Area choice.....

Once I was aware of the subject matter of the rotation areas, my initial thoughts were that I would be best suited to Fine Art as it’s the area I had always practised at school and thus felt it would be logical and appropriate to choose. Despite this after completing the eight week rotations, I have decided that I am in need of a new path, and Fine Art may not be, as I originally thought the right direction to go into. After experiencing different skills and approaches to Art and Design, I have come to realise that I am a person who works well within guidelines/brief. I feel I am better suited to the approach designers take in opposition to Fine Artists and thus a decision had to be made between the design areas.

The first area which I completed was 3D Spatial, upon starting this subject I was unsure of what to expect from the two weeks. I found the process challenging perhaps because it was the first rotation, but also because I had always worked in 2D and on retrospect feel I found it difficult translating into 3D. I felt the three conclusive pieces were successful; however they could have been developed to a greater and more interesting degree.

The following area was Fashion and Textiles; a topic I also had not previously experienced. The two weeks were different to what I was expecting, and the experimentation I produced over the two weeks surprisingly appealed to me. I found the work process enjoyable, and was pleased with the pieces finalised. I also enjoyed learning the thought process in the cosmos of fashion, and my understanding of how work is produced in this area has greatly improved. The making process compelled me closer to the area, which is in contrast to the drawing exercises undertaken. This area allowed me to develop interest in different materials, and also how shaping can be developed from any environment.

Fine Art was the next rotation and I found the first week enjoyable. The pace in the studio was rapid, and I struggled to accustom myself to this as I am a person who likes to spend great amounts of time on particular pieces of work. I was pleased to be creating still life observational drawings, and also found the one day self project appealing. We also created sequential drawings, where acetate was used to develop these pieces. These drawings I felt had a greater quality over my previous work in the particular area. The second week was in complete contrast to the first and deterred me from choosing Fine Art as my specialist area. Little direction was given as we were able to create our own pieces based on what we found interesting. I found it extremely difficult in deciding what to do and thus a lesson was learnt that I need a strong brief to develop ideas and inspiration from. After completion I soon realised the subject is approached via a broader method to what I am used to, and may not be suitable as I had thought.

After Fashion and Textiles I felt I would find Visual Communication an exciting and inspirational path as it also worked strongly with a brief. The importance of ideas was expressed, and I found it challenging producing many ideas under time restraints. However, the next project was based on photo manipulation, which I found a strong interest and enthusiasm for. The project which followed, allowed me to explore the subject matter of illustration, which created great interest towards a topic I never previously considered. Overall felt Visual Communication was an exciting creative field, which I look forward to immersing myself into during the year.

Fine Art

Hey!...just completed my first week of fine art, and i'm really enjoying it :D....At the beginning of the week when we arrived at the studios there were four installations of random objects sitting there, waiting for our inspiration to be derived from them. We drew sections of the installations and that literally was the story of the first day, i was pleased to be doing observational still life drawings.
We got the next two days off....and so they gave us a list of photos and drawings to do. I ended up at Westminster and I started drawing figures. There were two artists sitting still whilst drawing so i decided to capture them in drawing. The Thursday i went back, a girl came up to our table in the cafeteria and asked for a chair and to my surprise it was one of the students i drew at Westminster!!! :D
Back in the studio we started doing animation pieces using acetate which i really enjoyed. We also used our photos we took and printed out with acetate to produce pieces. I felt this was my best work, so next week i feel i will do mixed media pieces, the theme is yet to be decided.

~ Lauren

Fashion and Textiles

Well today I finished the Fashion and Textile rotation. I thought it was going to be so different from what it actually is. I really enjoyed learning the thought process within the area, and my understanding of how designers etc. work has greatly improved :)

I enjoyed the making process, in opposition to the drawings we did. I ended up making a sort of lace design out of tracing paper, which was a delicate, time consuming but worthwhile process :D

Looking forward to Fine Art next week!!!...hopefully the rain will cease next week :)

P.S. I added a few photos of what I did...but the middle one isn't complete here :D
Lauren