13.06.11 Home Sweet Home

It's all finished and in place. We ended up eating half the tin of flapjacks and having a cup of tea in my 'home'. Jude and I made ourselves very comfy whilst Vince sang along to my home soundtrack in the background, all very domestic!
It all feels very familiar and comfy - I could have quite happily settled down with my book for the rest of the day but there was a serious danger that I'd eat the rest of the flapjacks.

Couldn't get any sound but here are a couple of pics.

10.06.11 Becky Adams

Just one more contextual artist which I thought was really fun and captured a child-like view of her world.
I love the combinations she uses both of materials ie fabrics, texts, her own words which have come from a captured moment and subjects where she brings different things together to make them real as a single object within her world.
I can relate to illustrative forms and the layers she builds up , they are a lot more detailed than my work but maybe that's something that will develop with time and also confidence.
The colours are very soft and the shapes and lines are defined which works for me.
They're domestic and fun in content and have a nostalgic feel which I love.

http://www.beckyadams.co.uk/

Watching her video you can see the qualities in her work , reflected in her so I need to embrace the qualities that are intrinsically me and enjoy them . This way my work will develop with more integrity , creating my own style and improving my confidence.

10.06.11 Detail

The final presentation needs a bit more homeliness, it lacks clutter unlike my home !

As the work is also being shown, there is a requirement for it to represent the college and so the way it's displayed has to work for both them and me.
I'm happy with the paintings grouped as they feel like a view through a window which is what I wanted not just a collection of paintings on the wall.
The other wall feels calm and balances well against the strong paintings, with a feeling of space echoed in the layout of my work and the detail of the domestic items such as the pegs that hold the work.

This is all good and looks presentable but it needs to feel more homely so I think a few more props are needed to block out the fact that it's a couple of pieces of board within a college room.
I'm going to try a rug on the floor to section my area off , giving a break from everything else around me, and a few bits on the table to make it feel lived in.
I also have some sounds from home which I couldn't play as there's no cable yet in my area, so fingers crossed it's getting there.

I taped family within my home , me cooking, the noises in the garden and overlaid them with some of the songs that I listen to when sitting in the kitchen. It was an epic achievement as I am not particularly good with tech things and as I'd recorded onto my phone I then had to find a way to get them into I Tunes so that I could dump them onto disc. I quickly found out that I Tunes doesn't accept the type of file that the phone creates ! So  I took my usual approach of where there's a will ( even a desperate need !!) there's a way - went through I Movie to Garage Band and finally to I Tunes - HOORAH .
Finally feeling very proud of my achievement I realised that unless I put this on a loop and drive everyone nuts with the same song over and over I was going to have to create some more ...

So a very short album later... it sounds more quality item than it is !.. I have brought the sound of my home to my presentation , which was important as it needs life and laughter. I just never thought it would take me over a week, it's always these types of jobs that absorb more time than you think.

Photo, maybe with sound to follow , if I can get it all working !

09.06.11 Bringing it all together

Had a really fun, busy week playing with more tea , it's becoming a bit of a fixation.
Preparing for the assessment so sorted work , made sure books were up to date, etc but as my work has always been exploration with no determined final piece I took the opportunity to explore further. I felt that as my final piece was going to be a collection of images to give my feel of home , continuing could only increase my choice.

I used wet tea bags to stain paper in a random way and then having studied it decided to try a line drawing on the top. I used the drawing of my daughter and whilst I like the effect , it needs more layers and even though we've now finished I'll continue to play with some of these images as I'd like to see what I can get out of them.

I think it needs further small images or text to give it depth - maybe to do with my feelings for my daughter or how I see her.

Continuing with tea I have cut shapes through the card as I like the embossed tea leaves, they're simplicity, the shadow created by light hitting them but this in itself causes a problem as if the light isn't right it looks flat and you can't really see the design. The shapes cut give a similar clean ,  simple but can be seen much more easily, particularly when I then feel the need to put a tea bag print into one !
I love the fact that when using print you always have the multiple images so you can play with putting different pieces together finding new ways of looking at them, this can then take you into a whole new area of exploration that you never would have come up with straight away.

The theme continues on , I used tea bags to get blocks of colour as I like the feel of the tea bag prints,very structural holding the emotions through colour and a single word. I wanted to see whether I could achieve this using the direct colour of the tea bag as my printing source.
Having played with this I tried two ideas , one was to over print with a further element of the source material ie. the tea bag and the other was to put something entirely different on.

I took a print of three tea bags and then overprinted with a relief of the tea bag, I chose a vibrant colour as my natural palette tends to be quite muted but with the odd small use of something vibrant to lift the whole thing. The natural tea colour is quite red/brown and I wanted something to lift this so used a strong pink - I was thinking of the combination of orange and pink you see in some Indian saris, as long as one dominates in quantity the combination can be really uplifting and this was the feel that I wanted.

I like the feel of the image but it still need something further.

I've chosen text which applies to my home and the way I live within it, I don't want it to dominate as I want it to draw you within it, just as my home does - wraps you up and nurtures.
The word 'eat' , 'laugh', 'love' sum up in a very basic fashion the essence of my home both for myself and those that within.

Again I like the simplicity of the image , the space that it sits in and the warmth that both the image and the text imply.
The material used ie the tea is also very important ,  as a substance it's used socially to share, to comfort, to make contact whether through work or domestic life. It's a custom - ' come in , would you like a tea ? ,  a bizarre gift amongst friends out " you go and sit down I'll get us a tea'. It's intrinsic in everyday life pretty much regardless of who you are.
My Aunt was talking about it, having dropped in to have a cup of tea and then seeing my pieces of work was discussing the uses . She went from refreshment and comfort, to tea dances, how valuable it used to be, and how it was used in hospitals to collect dust. Apparently the damp tea leaves used to be sprinkled on the floor and then swept up, by which time they would have attached to the dust and so cleaned the floor particularly under the beds.
I'm looking at it very personally within my home but the possibilities as a subject seem to be huge.

Back to my work, I wanted to create quite a different image with the tea prints , more of a view than an emotion. I spent ages wandering around my home looking at it trying to determine which bits hold the key. There were lots of individual objects such as a mirror which my Great Grandmother had painted and given to me when I was very young, strange little sentimental objects that over the years I have acumilated but nothing really felt right. I then wandered around the garden waiting to come across the thing - no luck. I had the kettle on the Aga and so to  check whether it was boiling looked in through the window - perfect , it was a view of the space that everyone migrates to when they visit, the place I cook , sit , work, paint, eat, listen to music, talk. It was the source of my homeliness.

I did a quick sketch as I don't want the image to feel overworked, I want it to be a moment , like a glimpse through the window , very personal - someone's life , the kettle boiling , supper could be in the oven or even a cake !

I put the squares on after as I decided to transfer the image in sections to lino - to give a broken image partially as I didn't want a replica but also as it echoes the panes in the window so like looking through.

Lots of lino cutting later - I'm really pleased with the image, it's not a clear view of my kitchen as it wasn't about that , it's a feel of it . There are recognisable shapes but not an overall image as I wanted to create something different - a piece bringing together all the ways I've experimented with the values of what I've learnt throughout my year.

The choice of print was important  as there's a lot of pattern created by the lino which is what I wanted, if it had been an etching the image would have been directly transferred but with lino the material sometimes dictates a feel and direction. I like this added element which gives a further dimension to the image, it's more about the lines and shapes of my home with the tea behind giving a lovely soft , glowing colour. They are like the building blocks of the drawn image , a glimpse through a paned window into a softly lit kitchen .

Oddly the colours are the same as that piece of kitchen , which I didn't realise until I sit here now writing this , which don't really occur anywhere else in my home - the subconscious at work !

Having used so many tea bags I wondered what I could do with them after , so carefully undoing them I discovered lovely little bits of paper . I printed onto a few with the theme of tea at Emma's with cake and cats in mind using etching . 

I loved the antique feel of these , I'm going to keep playing with this idea as it makes something very ordinary feel like something quite precious and nostalgic just because of the colour and the fragility.

Who would have thought there was so much fun to be had out of the humble tea bag !!

Finally it's time to put up the show. I feel quite disappointed it's the end of our year, it's been so much fun and knowledge has crept up on me whilst I've been enjoying experimenting , the work generating further ideas.

My chosen pieces are hung, I've just got a few additions in order to make my space feel more homely. Now I've got to catch up on the ironing and weeding that I've abandoned in favour of this fantastic learning experience or maybe I should start a new journal and see where that takes me - weeds are simply flowers in the wrong place and who needs flat clothes anyway !

30.05.11 Family

I've been thinking about how I represent my family and looking around my home for the trigger, I'd considered the collections I have of objects and whether this was part of my representation.

I started to look at printing images of jugs to represent my family but it didn't feel right , but they did look like a family lined up for their photo, all different shapes and sizes.

Whilst looking at photos of them I felt that the patterns were important as part of my home , the colour, the shapes and I thought I may be able to incorporate these into something.

I've drawn some of my family members onto acetate and laid them over prints of china patterns , which has then all been put together into a book/album - it felt right to present it in this way, familiar and domestic.

I have to use a OHP pen on the acetate so that it dries quickly but it's really hard to draw with as it's quite a big tip and there's no rubbing out !! I wanted a surface that was transparent so that I could combine the patterned surfaces with the line drawings but not permanently as I also like the patterns as stand alone items.

Before I made the sheets into the book I took some photos through the glass in a similar fashion to the photo of my daughter that I posted yesterday.The glass as a material is gorgeous, I love the diffused light and the gaps that are completely transparent, it has a frame like quality .

Olivia has just posted a comment about that photo, suggesting I could photograph other family and friends in the same manner, so I may try this as well.
She's absolutely right about me seeing the glass as a window into my space but the reason I made it 3D when everything else is pretty much 2D is that like everything , my space has two functions : one soft , domestic, calm, etc. and the other is vibrant and sociable , so you can chose which way to look  . There is also the merging indoor and outdoor space that I wanted to capture ; a bit like sometimes it's lovely to sit in a warm kitchen next to the Aga , looking at the wind and rain lashing the windows outside but sometimes you need to be out in those elements experiencing them and looking in through the glass to that warm , glowing , cosy kitchen - you need both sides.

I love the slightly abstract quality these have , I know who they are but is it important to anyone else , they're just images. The colours and black line drawing works well together - the diffuse, muted abstract with the sharp, defined black line giving a beautiful balance. It will be interesting to see how someone else views them as to me they're emotional ; the content, colour, the ethereal feel of the light but for me they are also personal so how will someone without that knowledge view them - will they lose those qualities ?

I want to make a bigger piece that has elements of all these individual works put together somehow and I've now learnt that if you're not sure where to begin the best thing to do is just get started.

27.05.11 Printing and Glass

Back to print with my teabags having thoughts of words that I connect to my home.

I was really pleased with the result, it's a really strong, bold image that describes how I feel about my home and involving materials from my home. The image has an interesting structure not unlike the building blocks of a house with the repetitive shapes creating a restful overall image. I've used soft colours as these are my palette and I like the mix of colours which feel as if they represent the feelings and moods I have about my subject. The pink is something I was drawn to as it was fun and actually it lifts the rest of the colours just like the emotions that I've connected it to , so it completes rather than fractures the palette.

I chose the type rather than my writing as I wanted it to feel almost like a recipe , an instruction of ingredients put together to make my home. I kept the type small so that you'd have to enter the image's intimate space in order to receive the information , this enables you to see that the coloured squares are in fact printed teabags. This feels a bit like my friends and family knowing me within my home , they are a step closer to me and so are able to see the detail of both myself and my home.

The changes in colour and the addition of text creates a flow around the image which is accentuated by the space which itself creates a rest.

This looks to simple and in many ways it is but the route to it has been a complex journey through all sorts of images, emotions, and ideas which have led me to this point. I'd like to explore this idea further and see where it takes me next and I'd also like to look at smaller groups of teabag prints to see whether they become stronger in their simplicity or not. As a start I've cropped my image in different combinations to get a feel for this.

I love playing with this, it ticks all my boxes - it just says 'Home' to me.

I also collected my piece of glass which had to be re-fired as the first firing hadn't fused it. There are still a few problems , it has fused but I've lost some clarity maybe due to the double firing and there are several cracks within the piece. There is also a problem with some of the glass frits that I used which were supposed to be a soft blue but have somehow come out red - not great but oddly look like tea leaves.

The layers have worked well and feel like the layers of my home and although the colour elements are not as harmonious as I'd hoped, I like the overall quality of the glass , the transparency that allows you to see through those layers and beyond.
Unfortunately I can't afford to make another piece as the glass is quite expensive but the more I look at it the more areas I see of interest and different possibilities are becoming apparent.

a close up through the glass

and from the other side

I took this close up of my daughter looking though at me and I think this is where my interest lies , with the view through the clear patch with the colour and movement around it. Is it looking in to my perception of home or out ?, I suspect into home but we'll see.

I need to see what images I can get with this when I've got some better light, and see where they take me. As for the red glass where it shouldn't be , I'm learning to live with it which is a bit like life and so home , there are always elements you wouldn't have chosen but actually work very well - serendipity.

25.05.11

I've been playing with tea and tea-bags due to the fact that it's a constant , both day and night in my home. It's something that's there to sooth, comfort, quench , wake you up, help you sleep and it's shape is echoed all over the home ; tiles, windows, tables, pictures and I just love it like my home.

 I have been examining the shapes of the leaves in drawings and embossings and I'm now playing with colours of tea , which is varied to say the least. I've emptied my cupboards and found enough of an assortment to get a good colour mix and have been trying to get prints off the bags.

Cake made from loose tea with a ribbon on the top

This is a print of a tea bag, which  has all sorts of possibilities

Print of the image off the roller after I inked up the tea bag for the print above

Another print of a larger tea bag.

Decided to combine the idea of a tea bag and an image from my kitchen looking into the garden into a lino cut. 

I printed this at home after cutting it,  with water based inks which is why it's patchy as it was drying too quickly. I have used brown paper because it is a domestic material and because of it's colour and texture which remind me of a tea bag. It's very simple but I'm beginning to appreciate that  and I just need to use that simplicity to it's best advantage.

Printed using oil based ink, a much cleaner print and the ink has more depth to it.

I like the feeling of the room being darker , I'm inside looking out into the light. It's calm and light which is what I wanted to show. I would like to see the table in a different colour and I'm not sure about the outdoors. I think I need to play with different methods of putting colour into the print in different places.

I used tissue paper under the linoprint to bring some colour in, but I'm not happy with the green as it s not soft enough and makes it look twee. It also pulls the outdoors in so flattening out the whole image.

Tried using a single colour tissue, it's more harmonious but still pulls the background forward. I'm going to try a few other things to see if I can get a soft harmonious look which is like looking out through a door into a sunny garden.

I printed a monoprint over the lino and I really like the effect, it's soft appears as though you're looking out on to a bright day. The background is no longer coming forward so the cat is in silouette which I think works and the pattern added into the monoprint adds interest without making it fussy.