Trip to London

This week I went to London with the university, the study trip was arranged to help students with the brief for 'Secret London' - I initially had ideas of where I wanted to go, one of the places being the Huntarian Surgery College. At my tutorial with Pete I asked where in London he would be taking his group, saying that I wanted to visit the Huntarian - only for Pete to say, "That’s where I'm taking your group". I was so pleased - although at this moment it doesn’t have much relation to my project, I was still excited about going.

Pete had two places to show us, one being the Huntarian, the other being the John Sloane museum. I decided to head across the park to the Huntarian to start with. The Huntarian holds surgical oddities and examples of disease for medical students to examine close up. It really is fantastic, it contains just about every aliment possible in a medical jar, including my favorite – part of a child’s head. It also has artifacts of animals and Andre the seven foot giant. Well, his skeleton anyway. I could have spent hours looking at everything, and unfortunately taking photographs were prohibited. When I got home however, after being behind an American student who loudly kept taking photos on her iPhone for the whole time I was in the museum, I Googled ‘child head jar Huntarian’ and bingo, someone else has had more guts than I ever had and posted the sneaky photos online! Brilliant. I’ll include them further down, they might make you feel a bit sick though.

Child head in jar.

Feeling handy.

Part of a child's face - why not.

After a quick sandwich, I headed over to John Sloane’s house, and after leaving my bag in the hallway like a forlorn mother at nursery, I explored the house – well, its actually three houses all together. I think describing it will do it no justice what so ever, you just have to go and see it. Any structure that was originally there has been moved; it was a strange place full to the brim with artifacts and little nooks and crannies. It was impossible to walk past someone; I constantly had to squeeze past someone in a narrow walk by that would have once been a hallway to the kitchen. There was one room that had huge paintings in frames that hung from the ceiling in every available space. Pete said that the room had an added extra – the staff member that manned the room unhooked a latch on what appeared to be the wall, and revealed a secret ‘door’ that was actually just more room space underneath for paintings! Once again we were sadly not allowed to take photographs, after Googling however, one person has managed to take a photo while it actually happens, see below.

Sneaky photo - found on Google images

A view of one of the archways.

 To summarise I really enjoyed both places I visited in London, and I will be making a return visit to the Huntarian this summer hopefully. 

Tutorial with Pete

I had a portfolio tutorial with Pete today, this was to help me choose some work from previous projects to include in my portfolio for the final show. I showed him a selection of images from my last options project (Kate bush) and some Medal prints from the bargate exhibition.

Although I felt that I didn't have that many images, Pete spoke about the images that would look the strongest in my portfolio and he said that i had about six images already to include without me having anything from my FMP. Knowing this I felt slightly better and more relaxed about what to do when it comes to printing the folder of images. We then discussed portfolio size and where to purchase them from, I'm hoping to look at some folders when I go to london this week.

Carolyn Gowdy makes a visit

Today we had a guest lecture from old time illustrator Carolyn Gowdy. She was described to me as the 'Queen of illustration' by a lecturer who urged me to go and see her work. Her talk was really quite good, she has had such an interesting career and life and although some of her images were not to my taste she did have amazing stories to tell along side them about her career as an artist.

Image from: http://www.reactorart.com/blog/?tag=carolyn-gowdy

The one thing I did like about her talk, was when she spoke about how she set up a portrait area by work she had at a fair. I liked the impromptu feel about the images, and how every piece was hot off the press, the person being drawn also got to see how she worked as an artist, which I thought was really intriguing, especially as it added extra pressure due to the time limit she had and the environment she was working in.

Image from: http://www.reactorart.com/blog/?p=2491

Presentation Document Tutorial

Today I had a presentation document tutorial with Alexandra in a group of about 8 people. She spoke of what we needed to do within our blog or handmade diary, she mentioned different techniques and what previous students decided to do last year. After Alexandra went through all of this she then asked for us to draw an image that we thought summed us up, i.e style and content. She then asked us, after 30 minutes to explain what and why we had chosen to draw and to answer questions she or other students asked.

This immediately made me feel nervous, I hate talking about my work, I'm not sure why but I become really sick and anxious. I drew onto cardboard images of shells, the sea is a subject of real interest for me.  It will never bore me to see the image of the sea - it's magical and a real influence on my work, so I mentioned this when I was speaking and I also spoke about how the sea scared me. I have a fear of drowning, so although I love the sea and find it immensely interesting, I also know that I am a rubbish swimmer and could potentially drown. I think this is a main influencer for my work, and I hadn't really realised so today was a real eye opener for me.

The northernmost point of Denmark, where the Baltic and North Seas meet. The two opposing tides in this place can not merge because they have different densities.

This week:

Monday: I spoke to Jonny about the initial statement of intent for my FMP on Monday. When I mentioned creating posters, he wondered how I was going to tie the three proposed authors, to advertising a product or event. Jonny suggested a Poetry Society for the writers, maybe a female author appreciation event, or an anniversary of one/all of the publishing dates. At that point I had partly read the introduction on 'To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf, I noted down part of the passage that described Woolf's writing style. 

Hermione Lee says that a lot of the story is happening in brackets, silent gestures -'(She glanced at him musingly)'. 

Lee asks 'What is more 'important', the death of Mrs Ramsay, or the fall of a green shawl in an empty room?'. Lee then goes onto asking 'Is the life of the Ramsays in the garden and the house enclosed by the outside world as if in parenthesis, as the lighthouse is surrounded by the sea?'.

Instantly upon reading that, I quoted it and had the image of a watery painting of a lighthouse encased in bold brackets. I told Jonny about this image and he suggested looking at a book called: The Lighthouses of Trinity House. I plan on either loaning this from the library or buying it but it looks fantastic. Whilst searching for this book I found a website that has listed all of the lighthouses in England and Wales, it can be found here. 

I found there are 5 lighthouses in the Hampshire area, when I followed a link to a certain lighthouse I felt a sense of excitement but also foreboding, I'm not sure if that is because I have a fear of the sea (as well as incredible fascination), or because lighthouses are to guide ships away from rocky sea beds and to help with navigation, if they were not built there, some ships in storms would have met unfortunate endings, (a main reason they were built to avoid anymore ship wrecks). Regardless of how I feel I look forward to drawing certain lighthouses or 'Lights', as they completely vary in shape and size and even placement on the coast.

Jonny then went onto to tell me about Charleston house near Brighton, it was the house that Vanessa Woolf lived in and where other authors including Virginia Woolf visited. I then went onto tell Jonny that I had been researching visiting Hogarth House in london and Monks House where Virginia lived with her husband until she committed suicide in 1941. 

We then spoke of how I would go about illustrating this project, Jonny seemed to understand that I want to dive into the subject and told me not to worry too much about the finished project, but expressed interest in perhaps moving away from posters feeling I wouldn't gain that much from producing them.

Tuesday: I spoke to Pete on Tuesday whilst cutting into Lino for the upcoming Bargate exhibition, like Jonny he seemed to think that posters were not quite right for the project asking 'What are you advertising'. 

He also said to decide on what exactly I plan to illustrate from the text, is it going to about the authors? The actual text? Or a mixture of both. This is something I hadn't actually thought about in that much detail. 

Suddenly the idea of choosing three authors and having to create final imagery for them seemed a daunting task. I hated the thought of rushing or overlooking important details. On the spot I decided that, as Virginia Woolf was initially the only author I had looked in detail at, I would carry on with her work as my main focus. 

As soon as I decided this my mind felt slightly clearer, feeling that what I envisioned was more achievable. 

Pete also spoke of a previous student that had illustrated a direct repsonse to thirteen of Sylvia Plath's poems, having the poem on one side of the page and the image next to it corresponding to the text. He wondered if I could directly produce images taking straight from the text, Pete encouraged image making rather than set posters. He also said not to worry too much about the final show or finishing line but to enjoy the experimentation in and out of the print room.

Wednesday: Wednesday I spent the whole day cutting medals out of Lino for the bargate exhibition, this is a process that I discovered at the end of the second year. A visiting lecturer (Mireille Fauchon) said - when I showed her my neat Lino - that I needed to stop being so careful with the way I cut into the image. 

I will forever be thankful that she said this to me as I now completely agree, the process is not one to be afraid of and mistakes need to be made, often they make the picture rather than ruin it. Whilst making my hands sore from gouging out the detail on the medals, I felt that it was a process I had really enjoyed and planned to use again in the current project.

Thursday: I inked up the medals and printed all day, swapping and changing the composition regularly.

Friday: I collected the prints from the studio and carefully took them over to the (freezing) Bargate, where I then hung them using bull dog clips for the upcoming private view on Monday evening.

Army Dreamers

Reading List

For the FMP I have decided to read three titles by three different authors: Sylvia Plath(The Bell Jar), Elizabeth Smart (By Grand Central Station I sat Down and Wept) and Virginia Woolf (To the Lighthouse).

I was drawn to these particular authors because I feel they have all shared interesting lives, which has included suffering at some points (Plath committed suicide as did Woolf. Smart had an affair with a married man, bearing four of his children).

I would like to learn more about them and hopefully, produce drawings that will showcase different elements of the author’s lives, and intend on underlining the low and high points with in-depth research.

Addressing the sadder aspects of their lives is important, I am however reluctant to dwell on these points feeling that the authors are celebrated for their poignant work. It will be interesting to see which qualities I end up leaning towards, the personal life of the author or plucking imagery from the text.

The first book I have started reading is 'To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf, I have started making notes to myself for if something jumps out at me whilst reading so I can refer back to points that have interested me. 

The Bell Jar

By Grand Central Station I Sat and Wept

To the Lighthouse

After the Introduction by Hermione Lee the book shows the original
 title cover in the first edition of  the novel.