Cactus

Photo taken by my sister Sue on a trip to the southwestern USA. It urges me to go to Kew Gardens and draw the cactuses there. Or even to draw my own "collection" - seven tiny ones in tiny pots, accumulated during trips to Ikea.
The rusty cactus-monster behind them holds memories of a trip to Cologne sometime last century. It also holds a candle and the light shines through the holes.

The assessment

Getting ready for the assessment meant looking through all the work from the two terms, labelling the worksheets, putting them into the specified order in the portfolio. It was helpful to review what we'd done, and how I felt about doing it, and how it might have been done differently. Which probably should be the point of this kind of exercise. But mostly it was a matter of meeting the deadline for having it all pulled together - it seemed like an endless task. The portfolio had 46 sheets - rather fewer, it turned out, than many other people, but even so it was fairly heavy as well as being awkward.

The "peripherals" were even heavier. The hastily-augmented colour sketchbook; the ordinary sketchbook; the folder with all the information we'd been given over the two terms; A4-sized items that couldn't be left to drift around in the portfolio. And the Self Reflective Journal ... which started out as the standard-issue red notebook (see pic above) into which we were to write what we did each day in class. A way of getting people to keep notes! For me, it morphed into a combination of my "everything notebook" and printouts of the blog posts, printed 2 pages to a sheet and bound into japanese-style books.

Waiting for our allotted 20-minute slots ...And then it was over ... a bit of a postmortem with whoever was around, a chat about the summer homework ("collections" - fill a sketchbook), and taking portfolios and bags home again.

Later, in the pub, more postmortems, and colourful experiences through the Victorian windows -

From the library

"Postmodern arts" got dipped into, but I didn't take notes. Still grappling with the notion of "intertextuality"... basically, the links from the text (or art work) to other texts - "Intertextuality is not a feature of the text alone but of the 'contract' which reading it forges between its author(s) and reader(s)" - which leads to the question, if meaning is in the mind of the reader, how is the author to communicate their intention?"Art Today" (2004) was a really good read, clearly written and an interesting choice of artists, some of whom (eg Matthew Barney on the cover) you might dismiss out of hand, and chapters on non-US/European art.

Danger signs - Roundwood Park, NW10

Digital 3

Finishing editing the visuals, and learning how to add and edit sound. And finishing with a showing of everyone's project -

of which these are samples

without context

without explanation without titles, without sound.

I tried uploading my video but it was taking too long - you can see it on YouTube here. It's called TheDesperateQuestForChocolate.

To finish the term, a picnic

A sumptuous spread in Lincoln's Inn Fields, after class but by 7pm the table was looking bare and people started to wander off, heading home

In September (seems so far away!) we'll be reconfigured into our subject groups. I'll miss being part of Group D - Ray, Igor, Diana, Sarah, Maari, Nodir, Liz, Juan, Glenda, Joanna, Glen

Site-specific project, day 3

It seems a long time since the "drawing day" down by the riverside, or the "worksheet day" for this project. Because of the computer crash, I've lost my original photos and have only the small ones from the contact sheet, already on the developmental drawing. My chosen site no longer looks like these photos from flickr - the tunnel under Blackfriars Bridge is much narrowed by hoardings related to the building work on the bridge.

So my proposed installation is to put some mirrors not only along the narrow space at the west entrance to the tunnel, but along the hoardings too, to broaden the space.

The "pleated" mirror is meant to echo the reflections in the windows of the building beyond the railings. The little figure adds a human scale.

Why not have some large mirrors under the arches on the opposite wall, to reflect the "pleated" mirror along the hoardings on the other side? Then people can see themselves reflected to infinity...

Making the proposal sheet involved drawing the tunnel in (one-point) perspective -It only remains to photocopy these drawings, done on tracing paper, adding the mirror to the one on the left.

Most of the afternoon was spent presenting our "river projects" to the rest of the class. People came up with wonderfully inventive ideas - and wanted to explain them at length - so the class over-ran and some people had to leave without having a chance to present.

At Roundwood Park last weekend, part of the Brent Respect Festival.

Shopping at Homebase

Looking, not buying. Mostly

Painting 3

A demonstration of how to prime a board - right to the edges, and not too thinly. The acrylic primer dries in 15-20 minutes. We'd brought in greyscale photos "that tell a story". I used one of my "dames and dogs" pix, taken in Paris a few years back. First step was to scale it up onto the board. Then we turned the board upside down and painted in the tones (black, white, grey) and temperature - yellow ochre, mixed with black of white.

By lunchtime the acrylic paint was on, in blocks.

After lunch we got instructions on how to add colour.

We were adding oil paint on top of the (dry) acrylic - any colour you wanted as long as the tones were the same. Which my purple shadows certainly weren't - so off they came - that's the joy of oil, being able to scrape it all back (or so they say).

The finished painting. I'm not unhappy with it.

All in all, an impressive display.

Colourful plastic!

The roof of "the recycled tent" at the Brent Respect festival in Roundwood Park last weekend. Made by foundation course students at the College of North West London and early years pupils at Swiss Cottage School - coordinated by Anna Ferrie and Lula Couling Barreneche at www.clothofgold.org.uk

Two a penny

These needlepoint cushions are selling for £2.50 (reduced from £9-something). The centre panel is needlepoint - done by hand, in China. Perhaps it's a loss leader, or selling below cost price, but at any price that's a lot of stitches, whatever the quality. The mind boggles to think how many identical cushions were supplied to Ikea (worldwide, perhaps) and how many people were involved in the stitching.

Structure & volume 2

Last week, building our structures and starting the drawing coincided with the first day of the heat wave. This week, there were electric fans in the room, which certainly helped. But I don't think people were actually glad to be getting back to this task... Perseverence paid off, though. By lunchtime I'd got the proportions better - especially that box in the very centre; it moved a good 4" to the right, in stages. Interesting how difficult it is to "see" what's going on, even if you're measuring and checking and measuring and checking.

I'd started to add shading, not realising it needed to be cross-hatching. This unit is about consolidating what we'd learned about drawing, adding volume and tone.

This section was giving me considerable trouble.

as you can see from all the rubbings out -And I ran out of time -- with the help of photos I hope finish it before the assessment on the 14th, when all projects must be tidily stowed in the portfolio and will be checked by two of the teaching staff. Here are some of the other drawings of various lumpy objects -

A fabulous display, in the end.