Protest!!

So it's the first day back and the start of two new briefs! I'm feeling really motivated right now, so I hope I can really throw myself into these projects and get a decent grade. 

With the who am I brief, I thought of looking at the balance between my spirituality and the slight guilt that I feel from abandoning my upbringing, for the "where am I going part". In class I mostly just did a brainstorm of ideas and had a wee catch up with my classmates ;)

So our timetable is now divided up between PDP, contextual studies, integrated project (the who am I brief) and applied practice. When I first saw that we had applied practice, I wasn't sure if that would be workshops along side the integrated project, general workshops, or a different thing entirely. And as it turns out, it is a different thing entirely and we got a new brief with it. This brief is "Protest" and am actually quite excited about it as I love some protest art like Yoko Ono and Ai Weiwei. For this we have to pick something we can protest or rant about, and am currently thinking of looking at war/ conflict and the number of pointless deaths, and the careless cost of life. I am thinking of looking at some songs like "the band played waltzing Matilda" and "the green fields of France" by Eric Bogle and maybe look at anti-poetry like Dulce et Decorum Est. 

Anyways, we were given some class time to discuss with our classmates and make mind maps about our ideas. 

I think this was a good way to get a our minds to think about stuff that matters to us. For example at the start I couldn't really think of many things that I cared enough about that I could concentrate a whole project on, but now I am aware of a whole load of stuff that I could discuss. But I am fairly certain that I will stick to war since it means so much to me, and always has, for instance I wrote one of my standard grade essays on the Iraq war. So yeah I think I might look more at that. 

So to some up I am mega motivated and plan to keep being this positive, and I am going to stick to my epic plan of action I mentioned in my last post. 

Now I am off to Hobbeycraft to buy some sketchbooks and listen to some anti-war songs. 

Until next time

Róisín- x

Reading Week

So with everything handed in for my practical and PDP work, all that was left to do was to chill and then work on my essay and presentation. 

Last year's word limit for the essay was a thousand words which was easy to work around with what I was writing it on. This years word limit is three thousand words, and I really struggled to get it to two thousand. I handed it in on Friday, so hopefully my lecturer can point me in the right direction on where to go with that and my presentation. 

I got my grades back on Monday and I passed yaaaay! I had had a lot going on during this brief, so honestly I was just looking for a pass to get it over and done with. I got a 3B, I am kind of disappointed with it, as I felt that I could have gotten better with it. I think a major thing that let me down was not backing up my  pages with enough annotation, as yet again, I left it all to the last minute. 

So I have a plan of action for the next brief this term:

1) Do not move on to the next sketchbook page until I have fully completed the previous on, annotation included. 

2) Make sure that I talk to my lecturers more to make sure my work is going in the right direction. 

3) Stick to my time plan. 

4) Blog more

5) I heard about this thing called the chain, which is a motivation tool. You do a bit of work everyday, even if it's just a little, as long as you don't break the chain. I am going to do this with my sketchbook work for college, and I have also started a small sketchbook for some work that I can do at home as well. Last year I kind of found it hard to get motivated sometimes, so hopefully this helps. 

Anyways, we got our brief for the next term which is: "Where have we been, what are we, where are we going?"

After a chat with our lecturer just before the break, we found out that this could be in general, Or we could make it more personal. I'm thinking of going downthe personal route and look at my Catholic background, which I have abandoned in my adulthood. The only thing with this is I don't know what to do with the "where am I going?" bit, but I can talk to my lecturers about that tomorrow. 

That's all for now, until next time,

Róisín -x

Deadlines!!!!!!!

So it's officially panic week and I had so much to do Arggh!

Firstly I had to finish off some stuff for PDP including printing and binding my report. And once that was shipped off to my lecturer I then had to finish off my stuff for the brief.

This included printing off lots and lots of photos for my sketchbook and to be put on display, annotation,  the joy that is the statement of assessment, annotation, sticking up my photos on mounting board, annotation, some quick drawings and annotation. Phew!! 

And then once that was all done I had a presentation!!! Yaaaaaaaay! Mine was on the impact that album covers had in the 60s and 70s and the impact (or lack there of) that they have now. It's only half the length of our usual but still, stress seems to be in a bit of an abundance right now. It was right after I had rushed to get my multiples things done, so when I got into class I was a bit hyper and nervous, but by the time it was my turn I had gottent the chance to compose myself and only stumbled once ! 

Now  onto the essay!!

So now here we are, Friday night and I can breath a huge sigh of relief, and then it's off to work tomorrow and Sunday. 

I'm really looking forward to Monday as I have no plans and can just have a pyjama day, snooze and watch Game of Thrones. 😃 

See you next time :)

Róisín -x

Ps: I will try to blog more, I promise. ;)

It's Chtistmas!!!!

So with the deadline being the week we get back, my festive break has been pretty hectic. Trying to finish off Pdp, a presentation and our first brief for college, being ill, Christmas and new year, meeting up with friends and family and lots of overtime for work - horraaaaaay!!!

So the past couple of weeks have been pretty stressful, but thankfully I work best under pressure, so I think I'm coping well considering. 

I finally managed to stick up my stickers around Edinburgh: which was fun and stressful as I was trying to take pictures of this and not draw attention to myself at the same time. All that's left to do now is get them I my sketchbook and work out how to display these for the brief. 

A lot of my time over the festive was spent trying to finish off these in Photoshop, as my laptop is on its last legs so asking it to open Microsoft word is a task. But I finally managed to get them complete and am quite happy with them. 

For my presentation I am going to look at the progression of album covers and if the digital age is killing the album cover or has it already done so. 

See you next time

Róisín -x