Assessments...super scary :(

Well the title says it all....

My progress review is on tomorrow morning and I am officially freaked out.  I've gone through assessments before in my PLC course last year but somehow these ones seem a hell of a lot more scary! I worked my butt off all this week to try and get my work up to scratch..but alas I still feel as though my work isn't entirely that exciting or great.

I spent last week creeping on the poor misfortunes of Limerick city as planned.  So on Wednesday, I headed to a cafe in the city, planked myself in the outdoor seating area, and with camera in one hand and my sketchbook in the other, I documented the movements of unsuspecting passer-bys.  I felt like a major creep and it really did take me an awful long time to get into it.  The situation wasn't helped by the fact that I was being watched by the other customers in the cafe, as they tried to figure out what this slightly blue (it was really cold!) looking girl, with half a shaven head could possibly be doing taking photos of people who walked by.

None the less, I suffered on (and treated myself to Hot Coco!) and started to really get into the whole taking pictures.  By the end of it I knew exactly what I was looking for, who were the kind of people I needed to watch out for, which direction I wanted them to be walking in etc.  People spotting has now become one of my favourite hobbies! I loved watching the world go by and drawing outdoors.  I spent over 2 hours there before I was happy with what I had got...actually no, that's a lie...I actually left because I lost the feeling in my body on account of the cold.

                                                                  

                               

I felt so wrong taking this one :(

 

                                               

So on from my day of creeping, I began to piece the pictures together, almost like a jigsaw if you like.  I matched up the people who were going in the same direction, along with how young/old they were.  I then created sequences which documented the transition from young to old or vice versa.

 

After doing that successfully, I then started to think about the actual transitions between age, how a person grows etc.  Which is how I came to think about footsteps and walking into old age basically.
So I decided to enlist the help of my 4 year old niece and my 18 year old brother in getting my idea on to paper.

For me to do a project on feet was a big thing as I have an incredibly weird and irrational fear of feet....dont ask.  But I struggled on with it as I wanted to see if it would work.

With my niece, it was simple to get her to help me.  The idea of putting her feet into paint and running around with it seemed like great craic to her...in her own words "this is coooooooool!".  So a Saturday morning of mess took place that resulted in paint getting onto the front door, the walls, the floor...

With my brother it took a little bit more persuasion then the promise of having fun in paint followed by a supply of Smarties...but after much begging, he eventually agreed to help.  I really needed him as he has a size 10 foot which completely swamps the print of my size 5 foot and Ria's little footprint.

I'm not sure where the project is going to go from here but hopefully I'll get a moment of divine inspiration at some point....

For now, I am off to bed to prepare for the morning's assessments...fingers crossed.

Perhaps a new approach?

As I stated in my last post, I was beginning to study the movement of the body and how it works.  I've spent the last while researching the different parts, specifically the muscles.  I spent time investigating different materials which would look and act like muscles.  I looked at latex, rubber bands and rubber tubing from old bicycle tyres.  I found that the latex was the one which I thought worked best and also the one which I personally preferred to work with.

Torso muscles

Arm muscles

However, on from that I experienced a severe "creative blockage" and had to approach my project from a different angle.


I still am very interested in centring my project around the human body and how it works.  So from this point I started to look more at the transition from young to old and the differences in the bodies through the ages as it matures.  For this I have to do further study of people in everyday life and situations so days of creeping with my camera and sketchpad round Limerick Citayyyy are being called for.

People in slow motion

The beginnings of my creeping

The beginnings..

Right so here goes...

I'm new to this whole blog craic and have been putting this off for as long as I can but I think it's about time I gave it a try.

I'm in the early stages of art college in the Limerick School of Art and Design, hence the name of this post. So far I do love art college, it's all I've ever wanted to do and all I've ever been able to see myself doing.  

We were given our first project about 2 weeks ago so I've been busy busy trying to get that in order.  The project title is "Movement and Motion"...yeah, my mind drew a blank when I heard the title too.

It's actually proving to be more difficult than I originally thought.  When we look around us in every day life, everything moves in some shape or form.  Traffic, people, animals, water, wind etc. are all moving.  So to pin-point something to focus on for this project is actually really hard.  

Thankfully the first few weeks are all about experimenting and trying out different ideas, and apparently getting lost can be good at this stage as it makes you think and sometimes the best ideas are come up with then...so if that's the case then I certainly am on the right path.

Mind maps have become my new thing these days, its amazing what random things I can come up with...I really didnt think I could get anymore random then I am.  They're a great help for when I just get stuck and think I cant do anything, they help to get ideas back again.

As I write this, my brain is buzzing away with some new ideas that came to me today so I'm busy researching.  When I think of Movement and Motion, I think a lot about the human body, how it works, how we treat it etc. and I think this is the angle I'm going to come from.  Where it goes from there..well who knows :)