sporeling.net

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The Term Begins

Okay, I continue to make people wait. My scanner is not working at the moment because of driver issues. I downloaded one, installed it, then Vista got confused. After the confusion I had to get some work down so haven’t been able to fix it. Anyway, really sorry! Went to see Bellowhead last night however, they were very good, the music was great and I coaxed signatures off a few players. Not got the two main people to sign it, maybe another time.

Today lectures and classes begin. I had only one quick lecture this morning but tomorrow I begin my photography class, something which I am a little apprehensive about. Hopefully it’ll be enjoyable and I won’t suck too much. I will have more updates when my course fully starts, but for now all there is is nervousness about painting.

Take Care

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THE LAPTOP IS BACK

I am back home. I have returned my sister’s old laptop and now have my own, backspace intact. This means… I can scan stuff, I can open more than 2 windows at once, I can use my drawing tablet, etc.

Sorry for the wait

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Exam tomorrow, art soon.

I have my exam tomorrow, an essay writing one on Cubism. I have promised to post some art soon, and this exam is one reason why I haven’t delivered yet; I have lots of things that I want to do, when I need to focus on the exam first. Once the exam is over I have about a week to prepare for the new onset of painting work, during which I will hopefully make and document new art. I have some ideas. Thanks for your patience though, I promise to make this a more visual blog.

Image: ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’, 1907, Pablo Picasso; one of the paintings I will be writing about in my essay.

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Portfolio Review: Complete

Hmmmkay, so my portfolio review is overrrrrr, which means I can relax… a little. My last exam type thing is on Saturday, a timed essay on art history, which I will have to do research for soon enough. Today has been spent firstly having my feedback session at the School of Art, followed by traipsing around the town with the massive portfolio (which really hurt my hands ><) and I am presently surfing on-line for artists, art forums and so on.

The tutors (there were 4 Big People looking at my portfolio) seemed to like my work despite it being hastily thrown together with cheapskate materials and wonky sticking. Thankfully I am safe for now, until next semester really begins and I have to paint. I have never really painted before.  Oh dear.

Anyway this is really just a small update post. I’m a little concerned that my ‘art blog’ does not actually have many pictures in it. I’d like to change this as images make big blocks of text slightly more interesting to read. I have a lot of new art to take photos of (no scanner at the moment) so expect art to come!

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Portfolio Tips (and birfday)

I have been away for a few days because I have been frantically working on my portfolio for assessment (we have 2 assessments a year here, I believe). Anywhoo, while working on my portfolio I found out some IMPORTANT tips, i.e. the ‘don’t’s which I have unfortunately  ‘done’. Here they are, anyway, in case anyone else is planning to make a portfolio anytime soon.

• Absolutely do not leave it until the night before to prepare a portfolio, unless of course you have to. You will be veeerry stressed, especially if it is still unfinished and ends up being completed the morning before!
• Make sure to read the guidelines and make sure you haven’t missed anything important.
• Label everything. And try to keep the presentation consistent (for example, having half labels in handwriting and half typed out looks weird). Oh, and put your name on the back of each piece of work. I forgot to do this.
• Try not to stick stuff on wonky! It just looks… bad.
• You WILL regret being a cheapskate when your prittstick doesn’t STICK anything -.-
• When you are about to start working on your portfolio, make sure you have lots of different materials to ’stick’ with (blu-tack for temporary stuff, sellotape for stuff that your cheapo glue won’t stick down and prittstick for labels and other such things).
• Make sure you have enough plastic sleeve thingies, because it’s a pain when you have another 2 modules to stick in and you’re running out.
• And after saying that, also try not to shove everything in. There’s only a short amount of time that the Big People will be able to spend looking at your work (that is, if you’re applying to pretty much any art school and also for art school assessments, not sure about other businesslike stuff).
• Most people say to put your best stuff first, then worst at the end. I kind of did this when I handed in my portfolio, but sometimes they like you to keep things chronological. Just have a look at their guidelines and this will let you know what they’re after hopefully.
• Finally, check your portfolio! Make sure you haven’t missed anything important, like your best piece of work or an essential part. And check it along with the guidelines to make sure it’s all done properly

That’s all for now, enjoy

I’m off to mill about on my birthday..

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WIP Progress

Click to enlarge.

Details

My head hurts from too many dots.

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Tips on doing sustained work…

I have been spending a lot of time on my final piece and during this time I have realised a few (perhaps obvious) things about making art:

• If you need to cough, do NOT cough on your work. No matter how small the cough, it’ll prolly go against your luck and smudge any pen/paint work that you have done -.- The same goes with sneezes!
• Make sure your hands are always clean and dry! If not, this could also end in smears, smudges and so on.
• Try not to rest your hand/fingers/sleeves on any of your work because these could be dirty, or the penwork (or whatever medium you use) may not be completely dry, resulting in smeared work. Also the oil on your fingers can transfer to your work which affects pencil lines, charcoal and so on. Rest your hand on a sheet of paper on top of the work if you need to.
• Don’t freak out when you try to draw a curve or a straight line, because it’ll probably look silly if you’re all shaky If it’s that scary, use a straight edge/compass/ruler.

More will come as I make more mistakes on my drawing! Enjoy!
PS: this is for finished, polished pieces… cough and splutter on sketches all you like ^^

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WIP

Part of Self-Directed Project final piece, drawn with fineliners, shading mostly done with stippling (dots) and flat black areas. Unfinished… there is a background as well which is less developed.

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The Noise Has Returned

Well there I was, happily drawing a piece for my self-directed project, when the loud girl returned to halls! Okay, it’s not bad enough to make me grrrr, but ya know, having about 4 people standing outside my door chatting and occasionally yelping exclamations (her room is opposite mine) is quite distracting and it makes me feel trapped in my own room! I need the toilet at this moment but don’t want to go outside as it will mean that I will be trapped in a social checkmate… I will have to make small talk?!

Apart from that, I got a bit distracted on helpx.net, a site which Kate linked me to. It’s a site which offers a sort of directory to various international individuals and groups which offer free food/accommodation in exchange for help. Go there if you’re interested. I think there might be a registration fee, but it’s well worth it since you will only really have to pay for your flight/travel there!

After excitedly discovering opportunities in Russia and Japan, I remembered that I wanted to go to Norge in Summer instead. So Help Exchange may have to wait until next year! I looked at flights to Oslo and they were about £30-40 without tax/baggage… which is annoying for a noob like me to find out proper costs. Anyway, I’ll be looking at that in detail another time.

Here’s a preview of what I am drawing at the moment. This was done before I got back to uni as a SKETCH (yes, not supposed to look nice!) to work out the composition

The sketch was drawn in Photoshop using layers and the regular brush tool. Now it is being drawn on paper with fine-liners. My current evaluation of it is that the body looks a bit warped… which is worrying, however I will continue with it for the moment and hopefully finish it despite the anatomical difficulties. If it looks bad at the end, well, I’ll just have to deal with it OR create a new final piece!

Elysia

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Define: Wales

I took this photo yesterday. Then I tried to small-scale it with Irfanview, except I accidently saved it as a JPG, ach! With the quality medium… how annoying, I have now lost the high res ones! But ah well, hope you enjoy.