Last Three Weeks; Resolved Pieces!

Since it`s been a week since I updated about my last three weeks at university, I thought I would try and explain my final resolved pieces of work.

Seeing as I didn`t know what to do with the prints, and that my frame of work was to work within a box or within a frame; I was pretty lost for the first two weeks of work, and during the third week, the last week, I had a huge panic and had to talk to the tutors about what I could possibly do.

I began to mess around with simply wrapping boxes with the prints that I made, and then the prints that where on thin plastic sheets where put inside so you can see the messages... I think I`ve already talked about this before.
But in the end that just didn`t work, and the sheets wouldn`t stay in place and it just didn`t work out correctly which was unbelievably frustrating.

That idea went out of the window quite quickly, I had to just leave the plastic sheets alone and they`ve just sat in a folder floating around my workspace. I never actually used the plastic sheets in the end, I thought I would be able to find a use for them with my box idea but that went out of the window again.

After working with the layered sheets and the boxes that they sat in, I spoke to Dennis and Jeremy and they both agreed with leaving my work as just regular boxes.
At first I made some small practice boxes that looked quite colourful and had been printed on to newspaper, It was the inks that I had used that made them look too bright and vivid for what I was going to do.

So, one of the main ideas as that we switched the coloured inks to just plain black and then we print on to white, then another idea was that we use white ink and then print onto black paper.
I managed to get quite a few examples of that done, and a few small boxes covered in them finished. But then when I put them all together they looked nicely finished and refined but in-finished.
So the white on black, and black on white prints where good examples but then they didn`t work in the end... Like almost everything else I`d been experimenting with.

After the discussion with Dennis and Jeremy and after going through what I could possibly do, we did discuss possibly printing on to wrapping paper.
The idea behind this is a bit weird; when you go on your phone and you`ve received a message you would expect it to be from your friend or family member who`s just chatting to you or just wants to see how your doing. So really, you expect it to be something nice; which is where the present idea comes in.
You expect a nice message and not something that`s harassing and degrading, and you expect it to be from someone you already know; not some weird 52 year old man who wants to know if you enjoy "anal".

So, after having such a basic idea of working with small boxes, we decided to go forward and begin to print on top of wrapping paper. The idea is that we`ve turned something that`s supposed to be friendly and nice to you, into something that`s harassing and disgusting.

So from turning messages from something personal, private and welcoming; we`ve now turned presents into the same kind of thing. Presents that are supposed to be nice and giving, have been turned into boxes that are harassing and are basically taking the piss out of you.

The printing onto wrapping paper idea worked really well and the prints came out quite clean. I used mostly black inks on the brown paper and the gold and pink paper. The calligraphy font worked really well especially on the gold.
Something fancy, pretty and attractive looking was turned into something that`s harassing and unsettling to see.

Basically, I winged it.
Because of the framework that we had to work within, and because we had to work with what we had done over the past nine weeks; I was seriously stuck for ideas.
If I was just left to do whatever I wanted with my final thing/resolved piece then I feel like I would of been able to produce a much better final piece.

We`ve been given the next module to be working on over the holidays, so I`m hoping that over Christmas I can get quite a bit of work finished to then take back over the holidays.
My next project, is hopefully going to be a lot better than this one, I`ve enjoyed being inducted into the whole studio environment but I want to get on with my own work now we`ve got this project over and done with.


Live Diary Blog:   http://melonheadamy-livediaryblogging.blogspot.co.uk/
Art Blog:   http://melonheadamy-artblogging.blogspot.co.uk/
Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk/
Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/melonheadamy
Wattpad:   https://www.wattpad.com/user/AmyWatkinson Redbbble:   http://www.redbubble.com/people/amywatkinson
Deviantart:    https://amywatkinson.deviantart.com/
Instagram:   amy_marshy_melons

Last three weeks; Print Work!

 

After working with sound for a week in a freezing cold church in the middle of Derby, we only had three weeks left of university. I have finished and handed in all of my work now, I`ve just found the time to be able to upload some of my print work here for everyone to see!

But first I need to give everyone a bit of context since my work was seen a slightly offensive by some people.

At the beginning of the year we all bought objects in, three of the same; and you would of read about this in previous posts aswell.
We`ve been working with those same objects for like 11 weeks now, and we`re all getting pretty bloody sick of them too. So for the last three weeks of our first semester, we where told to work with our objects and put them into Context, my objects where three different phones.
So for my items, I thought about what our generation uses the most when on their phones; which is obviously social media. That`s literally all we use our phones for these days, so I used social media to put my phones in to context.

But what`s the first thing you`ll think of when it comes to social media? Celebrities, selfies, group photos, Instagram? Well, I didn`t want to focus on self-image and the way we see ourselves and others when online. Instead, I focused on what we get in response to putting our images online. To get a response, I`ve been using facebook a lot more, Instagram and Meetme like seriouslyyyy active in order to get a response out people.
These aren`t rude or inappropriate selfies at all, These are just normal day to day messages that I receive, that`s almost everyday. The only thing is that I now just see these messages as normal because I receive quite a lot of them on Meetme.

So then, to put my phones into context, I began to start collecting the messages I was being sent on a daily basis. Looking through them was seriously strange, I got so many weird creepy ones from people who where like 40 years plus!
I haven`t even replied to these, I`ve literally just opened the messages, taken a screenshot and then closed it again. In one day I tried to delete all of the messages I got from the day before and there was 74 messages that I deleted, 74 messages in one day just for uploading a selfie of myself!

So, I had my context, and some messages to begin working off. But then I needed to find my form of producing the work.
We where given a framework to work within, or work around. So Carl (head of the course), said that the framework should just be that we use the techniques we`ve been working with for the past 9 weeks; printing, plaster, wood and metal, etc. Then Dennis and Jeremy come along with they`re meeting, and then everyone got it into their heads that we had to work purely with a box shape.

It was quite frustrating since Carl did seem somewhat laid back about what we needed to do, and the Dennis and Jeremy seemed very straight forward when it came to working within a box or a boxed frame. It`s frustrating because Dennis and Jeremy seem to conflict with Carls ideas and plans.

Anyways, I began to print quite a bit; I managed to get about 75 prints done on to plastic sheets, packaging sheets and newspaper paper, (also some black card for experiments). I did really produce that many coloured prints, and the ones that where coloured where then used for practice pieces for my work.

I initially had this idea of working with a box, covered in the harassing/inappropriate messages and then have plastic sheets inside that all of have prints on them. Kind of like a layering effect with the plastic and through each one you can see new messages appearing.

But then that idea was scrapped, I managed to do quite a few practice pieces for that Idea and I worked with creating different sized boxes. I must of used about 7 different screens with different texts on them. Three of the screens didn`t even work, so I spent ages putting them on and then taking them off to then try and put them back on again. I also messed around quite a bit with the way the text was laid out, and what messages I was going to use to put the texts together. So there was so many weird little tests I did with words I pulled out from messages, and quite a few bothered Carl a little bit; whenever I talked about it, he seemed slightly concerned about what was coming through on my phone.



I`m going to upload some more Print work on here, then in the next update I`m going to show you my semi-final/resolved piece of work that I used all of the prints for.
Also, it links in with Christmas!

Live Diary Blog:   http://melonheadamy-livediaryblogging.blogspot.co.uk/
Art Blog:   http://melonheadamy-artblogging.blogspot.co.uk/
Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk/
Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/melonheadamy
Wattpad:   https://www.wattpad.com/user/AmyWatkinson Redbbble:   http://www.redbubble.com/people/amywatkinson
Deviantart:    https://amywatkinson.deviantart.com/
Instagram:   amy_marshy_melons

How was my first Semester?

Well, the last week of University has gone extremely quickly; I`m not going to discuss my final piece on here though, I want to save that for my art blog since it`s been a while since I updated on there. Plus, I could do with putting some kind of updated work on there right now...

Tomorrow is my last day at University, before I break up from University for the next five weeks or so. In between that time, I will be given a new module to be working on and I`ll be picking up a few more shifts at my part time job in the care home.

This first semester has been seriously weird for me, University is just a completely different environment that you somehow have to adjust too at the click of a finger.
To begin with, I don`t even live in accommodation, so to get to University it takes me about an hour or so travel time; that`s to walk to the bus stop, get the bus, walk half way through Derby and getting into Uni. Just that in itself is rather tiring, and I have thought about moving out for my second year since I`m not too sure if travelling will be best for me when it comes to producing some more serious pieces of work.

Then the whole studio atmosphere is really strange and hard to get used too.
The 33 of us got split up into three different groups of 11, and my group was completely separated from the the other 2 groups; meaning that we didn`t get too see them that much too start off with. You get a small desk to begin with and the second and third years work busily around you... Just seeing them working gives you some sort of insight into what you`re going to be doing in the upcoming semesters.

Then the lectures, there`s three different lectures and they all come in on different days. Because they`re all in at different times, you have to begin planning out what you`re going to be doing and who`s help you`re going to need on different days. It can also be like that when it comes to the different Technicians, you practically have to hunt them down if you need help since they all get so busy during the day.

The whole University experience has been extremely strange for me, it`s nothing like they tell you it`s going to be... And I do mean that in a good way! It`s just that when the students come round and tell you everything you need to get ready for University, you don`t really need it. It`s like you actually panic for nothing.

You`ll make friends and you`ll lose them even quicker than making them! Fresher`s is bloody pointless, you miss all of the important stuff during your first few weeks and you don`t want to leave your flat at all because of your vomit covered floor and clothes. They big up all of the parties and nights out, but you miss out on vital information, you make drunken mistakes, drunken arguments and then get yelled at for not attending university for the past few days... Fresher`s is literally; get drunk, vomit, get yelled at, vomit some more.

The overall experience for me has been pretty great; I`ve only been out 4 times actually, and each time I`ve gone into university the next day and got on with my work... And each time I`ve swore that I`ll never drink again, that doesn`t work by the way.
The studio space I work in is huge and I love it! Mainly because we`re also based around the second and third years work spaces; so we get to be nosey and talk to them about the course and what we`re going to do over the next few semesters. Since Derby only accepts a small amount of people aswell, we all get our own workspace and a lot of one on one time with the tutors.

Next year, I genuinely don`t quite know what to expect.
I know that the tutors are defiantly taking a huge step back, and we become a lot more independent in the way that we work and what we start to produce. Over the next five weeks that I have off at Christmas, I also need to get quite a bit of journal work finished and I need to begin thinking about what I`m going to begin producing over the holidays.

We need to being working off of two words.
The first word has to like to the Form of what we`ll be producing, for example; 2D, 3D, photography, multi-media.
Then the second word has to be the content.
I`ve already got a few ideas, and I know for definite that I`ll be working with multi-media, but then I don`t know what the content of that work would be... Something like abandonment and then I begin working from photographs of abandoned buildings or abandoned objects that I`ve come across.
Multi-Media Abandonment... Not too sure yet.


Live Diary Blog:   http://melonheadamy-livediaryblogging.blogspot.co.uk/
Art Blog:   http://melonheadamy-artblogging.blogspot.co.uk/
Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk/
Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/melonheadamy
Wattpad:   https://www.wattpad.com/user/AmyWatkinson Redbbble:   http://www.redbubble.com/people/amywatkinson
Deviantart:    https://amywatkinson.deviantart.com/
Instagram:   amy_marshy_melons