Day To Day

Crazy things that you come across everyday. Glitter on the floor whist on a walk. Whats its purpose? I have no idea but it looked wonderful on the dull floor and brighten my day. Things like these can inspire you for your next project or unit, don't ignore it, use it.

Walks with Cookie

My dog Cookie.

I honestly love walking my dog Cookie. The places we adventure to bring smile to my face. I take a quiet a few photos as well, some great places out there went you take a walk. I used to walk all the time with my Grandad when I was a child and I continue today to walk everyday to some place new.

Iron Fist

My shoes practically are the most beautiful piece of art I own and wear on my feet. Especially my Iron Fist heels! These beautys are the best things I will ever buy. My little family is slowly growing. From floral prints to lacey prints these heels cover any taste a girl can have, they just have a punk rock kick to them all, which i love! These could beat having any pair of Prada heels any day of the week.

Taken Away

 As i visited Manchester Gallery, these three statues caught my eye. I seem to have taken a very big liking to them as well. The feelings I have towards them is incredible. I couldn't even describe it if you asked me to. To me these are practically enjoyable to look at, has many meanings to them.

Tests, Old to New

Gustav Klimt, The Kiss, is the image I'm working from. Creating, mind maps and research bubbles to work form always helps me. Doing tests from these mind maps and research is what get you to your end piece. A little doddle could be a huge inspiration for your piece. Keep an open mind and go for it.

My Work Station

This is where I work and I love it it a table, a wall and a board. You can surround your self in everything you need. Work and tests get stuck on the wall and soon me and my station partner will be putting up more inspiring things for us.

My side of the board.

Me and my station partner Amy should get an award for messiest desk, we love how me and her just get on with work and its all there no fuss. 

Mandala influences (New from Old)

I love the inspiration from the spiritual symbol of Mandalas, since doing a piece of work with my assistant tutor it has now become part of my current experiment and test. It amazes me that people use it as an aid to meditate and focus on the centre of yourself. To create a Mandala you began to doodle from your original image and draw without thinking. Just draw.

From these doodles, you photocopy them, enlarge cut, work into more and then arrange them in a circle form like the Mandala composition.

Although mine isnt a circle, it can still be classed as a Mandala.

My Room

 My room is a place I work, a place I create my ideas from. The place I never want to leave yet always have to. Your room its self is a piece of artwork and a part of your mind. Currently doing my first unit back in college for my second year of art. So much to do, so little time. My room is the heart of me, most of the time.

Waking up in the morning in October to a blue sky is rare but I happen to get a photo yesterday before it rained. 

Finally had the chance to place all my wall ornaments up now. Rooms coming together nicely. Being a typical art student and photographing everything in a strange way. Vintage mirror was a great grab at £10 on a to-buy-sell site! My metal wall signs that you can see reflected in the mirror were £10 each at a Vintage New-to-Old shop local to me. I do love my Pin-Up girls on the wall though.

Got curtains up for the fist time since we moved house last year in October. Also its the first time in eight years that I've had curtains up! I absolutely love them, pale cream with a silver circular line pattern printed on them repeatedly. Floor length and black out ones too! I feel it just pulls my room altogether now.

Impericon, Never Say Die! Tour

So did any one go to the Impericon, Never Say Die! Tour because I did! It was amazing! From 6pm to 11pm 9.10.13 was a brilliant gig, best one I've been too yet aha. Every band playing that night I absolutely loved and they didn't fail to impress. Emmure being headline and having the longest set that night were ace! Carnifex rocked it and created the most chaos, I Killed The Prom Queen totally killed it and got everyone moving. Northlane had everyone singing, Betraying The Martyrs now the second time seeing them were sick. Then Hunderth new to me but yet still enjoyed them!

Adrian, Lead singer from Northlane!

I had the joys of meeting the lead singer from Northlane, Adrian, he's a great guy with an awesome band, they put on a wicked set list as well that night, was so worth seeing! People like him make your dreams worth fighting for and that anything is possible if you keep working for it. I have much respect for him, his band and every other band like themselves, who work hard for what they want.

Pinterest

Found a great site for student artists like myself to use on a regular basis. I use it when i'm stuck and need help moving on to generate other ideas. Its called Pinterest (http://www.pinterest.com/) go take a look, get yourself up hooked up to it. I'm sure you'll find some great you want to pin on your board and remember for later. Go, go, go!

Unit One: Old to New, Year 2

Gustav Klimt The Kiss. This is the image I have chosen to work from, I have to change most original things about it, e.g it was an oil and gold leaf painting, I shall be changing it to a photographic image. To get myself a high pass for this unit, I shall be doing a series of mind maps, artist research, analysis, evaluation, experiments and a final piece. Masses of this should give me a high pass. Now the fun part and actually working every night to grab myself the best grade I can get, a little bit every night could help me so much more while I'm on college time. Self motivation has to be the best thing right now, just have to keep repeating to myself i can do this ha. Away we go then...

Figure Drawing

I'm always needing or wanting to know the meanings to key words while figure drawing or drawing in general. So here's my little list of key words and meanings;

Figure - A figure is a positive or dominate shape in a drawing or painting. The shape is distinct from the background of the picture; comes forward in the composition. 

Negative Space - Negative space in a painting or drawing refers to the area encircling or located behind a positive space. 

Proportion - Proportion refers to the correction depiction of all the parts related to each other in shape/form within a realistic painting or drawing. Proportion lends a sense of balance and harmony to a piece of art work one may to decide to distort the proportions within an art work to create a certain effect on the viewer.

Mark (Drawing) - A mark in a drawing refers to an impression on the picture plane, it is often made to create the illusion of something such as an objects surface texture.

Proportions of the Head

To be able to do a 'perfect' portrait you need to learn some skills and tips. Starting with proportions within then head. The head can be divided horizontally into four equal quarters.

The first quarter measures from the top of the head to the hairline. The second quarter measures from the hairline down to the eyes in the middle of the head. 

The third quarter contains the most features. At the top of this section the eyes are usually level with the ears, and at the bottom of the nose is roughly level with the ear lobes. The final quarter stretches from the base of the nose to the chin with the mouth positioned just above the half way mark.

These proportions will only if we share the same eye level as the subject. they will become distorted if we view the head from above or below. 

Although the proportions of a head will vary form person to person and change slightly with age, there are some principles you can follow to improve your drawings. You can use these to check the general size, shape and position of the features in your drawings. If you view a head from the front, its width is approximately two thirds of its height. If you view a head from the side, its width is approximately seven eighths of its height. 

Some of the information was on one of my help sheet, hope it could help you too.

Tattoo Hall of Fame

Betty Broadbent also known as the "Tattoo’d lady" was born on November 1, 1909 in Philadelphia. Her fascination of tattoos started at age 14 and she later went on to get a body suit of over 565 tattoos. Broadbent exhibited her art with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. She also challenged traditional views of beauty for women during the 1930’s by participating in a beauty pageant at the World’s fair. Betty Broadbent passed away in Florida on March 28, 1983 and was the first person inducted into the Tattoo Hall of fame.

Reference Book

Found a pretty good site to find glossary terms within the art language. Creative Glossary has an array of art words with the meaning to them, they also have other categories to with the art world. Used some of the information from there to put in my reference book. Go check it out http://www.creativeglossary.com/index.php?cats=1

Research and Annotation

Okay so i'm good with research and using it in my sketchbook/reference book, but when it comes to annotation and showing where my final piece of work has come from, i'm rubbish. Its time to conker a personal task. So i have started my final piece and the inspiration came from, Marilyn Manson and the way he uses his water colours. Tim Burton and his characters;

Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas

The Corpse Bride

So now that i have shown my two artist that i have used as idea for my final piece i'll now have to put them in my book right? Add annotation and my tutor can then see where my final piece came from. I've also added two more artists in my book, so i'm thinking i'm going to have to add some work of theirs in my book so i can see why i like them, but i also want to tie them into my final piece too some how as well. Setting myself a big task here but i'm ready to take it on. Annotation here i come. Hard work you best do me well.

Brooke Shaden

I've taken a big liking to Brooke Shaden. So i personally wanted to do some research on her. Brooke began creating self-portraits for ease and to have full control over the images, and has since grown into a self-portrait artist. Self portraiture for her is not autobiographical in nature. Instead, she attempts to place herself within worlds she wishes we could live in, where secrets float out in the open, where the impossible becomes possible. Brooke works to create new worlds within her photographic frame. By using painterly techniques as well as the square format, traditional photographic properties are replaced by otherworldly elements. Brooke's photography questions the definition of what it means to be alive. This is taken from her website 

http://brookeshaden.com/gallery/ 

I find her work pulls you in, i love the feel some of her picture give off. She creates a world that you could only dream of. Not much more to say really, i feel i still need to develop an understanding of her work. Go check her out though!

Artists and Photographers

As everyday that passes by there is always a moment during your day that you look at some form of art, it could be anything, even if your using your imagination and you make an object out a cloud. Boom, thats art, well kind of. So a new way of looking at things, here are a few artists/photographers i have taken a liking to; Brooke Shaden, Jess Chorley, Candy Jernigan and Lucas Samaras. I have used these few people in my college art book to show self identity and maybe autobiographical. I'll try to keep updating my blog as much as i can, as being a 17 year old, being a full time art student, working on my days off proves to be hard to use your free time wisely.

Jess Chorley 

Joel-Peter Witkins

Joel-Peter Witkins uses many themes such as death, corpse and people cast as outsiders such as dwarfs, transsexuals and physically deformed people. Witkins explains that his inspirations and influences came to him when a violent car crash accident happened out side his home when he was younger, he encountered the  scene of three cars smashed together, all of which had families in. As he started at this horrific scene on the curb outside his home he claims 'I could see something rolling from one of the overturned cars. It stopped at the curb where i stood. It was a head of a little girl. I bent down to touch the face, to speak to it - but before i could touch it someone carried me away.' From this i think that Witkins may have developed his interest in corpse and corpse parts, as that it would have been a big event in life. Joel-Peter must have developed his ideas and thoughts from a young age of what he really took an interest in, for someone to be so engaged in such passionate interest in the lives of the 'abnormal' and 'grotesque' makes you stop and think.

Nikki Sixx Research

Nikki Sixx has been all around the world and has seen so many sights and scenes. He is a man that has been through many events, recovering from being a heroin addict and going through two divorces, having five children. This man is personally a legend in my eyes.

So I've been doing some research on Nikki Sixx, I've realised the man isn't afraid to say that he is happy to struggle. Happy to of not reached all his goals yet and happy to fail somedays so he can pick himself up again. Nikki can admit that there is so much about photography that he doesn't know but he keeps pushing and pushing wondering if there are any limits or just if you find a place and call it your own? As Nikki tours with his bands and travels the world alot he takes pictures of people doing their everyday routine, something they do may inspire him to take that picture at that moment in time. Not all pictures he takes mean something to people but he just wants to show what someone else could be doing at that moment in time, in their life.

Creativity! 'Creativity is not linear, just like the earth is not flat... If you keep going long enough you will always get back to where you started from. That is when you have lived a full life. That is the artist's path.' I think what Nikki is trying to say is that if you work at something long enough then you will always be able to pick up from where you left from and once you can start to do that, then you are really living life to the full always keeping something going and not stopping. It is a way of life, the path of an artist.

If. If Nikki Sixx could be remembered as anything, it would be a great father. Why, i'm not completely sure myself yet, but he would be the father of a man showing many wonders, achieving many of his own personal goals and also achieving many challenges in life. Living it up. Soaking it up. Turning it up. 'The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.'

I recently found out what Nikki's favorite quote was, 'if you wanna live life on your own terms, you gotta be willing to crash and burn.' This its self is true when you place it into your own life situation and really does make you stop and think. Trying not to go off task like i have, i found out that Nikki says 'that the biggest lesson to teach people is not what kind of camera it is as much as that you just that you always have something in you hand to capture that moment in front of you. I have used everything from wet plate cameras to cheap point an shoots. Make no mistakes a old Leica m3 will blow your mind but so can an iPhone in the right light.'

In one of my recent posts i explained i would also do some research on Joel-Peter Witkins, i will processed with this but i won't be comparing Sixx with Witkins as i found out that Nikki himself is inspired by Witkins. This for me shows that he not only creates his own images he recreates similar work to other photographers. I've probably done over 300 words here so i may have to stop, but it will be my personal goal to to update a post every now and then about him and with that i'm going to leave you with this:

"An education in rebellion"

Nikki Sixx

Nikki Sixx is truly an amazing person. Not only do i enjoy looking at his photography, i also like his music, Moltey Crue and Sixx A.M. With him being a recovering Heroin addict and cameras being his new drug, he is now living his life to the full. Nikki Sixx also published two autobiography's both of which i have read and throughly enjoyed. Nikki Sixx has many styles, not only is he a photographer, song writer, author and a musician, he is also a fashion designer, radio host and record producer . He is a man of many wonders.

Photoshop/Photography

Using no photoshop these are few of the photographs i took to fit in with shapes and forms.

I personal really enjoy taking photographs. I like learning new skills with the camera. Learning how to give effect and shadow to the object is an exciting thing to me.

Although not all of my photographs are perfect, i have learnt that sometimes the imperfect is the perfect.