The Life and Lies of an Art Student

Hi, my name is Becky and I am an art student at Wensum Lodge. Feel free to join me as I work through my final confirmatory stage.

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Week 8 & 9

During the final weeks of the project I focused fully on making my final piece. While I felt that the most time consuming thing was making and printing the cushions I ran into my biggest problems with the tent construction and figure cutting. 

While in all the mock-ups I had practiced making my tent creating a band through which I would either thread wire or sew in a hoop, when it came to creating my final piece I hadn’t realised that the hoop I had intended to use wouldn’t fit with my sewing machine. While I originally attempted to hand sew the hoop into place, the slippery material made it difficult to follow a straight line and I ended up having to unpick it and create loops of clear plastic instead. this meant that the tent ended up being a lot smaller than originally planned as the fabric fell and draped inside the hoop instead of outside.

I also struggled with creating the figure, I originally cut my shape out of foam board and then collaged pages over the top of it. While this looked effective tit then meant that I had to go back and trim all the over hang. This ended up being a difficult and time consuming process as the foam board flaked off as I was working or was too pliant so that I couldn’t get rid of sections of roughness. This left the silhouette with jagged edges. I resolved this problem by trimming a few millimetres off all of the sides cutting though the foam board to create a new smooth edge. 

While both of these problems were time consuming and awkward to fix I feel that I have worked well within the restrictions of my materials and have learnt about how to handle them more effectively when I use them again.

[oneyearofartisticstruggles]

Week 6 & 7

During week 6 I made a final mock up of my tent. This time I made it to a 25-1 scale and placed it in a mock up environment of a theatre that I know well. While this helped me to visualise the size of the piece and experiment with hanging it in a corner, it was also a process that I hadn’t used before so I found it to be very time consuming, particularly checking that I had all the correct measurements before making the final thing. However, it also made me realise how much of an undertaking it would be with a relatively small amount of time left. After talking to one of the tutors I decided that I would aim for my final piece to be half the full size, creating a larger than average model, with a centre piece of a cut out figure.

While this meant that my scale model was now wrong and unfinished, I feel that this was a really useful process as it made me fully realise what I was about to try and commit to doing. This also helped me finalise the correct requirements for my exhibition proposal.

At the beginning of week 7 I began creating the elements of the final piece. While I hadn’t drawn out a formal design for my final piece, I now felt that I had a clear image of what I wanted to create in my head I began by hand printing a variety of different cushions. While I had decided on a standard size of 40cmX40cm I felt that I wanted some variety with in my piece. This meant that a few of my designs had to be adaptable to different sizes. While I was doing this I experimented with making a pattern out of my figurines, I felt that this removed the impact of the solo figures and increased the confusion of the cushions. Overall I decided that it would be better to stick to one style of design.

[oneyearofartisticstruggles]

Week 3, 4 & 5

I had noticed that the stage design for Barnum hadn’t really acknowledged the big top tent that sections were supposedly performed in. From this I began wondering if there was a way that I could create a tent structure to increase the feel of comfort. As a child I had spent a lot of my time constructing blanket forts and I wondered if there wasn’t a correlation between that feeling of shelter and security working alongside the textile and performance elements. I began by sketching a variety of tent structures to figure out where I was going stylistically, and how this altered from childhood to performance. I found that as a child building a blanket fort there appeared to be more of a need to have supports in place. 

I then went on to creating a fort of my own. I felt that at this point it was crucial for me to see what had made the blanket fort space so special as a child. While creating a fort I found that the sheer number of cushions needed to create a space that was comfortable gave a snug and cozy feeling, from this I decided that cushions and textile elements were going to be crucial in my design, particularly if I wanted to relate ‘The Night Circus’ to my theme of Bed Time Stories.

As the focus of the book is the black and white traveling circus ‘Les Cirque Des Reves’ (the circus of dreams) I felt that this would be very fitting, and decide to make a stage design and potential performance for this story. I began experimentation with my designs from Barnum, making the gesture sketches into more solid forms and looking at ways to print them onto fabric. While I ran into a variety of problems such as un even printing I feel that I made effective progress with this. 

While re-reading the book I picked out quotes of interest that created a strong imagery. I thought that this would help to focus my ideas and direct the style of prints that I should create. In the end I found that the sheer quantity of different images over whelmed me and I really struggled to pick out the main points that I wanted to focus on.

During the fifth week I created a mock up cushion, while this was poorly printed I felt that it was very effective as it helped me to visualise what my designs would look like on a raised surface. I also created a variety of different design ideas, looking towards creating a full scale circus style tent that a performer would be able to stand in. I then created one mock tent to see how it could hold its shape. I found all of this to be very interesting as it helped me to visualise what my final piece would look like.

[oneyearofartisticstruggles]

Week 1 & 2

In the first two weeks I worked around creating a solid idea concept. I began by creating a survey to find out about different bed time story experiences. I felt that it was necessary to do this to see if I was going to be working to something that would be a common factor across a wide range of people or if I was going to need my project to be more personal and self indulgent focusing on my child hood. After collecting and analysing the results I found that my sampling came out with a wide range of views and ideas. From this I was able to tell that my final piece should be highly personal looking at a book that I had read in childhood and something that really showed off the comfort and wonder involved in bed time as a child. 

I then began to look at the elements of a bed room, I began making a note of the colour schemes that were displayed in the bedding of my childhood rooms. I realised through this that while all the stages of the rooms were brightly coloured (as I had expected) there was no stereotypical colour theme. I found this to be odd as I had thought that the pink for girls theme would have translated through to the space that I had inhabited. 

While I was in the process of this I went to see the musical theatre show Barnum, based around the man P.T Barnum and his circus. While watching this I remembered a book that I had loved as a child called ‘The Night Circus’ By Erin Morgenstern. While at the show I began creating gesture drawings, I found that these helped to portray the emotion and movement of the show and performers while still allowing me to experience the performance element. 

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After deciding on working with a new silhouette cut out for the centre of the tent I went back to my gesture drawings to look at some of the airborne figures. I felt that these would give the feeling of being in the acrobats tent (something that is often mentioned in the book) I felt that it would be very fitting for the figures to be part of the cut out as it would be interesting to show the side on view of the shapes (in a regular circus the audience must crain their necks to look up at the the acrobats). In the end I chose to enlarge the figure who was laying within the circle as she produced a mellow feeling that would be appropriate to carry on the feeling of a bed time story.

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I began creating a study of font to decide what style I wanted for printing quotes on my cushions. While looking at a variety of different options I came across a traditional/stereotypical circus font. I found this to be a bit clique as while my project is themed on a circus, I feel that this font has been used too many times and would be shouting out its circus feeling... In the end I decided on a slightly scripted font, this would suggest that was very man made and personal while pretending to be something generic. 

When I began making this quote as a stencil I found that this font was very difficult to work with as there were very few straight lines. I also felt that it lacked a solid finish so I decided to add a geometric edging to give it more substance. The lines of the edging were designed to give the idea of a flat topped circus tent, reinforcing that notion in a sublet manner. 

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When looking at possible ideas for final piece I began thinking about a costume for the performer inside the tent. I created a variety of different costume designs , mainly working in ink. I feel that the second and fourth sketches are the ones that most accurately represent a traditional circus feeling. From this I will begin to look at a variety of fabrics and detailing that I could use to create one of these costumes with. I feel that layering will be something that is really important with these pieces as it will add an air of mystery and seduction to the costume.

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Imagery from the book/ Brain Overload

I have been looking a lot a the different images that are described in the book. Ranging from the use of birds (Raven and Dove in particular) to the symbols on the fortune telling cards. I think that this story is really rich in imagery, due to the detail that is given on some of the finer elements of the scenes. I feel this really contributes to how intriguing it is. 

However due to this I am finding it to be increasingly difficult to focus on any one particular element as I would love to be experimenting with them all. While this is not a problem in itself, by knowing that I have to focus on one main thing I am finding that I am theorising everything but failing to get anything down onto paper. I feel that this has been a big problem in the beginning stages of the project, and since I got into the habit of it I am struggling to get out of it, I also appear to be running on ahead of what I’m supposed to be doing with experimentation, instead choosing to focus on the final thing.

[oneyearofartisticstruggles]

Making a firm decision on scale

After some consideration I feel that my final piece should be smaller than life size (working at at-least half the size). By doing this I will eliminate the need for a performer, instead of this I will look at the  silhouette fingers that I have been working on. I feel that his would be interesting to suspend from the top of the tent as it will continue the idea that it is something magical/mystical.

Things that I will have to consider from this point onwards are the colours that I will use as part of the silhouette as well as if I will keep to the tigers already printed on cushions or look back to my gesture drawings to create a new figure.

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After deciding that my theme would rotate around a monochromatic colour scheme I began looking at ways I could work within these restrictions. I began by colouring a geometric pattern, using tonal pens to see if I could balance the image. I found this very difficult as without any added colour the piece seemed very flat and appeared to have no true focal point. I found that while this was a pain it could be remedied by braking up the image and not using the repetative geometric pattern.

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While trying to work out the scale of my piece I created a to-scale model of the Norwich Playhouse theatre. I was working in a scale of 25 to 1, this allowed me enough room to work on the model without it becoming too fiddly while also not being too large. This was a new process to me, with most of my work previously being worked in a theoretical perspective only. Working to scale allowed me to get a feel of the size of my piece by placing it in a surrounding I am familiar with. I found this to be a really helpful process as it allowed me to get a physical 3D view of my piece without having to create it a realistic size. It also allowed me to play around with the mock up tent looking at positioning. 

After discussing my proposed scale with a tutor it was then decided that I was making too much work for myself, so the whole of this model then  became useless in figuring out the sizes of my final piece. This meant that the model was left unfinished.

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This is a quick charcoal sketch I created when looking at different possibilities of how to show a tent on stage. In this drawing I was suggesting that the viewer was inside the tent along with the actors. Through this is was like the viewer was the audience for the circus show. I quickly dismissed this as I wanted a clear separation between the viewer and the performer. I wanted my piece to feel as if it was something that was happening around them not to them, while still creating an emotional impact through the elements of comfort and nostalgia.

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From my refined drawings I then created stencils and practiced with different styles of brush stroke. After the first stencil I realised that to create anything other than an outline haze I would have to attach my detail outlines to the outer plastic, remembering to only remove the sections that I wanted to paint. After this process I quickly discovered that the most effective way of applying paint was through stippling the paint into the fabric, through this I was easily able to control the amount of paint in each section. This process appeared to work on a variety of different materials. 

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I refined these drawings from my gesture sketches that I took while watching the show Barnum. By using layout paper I was able to see through to my gesture drawings while adding more coherent form and detail. Throughout this process I referred to images in the program to make sure that I was capturing elements of costume correctly. I found this to be a difficult process, as I felt as if too much of the shape was being left to interpretation. However I think that this style of drawing produced a really positive effect, and far clearer shapes than I had imagined. 

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In these images I am working in the screen printing room. This was a fairly new experience for me as, while I had used the technique before, this was the first time of using this process to create work intended to go towards a final piece. 

I found this technique to be quite unpredictable with some prints showing a strong colour and even coverage where as others came out with a more distressed look. I feel that this was not only down to my technique but also to the fabric choice that I had made. My fabric was strongly lined and this appeared to show through on all of the prints, it also was quite thin and had a slight shine. I think that due to all of these elements the paint struggled to form a strong hold on the fabric or else leaked through.

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These are the images from the Forum Library mini brief. I feel that over all this brief was a success with my final piece working well in the surrounding literary environment. While everybody approached the topic from different angles producing wildly different boards I feel that there is a cohesion created in the regulated size of the boards helping to form our work into a collection. 

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I began repeating the process but overlapping different dancers, to see if it would be possible to create a cluster that would work as a one off print.