evidencing decisions

 

 

I am looking for a font which would be suitable for my designs.  I need a chunky font with serif which will retain a good shape when it is enlarged.   Emboldened Copperplate Gothic Light seems to be the ideal.

Finding direction

What haven't I mentioned so far this week?  The final Reith lecture by Grayson Perry was thought provoking, as usual - it all seems light-hearted but he discusses serious issues.  This week he mentioned the stifling effect of self-consciousness - ooh I suffer.

I've started compiling some digital images using text.

I'm still experimenting with collage images in my sketch book and I'm still researching my subject - in the process I am finding blogs and web pages for older women who 'don't want to be invisible'.



While consulting my lovely magazine UPPERCASE - the solution hit me.  The design wouldn't include text, it would be the text.  Collaged text(digital/screenprint) and handpainted text.  The text would consist of the words which are used to describe women - fishwife, woman of a certain age, cougar, bag lady, old biddy, mutton dressed as lamb, crone, harridan, old maid, old dear.

I've been researching how to handpaint textiles and I have mixed a solution of urea, soda ash and resist salt which can be used to either treat the fabric or mix with the reactive dye for painting.  The solution/dye mixture can also be thickened with manutex to prevent colours 'bleeding'.  The manutex/solution can also be painted onto the fabric to stiffen it, then painting with reactive dye and water. 

At last I have a clearer direction.  Sadly I don't have 10 samples to show at the tutorial tomorrow.

fashion illustration

I am looking at a book by Tony Glenville called New Icons of Fashion Illustration.  It shows the work of twenty eight illustrators.  I am particularly taken with the artwork of Julie Verhoeven - colourful, vibrant, painterly, collage, surprising. She accurately describes her work as 'fast and reckless'. 

I am still thinking about how I will progress my project.  I think I will find my way by concentrating on the concept of visibility and transparency.  I feel immersed in the topic but I am finding  it difficult to find visual expression.

On the research front, I am looking at Lynne Segal's book 'Out of Time' and Julia Twigg's study of Fashion and Later Life.

Today I was looking at advertising material for Jarrolds department store - a store used largely by 'women of a certain age' - all the fashion models are young. Why?

In the newspaper today I noticed a report which stated that the BBC and ITV turned had down a hit drama series about older people on the grounds that 'senior citizens were considered a viewer turn-off' but BBC later reconsidered having 'presumably woken up to the maturity of its audience'!

drawing workshop

lovely morning drawing and painting.  cutting a photograph, patching it together, then drawing it  as pattern rather than as a portrait.  Firstly with charcoal, then with marker pen, then with watered down acrylic paints - brushing the paper with water at regular intervals.

Very useful for abstracting an image and for creating a looser image - very enjoyable too.  We are trying to book the drawing studio for next week too.

tutorial and lecture

Today has hopefully helped me to get started on my project.  A tutorial with Nick provided suggestions as to how I can move forwards. 

It seems I was wrong to have thought my presentation had been received negatively.  A combination of misunderstanding and my ever present self-doubt.  I have had an uncomfortable week of inward thinking but onward, onward...

to Les's pop up exhibition.  The way the exhibits interpreted the pleating, folding and smocking was enlightening.  The scale, use of paper and limited use of colour made it timeless - contemporary yet archival, crisp and fragile in my eyes. 

Then to the lecture by Les which described the timeline of the project - from an  observation of a painting, to an interest, to wanting to know more, to finding museums who would cooperate, to applying for funds, to finding the essence of the project, the making of things, to exhibiting, educating and everything else in between.  It was particularly useful to see the way his curiosity translated and defined the theme of the project - and how long it took.  Mostly I learnt to look for clues in the everyday.

Luckily I visited the exhibition before the lecture.  I would have liked to see it again but it was being taken down immediately.

interesting research

looking back over the past week

Listened to the second of the Reith lectures written and delivered by Grayson Perry.  This week he discussed the idea that 'anything can be art'.  Looking at various examples - from Duchamp's urinal to Leeds students' hoax art project for their final show - they displayed air tickets, postcards and souvenirs suggesting they had spent the £1K grant for the exhibition on a holiday (they hadn't).  He touched on the craft v. art debate, snobbery, context (gallery display - Duchamp used a plinth for his urinal), photography, limited editions, performance, made by an 'artist) and so on.  Thought provoking and entertaining.

I spent a lot of time working on the Learning Agreement and a PowerPoint presentation which explains the development of the project.  I thought I had sorted it out.

On Thursday I presented the PowerPoint but it was met with negativity.  I need to rethink the whole project but I have other commitments and time is short.  

I attended the History Rising Study Day at Norwich Castle and the Outpost Gallery which was about curation.  Interesting.

I attended the Print and Dye induction - which I have done twice before - but it is useful revision.