04/01/2010

First day back after the Christmas break. Started to put an undercoat on all the non-white things in the installation; it took most of the day. I have to say it is coming along very well; the second coat will finish it off nicely. Put some emulsion on the walls, where they were marked. Have started my experiments with the 'mirror faces'. Basically, just some colour to the side of a facial shape, made with charcoal , and paper mirror. It is aesthetically unusual, perhaps even a little disconcerting. Nevertheless, I believe I can make some interesting works using this method.Painted some flat colour on mirror; will also experiment with this by scraping out facial shapes, to see what effects I can achieve, and whether the mirror affects the colour, and vice versa.

18/12/2009

Added some more pieces to the ceiling piece. Went to homebase to get some drawing pins, glass etch (to see what kind of effects I can get on mirror), also had to buy some white gloss paint, to paint the floor white in my studio space. I want to give the space a feeling of surreality, or to, as it were, 'play' with peoples spatial awareness, on some different level of consciousness, I believe I can achieve this by painting the installation completely white; so ultimately, the space will be a kind of ethereal experience.

 

17/12/2009

Have started hanging another work from the ceiling; it is pieces of broken mirror; some smaller pieces placed in front of bigger pieces. It is aesthetically interesting, although, it perhaps needs a slight 'breeze' to give the piece some movement, which ultimately will bring the illusionism which I am trying to create. Not just illusionism, but I am trying to make work,that makes people sit up and ask questions, not just cast a quick glance over. I want to challenge peoples sense of perception; perhaps even make them ask the question: am I really here? A colleague came into my space today had a look around, and said: " It's like coming in to some kind of parallel universe here" Now that's the kind of thing I'm talking about !!!!!!!!!!!!!

16/12/2009

Stuck some broken pieces to the wall, and made a mirror image of the pieces; and stuck the adjacent to broken pieces. It once again has this element of illusion, and also concinnity. This piece will be a triptych; the second one made out of the original forms as the first, but this time in the carnival mirror, the third, I have 'drawn' the same forms; I plan to use paint to give the illusion of mirror.

 

 

15/12/2009

Got an old mac computer and placed a mirror behind it, also attached a mirror to the front of it; again, causing an element of visual illusion. I am in two minds as to whether to get a piece of mirror to fit the screen exactly or not; I plan to scrape out a section of the mirror backing, so as to enable me to play a video piece on the screen too. In the meantime, I have cut out a piece of the carnival mirror to experiment, as to the effects this might have. An unexpected phenomenon happened; I accidently scraped the screen with my fingernail, and it took away a line of the silver, so I took out several line to see what kind of effect I could get.It was quite effective.

14/12/2009

Worked furiously in the studio today, the ideas are filling my mind to bursting point ! Probably will not be able to realise all the ideas for this assessment, however, have much material to work with for a while to come yet. Basically just adding to the installation; working on the layout etc. Although I am using 'nice square' shapes for most of the installation, I am also using a fair amount of irregular shapes; even some broken type forms. I believe this adds even more tension to piece, than what it is already there.

 

 

11/12/2009

I was going to download the footage from video piece, straight from the video camera onto my computer, unfortunately, the firewall cable they use in the college does not fit my computer, so had to use the multimedia room macs. The downside to this, is that we can only use the computer that it is downloaded to; this is not really agreeable, as there are so many students using the multi media macs these days. Have copied the footage onto my memory stick; then hope to copy to my computer that way, although, Nigel reckons that this is not a good practice, and could lead to a reduction in quality. Katriona saw a bit of the footage as she was passing, and commented that she like it; which was promising, as she has a good understanding of video work. I believe it will be a very good piece when it is edited. Attended another meeting of the open drawing awards show; it was basically just tying up the loose ends, in terms of the brochure and invites etc; we also have a web page, which will be used for archival purposes.