Essay Proposal

So this week we had to submit our essay proposals, which means that we had to make a more finalised decision on what our essays are on D:

So I have a vague idea kinda on what I want to do. I definitely want to look at fan culture in some form and was thinking of looking at the idea of fans using tshirts to express their involvement in this community/ fandom. I'm not sure how far I can take this idea but I suppose my lecturer will help me out with that.

It is a slight continuation of what I did last year so I decided to look at these books here:

I'm not really sure how relevant they will be but I don't think that it will have hurt too much to ave read them ;)

Anyway bye for now :)

Róisín -x

Mapping

So I haven't blogged as much as I planned to but I am going to blame some technical difficulties with blogger and the fact I was dying of the cold.

Any ways thought I would update you on the non-places situation.
My mini research sketchbook is almost done, I just want to take some more photographs to fill out the last few pages and then that's me.
What I've been working on the past few days is looking at the "Situationist International movement" and their work with psychogeography and dérive. With these theories (I'l let you google them yourself because I'm not sure I can explain them in one blog post... although heres the site I used: http://libcom.org/library/internationale-situationiste-2-article-1 ) they edited maps.

What made me think of this was I was trying to map out my old school seeing as it had been knocked down meaning that I couldn't go take pictures of it for my sketchbook.

So what I've done is redrew what I can remember of my school and added in what some areas were to me and where we used to sit/stand

I also have another idea which I'm calling "bags in places" for now. With this I was looking at how when we used to sit or stand in certian areas, we would almost 'claim' them with our bags. I thought that if I displayed groups of bags in f=different areas it would make an interesting installation piece.

Anyway that's all I have right now so here is some more sketchbook spam :P

So I'll see ya next time

byyyyyeeee!!

Róisín -

Non-places

So after our hand in of the pencils brief we were then given our new brief called 'Non-Places' which is a philosophical theory on what defines a place. I'm not going to go into too much detail about that seeing is it is an extremely deep concept which you could argue about for hours, so I'll just let you google it and make up your own mind. :P

So I'm kind of going between a few ideas at the moment, but I think the one I might try and stick to is my idea of looking at where youths go to hang out as normally these would be classed as non-places, like walls and stairwells etc. By them choosing to sit in these areas, they then change the definition of these non-places into places. (This brief is so confusing) I also have considered looking into social media as well, but I'm not sure if this was widen the topic too much. I might also branch out into looking at how as children the places we go are determined by our parents mostly, and as adults we tend to only ever go to "places" like work, home, bars etc.

Anyway now I'm just going to spam you with my sketchbook pages that I have so far. ;)

So that is where I am at with this project hopefully I can get some form of clear direction but I'm planning on talking to some of my lecturers on Monday to help give me some focus,

so until then
byye :)

Róisín - x

Pencil Brief!!

So over the first couple of weeks back we got our first mini brief which was the essence of the pencil. At first I was stumped, but a few mind maps later I had began to come up with an idea. I looked at what a pencil meant to me, and to me the pencil is an object that opened doors to maths English etc, so I started to look into the idea of unlocking.

 At first I though of trying to make a traditional lock with the pencil acting as the key, however I decided not persuade this given the complication of actually making the lock and the time scale of the brief. I then simplified the idea down and decided I wanted to arrange a line of pencils into the shape of the pins in the lock. 

I then played about with different ideas of the background and thought how I would make the pencils stand out rather than just have a plain background. My first idea was to try and join up the pins as to how the key would look for this lock. However I thought that this distracted too much from the pencils themselves and so abandoned that idea. 

I then thought of using old past papers or textbooks as the background

I felt that these ideas definitely worked better, and then decided to go with past papers as the paper was a little brighter making the pencils stand out. I used a maths past paper as the background as I felt that this contained better imagery and also I had to use a pencil in this exam. 

To display the final piece I found an old decorative box in a second hand shop and it was the perfect size for my piece. I bought it for a couple of punds and then took the old display out, added in my pencils and background. I also tidied up the back of it a bit just to make it looker neater and cleaner.

'Unlocked'

We then had to critique our classmates work and write our questions for them on a piece of papaer. I think that this was a good idea as what came back from mine was that I maybe should have placed my sketchbook there as well to show my progression of ideas, and also explain bits of my concept a bit more. What I might do for next time is next to my artist statement have a QR code that links to a more descriptive blog post that would hopefully answer more questions they might have that I couldn't cover in the artist statement.

Anyway, that's one brief done only three more to go,
bye for now,

Róisín - x

Presentations

Well this week hasn't been that great with some family issues cropping up meaning I've had virtually no time for college work and have been quite demotivated. 

On a more positive note I had my presentation and I think it went well all things considered. I was a bit nervous and under prepared and I think this showed however I think I saved myself a bit when answering questions. I've always been better at the answering questions bit of presentation so hopefully this pushes my grade up a bit. 

Anyways

Until next time,

Róisín -x

Protest is over!!

So I know that I haven't blogged in a while but life has been quite stressful these past few weeks plus I'm currently ill at the moment, so fun times. I have managed to stay on track so far and completed everything for my protest hand in. My essay is also pretty much done, I just need to look over a couple things then it's just a case of printing it, binding it and submitting it, which can be done tomorrow worse comes to worse, but that's fine. I have also got an extension for my integrated project, so my new submission date is Monday the 8th. I'm glad that this is the date that I got, as it gives me two full weekends to blitz it.

Anyway the main point of this post is to show off my protest final. The title of this series is 'V is for Victory'

The main point of this piece is to show that in war there are no victors. As even on the 'winning' side, there is still death and destruction. I used the 'V is for Victory' stamp, as with war the victors often stamp that war as 'won' and that is it, case closed. We forget the pain and death that comes with war and focus on what we gained from atrocities. The wars that I focused on were WW I, WWII, Iraq and Afghanistan as I have lived through both Afghanistan and Iraq  and grew up with images of these wars on the news. And WWI and II are obviously the most infamous and are taught in school and had the biggest effect on the world, so these are the main four wars that have had some sort of effect on my life, and are the wars that have spawned my anti- war protest. I am really pleased with how this final piece turned out, I just wish that I had a little more time to work on the drawings, but I think that they are still good.  I also like how this is a series that I can continue, as this 'V is for Victory' Stamp can be applied to any war.

One of the main things that I learned from this process was problems that can arise from a stencil. Because I decided to put the writing on my drawings one after the other, the last couple look pretty grubby. So I think if I was to use a stencil for something else in future, I would either give myself enough time between painting for the paint to dry, or get a stencil that I can clean.


So that's all for now, I will keep you updated on how my integrated project is going over the next few days.
Byyeee!
Until next time -
Róisín -x

Updating again

Okay then this is just an update on where I have been for the past couple of weeks, I got back from holiday on the 4th of May, I hadn't done much over the weekend, which was fine because I was planning on doing some stuff before I went back to college. However I then had a family emergency which has taken up the bulk of my time until now and probably will do for the next few days. So now I am panicking slightly because there are only  couple of weeks left now, and I was planning to at least be half way through my final pieces now, and I haven't even started them. I am planning on finishing my essay and my Protest brief by next week and I can work on my Integrated project from then on and hopefully I will get and extension for this so I have time to finish my final piece.

Anyway that's all I have for now, I will hopefully have more for next week,
But until then, bye

Róisín -x