it would be easier for us to present. i thought the presentation went well but i still find presenting anything hard especially today when my work isnt looking exactly how i want it to look. but she seemed to like the idea and liked my chatelaine for a grandma especially.

im glad to be able to change projects for a while now...this is the longest ive ever worked on a project and i just need a bit of time out! in the end ive not done anything involoving shorthand for mary greg but i still like the idea of using it so i think i will also stop this project for a bit until ive decided what direction to go next.

last night i started on a possible new project. in my room i found some old fashioned clothes pegs so decided to make some peg dolls. ive made 6 so far with little dresses and skirts made from felt. ive found th hair the hardest part to do, trying to get full head coverage and not leave and bald patches! my first doll had very little hair and pretty much no hair at the front of her head. this was soon sorted by adding a piece of ribbon as a head band. i want to contnue making dolls and i will make some male ones next. at the moment they have no faces becuase i think i will mess it up and spoil them. however, without their faces they look a bit more sinister. i'm thinking of making an animation or a photographed cartoon strip of these dolls and because of their lack of faces having them as like the hidden monsters in a house, spying on the humans, playing tricks on them etc. but this is early days and ill see what happens once ive made more of the dolls.

pictures to follow when my computer stop playing up!

afternoon at the whitworth

after the excitement of finally handing in my essay and getting that done and dusted i decided to head down to whitworth art gallery. despite being here for 3 months i have never quite made it there, with one thing or another happening.

i have always been interested in working with fabrics and embroidery. the textile gallery really impressed me, especially the embroidered works they had on display. I particulary liked a pair or embroidered gloves, they had stitching all around the cuffs and up the thumb. They lookd like something mary greg would have snapped up if she had the chance! there was also a case of quilting including a piece by jennifer vickers entitled 'yesterday's news', a quilt made out of newspaper. i liked this especially becuae of the pattern made in the newspaper and the care gone into matching fonts into a pattern.

a temporary exhibtion on at the momentis the wallpaper exhibtion. although some of the pieces on display were good i felt more could have been made of this, it would have been nice to see a bigger display with more samples of what people actually had on their walls in the past, looking at the changes in fashion.

finally i want to talk about olfar eliasson's work 'the forked forest path'. you get to the fork in the path and in the darkness you have to chose which way to turn, not knowing which path leads where. it reminds me of caspar david friedrich's work 'wanderer above the mists' (this was one of the works i looked at in my essay hence why it is in my mind!). it reminds me of this because of the themes of stepping out into the unknown and not being sure what is going to happen next.

http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/