Kevins Grand Design

As Im a fan of Grand Designs as well as it being architectural, I thought it was worth a mention. Kevin McCloud  is set to attempt to change the building industry in britain, by making homes that are beautiful, affordable, sustainable and profitable. The program is set to air on Channel 4 on Thursday 8th of DEcember at pm.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/kevins-grand-design/episode-guide/series-1/episode-1

Lost in Lace

We went to the Birmingham museum and art Gallery, to see the Lost inLace exhibition. When we were there some of the work exhibbited partitioned the gallery off into different areas, but the material was still translucent enough to still have an open plan feel to the gallery. This was an intresting theme to gallery which I think links in to my theme of arhitecture quite well.

http://lostinlace.org.uk/

Whilst there I also looked at the plans for the Birmingham Central Library, which was linked with the Lost in Lace because it is surrounded by a large, circular, metal, lattice that surrounds the building. I latter went to see the site where the library was still being constructed.  I like the Plans of the Library as it looks very complex and intricate which intrests me about a building on this scale.

Photoshop

Today we did a workshop with Billy to learn basic bits and bobs in Photoshop here are some things I have manipulated:

Oxford Trip

On Tuesday 1st November we went to Oxford whilst there we visited the Ashmolean, The natural history Museum Oxford, and The Pitt-Rivers Museum. As well as the Looking in the Museums I also looked at the architecture of the museums themselves.

The Ashmolean

The Natural History Museum Oxford

I also looked at the Randolph Hotel opposite of the Ashmolean.

From photos I took and preliminary sketches I did drawings from them when we got back. I enjoyed the trip to Oxford as it has some stunning architecture.

Grayson Perry trip

The 22nd and 23rd of November our art foundation group went to London to look at an exhibition of The turner prize winner,Grayson Perry’s work in the British Museum called The tomb of the unknown craftsmen. The exhibition has many themes such as the idea of a pilgrimage, or people making a pilgrimage to the British Museum. it also looked at the idea of art by people who are unknown and have made beautiful works of art that are made by unknown craftsmen, giving the Exhibition its name The tomb of the unknown craftsmen. These works of art has been very influential to the recent work of Grayson Perry. The other main theme that links with the exhibition is god; the exhibition makes links with other cultures that make reference to god and makes links in his own work to Alan Meazels his own 50 year old Teddy bear that has been hailed as Grayson Perry’s own god by Grayson himself. Afterwards we met up and held a question and answer session with Grayson Perry. As a group we have been independently learning about Grayson Perry and his work, for example we watched the TV show Imagine: The tomb of the unknown craftsmen. This helped us get background Information about Grayson Perry prior to our question and answer session. In the question and answer session we were able to ask Grayson his questions about his current and previous work, as well as giving us advice in art here are some quotes of advice given by Grayson perry:

• you have to knuckle down and be prepared to put in the hours

• originality is overated

Here is a link to the programme i watched and helped me learn about Grayson Perry:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b016ycnn/Imagine_Winter_2011_Grayson_Perry_and_the_Tomb_of_the_Unknown_Craftsman/

Altered Perceptions

A workshop a few weeks ago looked at art that altered peoples' perceptions, may it be through smashing, covering, burning, wraping, deconstructing and constructing. Other artists that look at the idea of altering other peoples' perceptions includes;

David Nash who is most famous for his burning of his structures that he has built. Below is his 'Pyramid, Sphere and Cube'.



Also I have looked at Jeanne-Claude and christo who wrap things in order to alter their images on the small scale like paint cans to the large like the Reichstag in Berlin.

    

I have tried to follow along the lines of Christo and Jeanne-Claude and wrapping objects up in fabric and tieing them up with string. I saw one of there earlier pieces "wrapped cans" at Tate Liverpool, which fitted in with the theme of altering perceptions by covering. After recreating another still life that is covered with fabric I then drew large pictures of this scene using chalk and charcoal and then paints. This gave me a fairly structural and tonal picture.

Below are a few pictures of some paintings I did of this still life.

I also tried looking at the idea of wrapping with string, this was just a piece of metal and an acorn until I wrapped with string.

This mini project was useful as it helped with my basic observational drawing skills. It also helped to improve my drawing of more complex strucural things, in this case it was folds of fabric around different objects. 

“big money” by norwegian design studio skrekkøgle

“big money” by norwegian design studio skrekkøgle. they made a giant 20:1 replica of a 50 cent euro coin. they then placed the coin next to large objects and photographed them together, making the objects look like tiny toy replicas. this relates to the work i am doing on the model of the classroom and the ideas of changing the scale of things.