New paintings and regular art updates.
I might be having an exhibition in October. There is a slot free at a gallery where I have exhibited before. What I need to do is produce some new works. It might be based on my Urban sketches, or something totally new and colourful. I will have to be careful though as I start my next semester on my college course on Monday, so I will have to try and fit everything in to a limited timescale. Got to have a discussion.
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I was so tense when I tried to find my marks for my college course that I was shaking like a leaf! I had tried to stay calm, but I’ve also been trying to do other things too. I’m sure my blood pressure is up!
I finally found I had passed but couldn’t see the marks. Now I’ve found them and it’s OK. But I need to find the feedback to see what I’ve got right and got wrong. This is the worst bit, I hope it’s constructive and that I will be able to improve my scores next time.
Eek!
I ordered three books through a well known delivery system and they have all arrived safely. Now I have to read them. They are about designers, creatives and illustrators. There is a look into unpublished sketchbooks, an introduction to semiotics and another one about illustration. (OK so I forgot what the third one I ordered was and the text is to small to read off this photo). I shall be reading them tomorrow.
We had a lovely chart in the ‘i’ paper with ots of bird a you can expect to see in your garden. Of the thirty or so species illustrated, I think we get about half visiting our garden. They are Blackbirds, Blue tits, Robins, Song Thrushes, Great tits, Coal tits, a Jay, House sparrows, Woodpigeon, Collared doves, Feral pigeons, Wrens and Magpies. We probably have other species but sometimes it’s hard to identify them. Hubby told me he saw a Nightjar a couple of weeks ago but there has been no sign of it since. The best thing is seeing chick’s being raised. Baby Wrens and Robins, we also have nesting Blue tits and Blackbirds. It means we don’t cut the hedge till late in the year. But I’d rather have a scruffy hedge and happy birds.
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It’s taken me three or four days to put my college portfolio together. Lots of images in a word document. I had 51 pages in the end. I presented it as a landscape document. Word is a pain. Every time I tried to fit images to a page it jumped. So that meant I had to delete lines and insert lines. I tried putting numbers to pages, but because it was automatically numbering pages my document started with number 11! I had to work out how to delete 1.
Then I decided to put frames round each image, but the one I chose overlapped the edges of some of the drawings so I had to choose something with a slimmer frame.
Then I had to convert it to a PDF. When I looked all the images were too small. I had to resize most of them. So frustrating….
I hope I learn to do things better. I need advice in using Word, and everything else.
Todays Urban sketchers Stoke-on-Trent challenge was ‘metallic.
I decided to draw our zinc watering can that hubby has kindly left in the middle of the living room floor after watering the plants infant of our house.
I decided to draw in my Artrage app as I don’t use it often enough. Its the pro version so you have lots of tools, including pastel, pen, brush, a roller, and lots more. It took a while to get used to it. Because it has metallic colours it meant I could get some interesting effects on the can, and there are also settings so i gave the background surface a canvas look.
I’m trying to create a portfolio of all my images I’ve made so far on my illustration course. I have managed to add them to a Word document, but I need to know what the file size is and as I’m not up to speed with Word 10 I’m not sure where to look. If the file size is too big I will struggle to upload it to the college. Any ideas? I know I’ve got to convert it to a PDF but I wanted to find out how big it was before I did that… Duh!
Two of our tutors were in conversation today. One was nterviewing the other. It was interesting and helpful to see how they went about doing their work. Taking rough photocopies to add texture, cutting out black paper shapes to create shadows, and white paper to add highlights. Using a broad brush to paint quick marks, creating people and buildings. There were so many techniques I’d not even considered. Also using a grid to place the work on so that the images would all be the correct size…. And a light box. I don’t even know how to use one of them.. Very interesting.
I’ve been working on my portfolio for college today. I’ve got to upload it soon to show what I’ve been doing. I was halfway through when I found out I should be uploading images at 72dots per inch (dpi?) and I’ve set it at 300. I think I will have to delete all the images and save them all to the lower size limit…. So annoying because it was looking good. But at least I’ve found out in time. I need to go back and read the course instructions.
I think I’ve taken on too much sometimes. Not because I can’t do it but because I’ve got so many other things going on. I like writing here because it acts like a diary and also let’s me get ideas down that aren’t part of the course. Plus with limited contact with people it’s giving me some freedom.
I thought I would try and share my idea about possible cuts in art education. It’s along the lines of the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil images. In this case the image is of a school child. Maybe with one eye peeping out. Covering his head are the hands of other children, stopping him seeing art equipment, or hearing music or poetry. Stopping him speaking things like lines from plays or novels.
Art and creativity are so important to the world. Maybe you can push a button and get a car design? Maybe not. At the moment it still takes the efforts of designers, artists, illustrators, musicians, and much more to bring out the creativity of the world.
What are we doing if we consider removing Art from the curriculum? If we make it just the perogative of the rich? What happens if normal, ordinary people aren’t taught to have a critical eye, to have the ability to see beauty. I see a world which is almost turning into a 1984 situation. Dumbed down and quiescent?
