Saturday 23 November 2013

Back to School - two weeks to go in my first semester

I have mixed emotions about almost being finished my first semester. I have decided to take next semester off for travel and will return to school next fall. The creative part of my brain is definitely ready for a break, but I can't imagine what it will be like without a constant bombardment of new, weird tasks coming at me all the time.















Here is my first felt hat and matching scarf attempt. I wanted to experiment with different surface techniques and contrasting colours so it got a bit flamboyant, but I like it ... mostly.
I made a second hat to reassure myself that I had not gone over the edge quite yet - this one I will definitely wear

 My mountain cup and pouring pot set made it through the kiln unscathed! This coming week is "crit week" so I haven't had a chance to use it yet, but I am thinking it will be perfect to christen it with a very strong blueberry tea.

I am pleased with my dream catcher vest that I made for a recycled garment project for fibre class. The body of the vest is made from beautiful old pillow cases passed down from my grandparents and ties in conceptually with the dreamcatchers made from vintage doilies and crocheted pieces.






Our painting instructor had us take photos to and from school for a week. From these we were to produce  four landscapes that push the concept of traditional landscape. We had quite the discussion about what to do with the edges of unframed canvases and I decided to play with integrating the supporting canvas into the piece as well as trying different techniques including pallet knife painting, and contrasting translucent and opaque applications. These have a very interesting impact and I think I will try to integrate some of them into my work in the future.
In drawing we were challenged to create a piece that contrasted order and chaos and used two point perspective and different techniques to enhance the comparison. My concept was an ordered cottage garden being taken over by a primeval jungle. I wish I had a picture of what it looked like before I tried going wild on the jungle technique as prompted by my instructor. I tried spraying the water soluble ink with water and it literally blossomed in a way that I am not too happy with - too bad no edit undo option, but Hobbes seems to like it. 

Our in-class drawing project was to capture motion by using mylar to create overlaid images and one of the images had to be done blind (no looking at your drawing while doing it). It was interesting to move each image around relative to the others and see the impact on the total piece. I ended up overlaying them in quite a different configuration than I originally planned.
 We have been figure drawing in the last few classes with varying techniques and length of pose. Fun, fun, fun and less weird than you would think. Interestingly the models were from my generation.


And lastly, thought I would share one of the most important things that I have learned - keep watching for and building on happy accidents. In ceramics we have been experimenting with different slips and glazes on practice pieces. The bottom bowl is my first attempt at a bowl thrown on the wheel - everything was going great until it got too thin and started cracking. I mistakenly put it away rather than throwing it out and then decided to try cutting and manipulating it and finally to try some glaze colours that had been on the bottom of my list and ... behold my favorite piece so far this year - the picture does not really do it justice - it even caught the eye of my instructor as being something special.



Tuesday 5 November 2013

Back to School Update: Phew, made it through midterms

So much to catch up on since my last post - school has been crazy busy. Midterms for studio classes are definitely different than writing mid-term exams for traditional academic courses. Tense none-the-less because you find out your mark to date and get feedback on how you are doing. I am happy to say that everything is going well so far - phew.

Ceramics continues to be as much fun as playing in the mud. Yesterday I finished glazing my mountain cups and teapot and I am anxious to see how they turned out once the kiln is opened - very nerve wracking. Our next project is "Thinking outside the pot." We have to pick our favourite food and create a unique serving piece and four individual whatevers to eat from. The big challenge is that it can't look anything like a normal serving piece. My mind immediately went to chocolate and then to Brownies and Fairy Cakes. I am busy trying to figure out how to make an enchanted  tree into a serving dish.

Fibre has been very interesting. Our assignment was to make a non-representational sculpture out of paper. What started out to be "Exploding Geometry" ended up with wild moments of Collapsing Geometry. It's about a foot shorter than it started out. Things I learned: paper weighs more than you think and avoid anything dynamic if at all possible.
 Then came felt hats - this is the test model with Hobbes doing his Napoleon interpretation. The final products are on display so no pics unfortunately. Now we are making a garment out of something recycled with the object having to reflect the source material. I have some beautiful old pillow cases from my grandparents which are being transformed into a dream catcher vest as we speak - pics to follow! A great way to use old linens and doilies.





We have been doing some very different things in Drawing. First we created a collage and then drew it thinking about 2D versus 3D representation.

 

Another class involved drawing lit folded paper in a very dark room - tough on elder eyes that don't like to adjust to light changes well. This is a composite of four students work - mine is in the bottom left.

Our last assignment was to draw big things very small. "Reality Stranger than Myth" depicts various current and historic images from the Greek Island of Santorini in a volcanic cloud. As I put in the last image, I realized that it was starting to look like some kind of demented ice cream cone.
In Painting class, the instructor added a collaborative twist to a collage/painting project. After some discussion, my partner and I discovered a common interest in Star Trek (albeit lapsed on my part) and we went crazy from there. It was interesting to reflect on how this quirky series has played a part in the lives of several generations. 


Our most recent assignment was to bring and wrap an object to serve as a subject - the wrapping was meant to add meaning. Curiously, this is Barry's trumpet wrapped in my shawl and his tie. Without trying, it took on a very feminine form - I'll say no more. I really pushed myself to experiment with complementary colours and cool and warm colours as well as different techniques - it is gradually sinking in (I think).