Banana Magnet Workshop

I must say I was a bit sceptical and nervous about the idea of cross-course collaboration, but despite my reservations I actually really enjoyed myself within this workshop. I was in the animation group that eventually produced the app "Hangry Hi-5". 

On reflection of working within groups and collaborating with other courses, I think I enjoyed myself the most when we were working as one collective group towards this final goal. At this stage, the room felt so busy and alive, and the concepts were making real progress because there were so many people available to bounce around ideas and produce work. At the smaller group stages the idea generation felt more stunted.

At both of the latter stages I was working on marketing, research and the final presentation. Marketing is something that I have never really done before, but was surprised by my basis of understanding. In terms of my role within a group I think I am outspoken and offer ideas, but am not a leader or organiser. I prefer to be assigned jobs rather than be assigning them. 

Rainbow Art Fair

This weekend I was a part of an exhibition in aid of the Rainbow Trust (https://rainbowtrust.org.uk/), a children's charity my family have been involved in for a number of years. Last Thursday evening I went back home to help with the setting up of the exhibition and organisation for the opening night. It was a one of first experiences I have been involved in like this and I must say that I found it really valuable. I managed to sell 3 prints and got overall very positive feedback for my work. 

I would say that the work I put into the exhibition was split into two categories - work that I like but does not reflect my current practice (above), and more experimental/abstract work that accurately demonstrate my interests (below). I did not sell any of the pieces that I personally prefer, which could be seen as a negative reaction - although before the exhibition I did feel that putting it in was a risk, as I would not consider the demographic naturally suited to this kind of work. They preferred more sort of traditional and countryside'y work - animals, landscapes, still life ect. I will be conscious to better tailor my work to my audience next time, although I am still glad I put work in that reflects 'me'.

Megacrit fan post

I must say I really enjoyed this crit. It was interesting to see work from across all three years, as well as how people use their sketchbook when given free reign of what they can draw. This would be a very long blog post if I showed everything I liked, so I narrowed it down to just two that caught my eye :

I have always really admired this persons work. It seems that every time they put pen to paper a drawing full of character, colour and imagination always emerges. Looking at her sketchbooks was really interesting and I liked how she occasionally used the whole double page spread to draw, (some of which shown in the images above) - making it feel more like a zine than a sketchbook. Her drawing combination of shape, texture and line, as well as a lot of gouache, is also something I would like emulate (if I can) in my own work. 

I found the process by which this person got to these simple, but dynamic, gouache paintings (which was shown in her sketchbook) really interesting. She seemed to draw her subject - foliage - on photoshop using very thick, blobby lines and then transferred this back into the handmade by painting them. I like the idea of using certain processes to obscure or add character to a subject, and then re-creating it in your chosen media. - another idea Jamie suggested to me, along the same lines, is to make things in clay and then draw them : I want to do this!