Sketchcrawling in Sheffield

I joined the Sketch Crawl North group in Sheffield yesterday for a day of wandering, coffee, food and drawing. I stumbled across the group through the Urban Sketchers network and was excited to see what a sketchcrawl was like. It took me back to being in Spain, even though it was many degrees cooler, and I realised that sharing some drawing time with a group of people was just what I'd been missing! 

So, with the snow outside and the company of fellow enthusiasts inside, here's what we got up to... 

Starting off with a coffee in Cafe Nero

We drew before taking in a visit to the Millenium Galleries

Then it was lunch at the Frog & Parrot

Where I saved this newsprint that was resting under my chips!
I thought it would be good to use for collage in another drawing sometime, sauce marks and all!

Wine, tables and of course some Sheffield Cutlery!

Then a final stop at the Showroom before sharing our day of mark making with one another.

It was a really great day! Very nice to meet another bunch of enthusiastic scribblers and I'll be looking to attend as many meets like this as I can throughout the year, thank you Sketch Crawl North!

New Year, New Project

It's nearing the end of my Christmas break and in between seeing friends and family I've been thinking about my upcoming project. Today I made a mood board of some of the objects, ideas and images that have been inspiring me:

I've been looking a lot at the work of Christo and wondering how I might apply the techniques he has used to that of leather. I will be using the words wrapping, binding, stretching and forming in this project to explore the properties of materials and ideas.

When visiting Nottingham Castle a few months ago, I noticed that they had a applied a similar Christo-technique to their outer statues as part of the LaceWorks exhibition: 

They are be no means as successful as any of his monument works:

and it is this attention to shape and form that I wish to apply to my designs.

As part of my visual research, I will be considering;

broken busts, 

mummified feet,

surface manipulation

and textural form

I wish to consider sustainability, through working with objects that are often thrown away and through a process of concealing, wrapping and reforming look to be creating an exciting new range of objects and experiments.

1, 10, 1000

With term one finishing today and a 4 week break ahead of me, it's time for some down time.  During the break however I will be thinking about the next project: 1, 10, 1000. 

I have planned a visit to London new week to do some visual research at the British Museum. The Design Museum has an interesting jewellery show on as well so I'm looking forward to seeing that too, post to follow.

So, The Brief: 1, 10, 1000 

6 Week Project 

You Must Chose to Produce finished work using one of three approaches below that you feel most suits you and your ambitions: 

Bespoke: Individual Artworks or Commissions, produced for individuals or a high end gallery/museum context.

Batch: Produced small volume of a similar object or range, produced for a high retail or craft gallery context. 

Mass Produced: object produced using manufacturing techniques that may be produced in large volumes by others people rather than yourself, aimed at a more mass market consumer/retail outlet.
All the above approaches have their pros and cons, which you will need to explore.

However all the approaches require you to undertake some exhaustive market research. The market must be explored in its widest sense, not just as an outlet but as an indicator of trends, innovation, customer motivation and future developments. Through analytical market research, you will identify a potential product for a viable commercial outlet in contemporary design.
Apart from the Market the theme of this project is entirely up to you; remember soon you will have to generate your own brief, idea and concept. So think carefully about a theme which will really get you excited. 

The Process:

You will undertake one of four specialist workshops that are designed to develop your specialist skills and assist with production of work for this project.

You will also carry out personal development of outcomes including: sampling and prototyping in appropriate workshops.

You will produce Market research that shows a consideration of outlet/market place, trend and fashion, product analysis, costing and price points and sustainability issues.

Initially, I'm drawn towards Batch and have opted for leather as my specialist workshop. I'm interested in exploring its properties and taking it outside of it's normal working methods. I'm interested in lighting, porcelain and leather combined. This feels exciting and I'm interested to see the outcome of it through experiments.

Graduation, Dogs and Papers!

It was my sister's Graduation from Sheffield Hallam last week and because I knew it was going to be a long ceremony, I decided to take my sketchbook! Here's the day in marks:

the audience sat

listening to violins

we were welcomed

applauded honorary doctorates

listened to speeches

then some more

before we sat and watched

the graduates walk the stage in their hundreds!

Our weekend continued with lots of time for dogs and papers, 

So as willing life models, here's the family:

Dave

Chris and Dave

Mike

Nic and Dave

Dad

George, Jasper and Nic

and the beautiful floppy eared Jasper up close!

Mouldmaking, Slipcasting, Visualising and, Assessment!

It's nearing the end of term, I am due to present my work for assessment on Monday and as it's been a while since I've updated, here are some pictures of what I've been up to:

By simplifying my movement drawings to the essence of the act,
I formed these into copper wire.

Into the wire I used expanding foam
which created some interesting organic like shapes.

From these I made some plaster moulds which I then used for slip-casting in porcelain

The foam objects were quite complex in shape
and suffered from a  lot of undercuts in the casting process

this resulted in a lot of tears and breaks in the casts

but as a collection they worked well together

Once fired I experimented with how they might look with lighting inside them.

Visualization was an essential part of this project as the work was intended for a large-scale installation. Here are images of the casts in 'situ':

a stumble-upon installation in an only rum distillery

and a suggestion as large scale stage set for a dance/physical theatre performance.

So, with Year Two, Term One coming to a close, here's my space all set up for assessment - wish me luck!

From Slippery Smack to Frosty Shake!

Today was all about mark-making with Martyn. Using graphite, pencil, rubber and chalk we created a series of exploratory marks. These were made in reaction to a strange combination of words and below are the results of the day:

This was a really interesting exercise and a good one to come back to on those days of creative block. After working on white paper we used coloured chalk and pencil on coloured paper, this time making marks in reaction to band names! It really challenged your perception of what is and how that can be represented my mark and line. I'm definitely using this exercise again!

The necessity of paper in a digital age

I read an excerpt from the book Paper: An Elegy earlier and was really struck by its content. It's definitely on my radar for a purchase (alongside Illuminate: Contemporary Craft Lighting, which I managed a sneaky peak of yesterday!) I found myself pointed in the direction of Lucio Fontana during the read and realised that I'd forgotten all about him, having looked at his work during my foundation. Revisiting his work again now is magical - the sense and destruction of space is just great!

From Canvas and Thread

from Sea of Space

I'm reminded also of Rauschenberg, lovely lovely Rauschenberg! And the exhibition Paper: Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded which showed at MOMA in 2009. Look here for work like:

John Cage, Dramatic Fire, 1989

Howardena Pindell, Untitled (no.7), 1973

Reading the excerpt has inspired me to dig out all my old boxes of paper and start having a play again. I wonder where it might take me....?