What's this... a blog

Why yes indeed it is! And guess what???

Can't guess? well then I shall tell you.

I have been painting today. Not just any painting but using oil paints, which is by far my weakest medium.

It's about time I did some painting this summer. I know, I just haven't had the time this holiday but I made myself make time today and is feeling pretty mellowed out right now. Not cause of the white spirit though (I remembered to open the windows this time XD)
Oh how I have missed it!

Just me, my brushes, paints, a blank surface needing filling and my ipod playing on speakers :) It felt wonderful.



I have also been doing some sketches for a little comicy based off a story me and a few friends have been writing on for a while. Now I don't think it would be fair to write more not when it's in these early stages. I don't want to jinx myself this time.
I shall put the link up (in case anyone was interested) here but there is not much up right now just the title page for the first chapter. Don't expect too much of me though... the comic will likely be pretty irregular anyways. So wish me luck!

http://clanmastersdice.smackjeeves.com/

Car hunt le fail

Exactly as it says on the tin. Just when I think I find something. I went to look at a little Clio in a garage on Wednesday. Well actually went to see a KA but the KA was starting to rust and had a few little over sites wrong with it. Then my brother spotted this Clio, it was 7 years old barely a scratch, no sign of rust, the steering lock though didn't work and the hand brake needed an adjustment but that would be fine because they said that they would fix it and MOT the car. My mum suggested we also get in someone from her breakdown company to look her over as well in case there was anything else... which would be reasonable.
The man at the garage seemed to think that it would be alright so me contact the company and book the piece off mind go over. which would cost me a bit of money, not just that but they would charge me for cancelling.
Lets just say I ended up cancelling the brief inspection when the woman from the breakdown company rang me to inform me that the people in the garage had suddenly changed their mind and decided they wouldn't let me get someone in to check it over until I had brought the car. Tell me what would be the point of that!?!?
So I ring the garage to inquire and the guy is a bit uppity at me about not trusting their inspection so I decided not to purchase the car.
The cancellation fee was £30 (I was some what lucky cause if the inspection had got booked it would have cost me £79).
I don't want a repeat of a car incident of my dads a few years back where he brought a car and the head gasket blew a day later.
hmmm I could probably rant about this longer but I won't inflict anyone who reads this with a rant.

Okay... so I suck at regular blog writing but I hope to get better

It's true honest! I do hope to get better.

Right what have I been doing this holiday to make up for my sucky lack of blogging.
Well I did but four of my pieces into a local exhibition at the start of the summer. I wasn't expecting to sell anything and didn't sell anything but it's all good experience. :)

I have also been helping in the garden and about our house.
Not just that though: Whilst the schools were still on I went into our local secondary school and helped out during curriculum enrichment week in the art department which was pretty fun. The classes were doing there own graffiti based project pieces either as groups or based off there own individual designs.

I have also been car hunting which has been quite time consuming... and thus my plan of working on my confidence with oil paints has not been sucessful... that is to say vertually non existant... though I have got a few sketches done, not as many as I hoped though

Anyways that's the basic update I'll put more up here another day :)

Appologies again, should be a long one to make up for the lack of blog

Okay, don't say I didn't warn you my posts on here might well be rather irregular in advance. I think I have clearly proven that *bites lip and hangs head in shame*.

Though in my defence I have been very busy
This piece is probably the only one out of all the female forms I have painted this year that I had to use a photo to help me with, though it was mainly for the arms she is using to cover herself, damn the the old 'issue' with drawing hands returned when I wasn't expecting it. This piece is a re-paint of the one I disliked the most. There was mainly and issue with the previous positions of the arms and legs which made her seem like she was in a weird half bent over crouched position. This wasn't what I had planned for her shape hence the re-paint.


These next few paintings including the one above were created at the request of one of my lecturer's who wished to see more of a development from my silhouette of a dancing woman from last semester... just with more of a sense of movement. The above image I later added to, I will put up a photo in the next blog of the adjustments I made to it.
The above painted was also at the request of a lecturer who having seeing me paint the outlines in first for the previous two images (during their creation) suggested that I leave one of them blank because they liked the simplicity of it.


Introducing my lovely lady's, they have just become objects to hang clothes off of, this is why they are missing heads and arms, the only thing identifying them as a person has been stripped away. They are just seen as women by their shape.


Also as part of the local villages around where I lives summer festival they are hosting a little exhibition of local artists works, there is an £8 entry and there is an option to sell your pieces with a 15% commission. I plan to put in some works, though I doubt I'll sell them, I thought I'd try though cause I am running out of space to store the pieces. I am just going to put in some of the paintings I don't have much confidence in the other works.

Okay what a busy day

Today was a very productive day I think I managed to get 3 paintings completed ^_^ I probably could have done more but had to go shopping and get my hair cut too. ^_^ Anyway without further adieu here are some photo's of the paintings I was working on today.


Unfortunately there is a bit of a light glare on most them I couldn't help it really though :(

Bad bad Gina for no updating in almost a month

As the title says I have been very very bad this past month with my lack of blog posts. *I hang my head in shame*
I don't have much of a reasonable excuse only that I went home for easter so I have been spending time with friends and family but in theory I shall continue posting up (perhaps a little on and off this week as I am still at home so thus I have shifts to work and people to see but I do hope to get three more paintings done before the end of the week ^_^

However I do have some pictures to put up today of some paintings and stuff I did in my week before I came home.
I can't recall if I have put the above painting up or not. I don't really like this one that much and I can't decide whether it is the colours or something else about it. It was painted on a board I found in the skip with hesian sacking covering it and I tried using the contours of the sacking to creat the form of a part of a woman's body

This one I enjoyed painting more then the previous however now I look at it I can't help but thin that the side of her breast is too low down appart from that I am quite pleased as to how this piece came out.

It been a weird day

Today has been really slow but yet I seemed to get a surprising amount done. >.< I spent a while this afternoon wandering around trying to think of something to do. I am currently waiting for some boards that I have ordered from the workshop to paint on.



Here is another one for my series about female form. I am planing to paint more when I have the boards to paint on ^_^.

Today I also worked on some pieces for the challenging spaces module. These are part of the four mini projects within the module. The following photo's are for the mini project 'Land Art/ Street art' I thought I would combine a bit of the two by using sand and the pavements around campus. Then took photo's of them as the day progressed, and as it was a rainy day I was effectively taking photo's of their slow erosion.
I took the images using the Negative setting on my camera as it made the shapes a bit more clearer against the background concrete/ brick paths they were created on.
Unfortunately my octopus did not end up as cool as my initial design sketched, in fact to me it looks like he is either wearing a head dress or some sort of rabbit ears :(


This one I created right outside the art department by the end of this day this one was the most eroded because it is actually on a road and was the road leading out from the lecturers car park XD

This shark I created right outside the swimming pool :) I thought it would be a very fitting place for it XD

Out of all the mini projects I just have one to go and that is the film/ performance piece :( Which my lecturers reminded me is due in next Thursday :( I had thought it was due in at the end of April but that is apparently the bigger project for this module. I have an idea what to do but the only part I am dreading will be the editing stage. I haven't done film editing before so this could be fun. It's the London trip this week end which kind of limits my time to spend working on the film :(

Anyways I better get on with the Duchamp essay I have been putting off.

Here we go again XD

Alright then, I had quite a productive day to day though the morning was spent priming a few boards so they were ready for painting on, showing one of my fellow students how to make friendship bracelets and also how to work his new phone XD

As I promised I have put of the photos of the pieces I was working on, on Friday.

Front view of the clay piece I was working on on friday that is now waiting to go into the Kiln ^_^


This is the back view for Friday's clay piece.
Today I finished off this painting that I started on Friday (at long last) it is finished. Though I have a funny feeling that by the end of this project people will be thinking I am either a Lesbian or someone with a boob fetish >.< This above painting is a piece I was working on today it is a painting of one of last semesters clay pieces. I created this as a kind of link between the forms within my paintings and the rest of my ceramic pieces.

Just a quick sketch of one of last semesters clay pieces. Like the previous photo its supposed to be a linking piece between my ceramic and painting pieces for the creative module.

Anyways I shall attempt to work further on my Marcel Duchamp essay this evening... I think I am about three quarters through. I really want to get it completed before I go on the Departmental trip to London.
Tomorrow I plan to create another clay piece from my sketchbook ideas, however I have saved the trickiest one til last :( I also hope that some of the boards I ordered from the workshop are done cause I am running out of stuff to paint on. I doubt they are though.

Until tomorrow hopefully.

Talk about a busy few days

As the title says it has been quite a very busy few days.
I had intended to post up on thursday night especially as I had done a lot of work in the studio that day, thus having plenty to talk about but for some reason I didn't... I am not really sure why though >.<
Thursday it was unbelievable I managed to complete one painting and a clay piece which should now be dry enough to go in the kiln :). Both these pieces are for my huge creative project which is worth double the credits of any of the other modules. I have decided to continue the theme Identity from one the previous semesters modules. Only last semester I didn't get a chance to carry it as far as I would have liked. I focused on sort of female form of dancing figures. However this semester I am carrying on with female form as an identity in general emphasising on the fact that nowadays there is a lot of fuss about a woman's body shape promoting them as objects.This is the first clay piece out of the 3 or so I have planned. The female shape in this is nothing more then a body wearing clothes... or that's what I aiming for but clay workings aren't really my strong point but hopefully I am getting better.



This will be the first of a series of paintings around the theme with the ceramic pieces to go with them.

On Friday I got another one of the paintings complete and started on one of the others, as well as completing another of the clay pieces but unfortunately I do not have photo's of them yet so I shall probably go into the studio on Monday and take some so I can post the images up on here.
I am pretty proud of myself and like I said in the previous entry I have got my motivation back so I hope to continue to have many more productive days like Thursday and Friday.


This piece with the white Rabbit is a concept piece from one of my other modules for this semester. The module is all about challenging spaces; creating alternative spaces for art amongst other things. This one was for one of the projects entitled interior, exterior alternative... we could decide on our own themes obviously and I decided to do a play on Alice in wonderland, the rabbit represents the modern person (it was the first rabbit toy I could find) and the rabbit is being choked by the watch round it's neck as it reaches in the confines of the bread bin for food but instead of food there is nothing but tablets and drink.
This one was also for challenging spaces the theme this time was miniatures: humorous or shocking. Yes there is a miniature police towing vehicle and on the back of it is bumble bee from transformers. There is quite a few of these as I went all around the campus to fins the perfect places to place them.
This above painting is some of my last semester piece in which I have continued across the theme into this current semesters work in my ceramic pieces for the creative module.
This piece is also one of last semesters pieces it was part of a concept titled 'Icon' from my sculpture module.

Anyways Good bye for now

Hello again

Well here it goes...

Last week was so very busy, I had gone back home for a visit. It was nice to see my mum, my brother and my Boyfriend again... not to mention my Grandparents and little Marbles (our Cat). That's not all what I was up to that week; I also went back to school for about four days.
It was strange being back, the school has decided to re-name all the blocks which would have been an issue if I wasn't in the art department the whole time.
I had gone back to school with the motive of doing some extra work experience, not just cause one of my modules, (business of art) demanded it but also due tot he fact that I want to be a secondary art teacher. You are more likely to be accepted in to a PGCE if you have prior work experience within schools (or so I am told) So every little must help.
I was helping out with a range of things within the classes. I helped four different year 7 classes create their own African Tribal masks by generally cutting out shapes from corrugated cardboard, to helping some of them to catch up by helping collage some sugar paper (and each teacher I was with had a different method with the making).
I also assisted Mr Downing with three different classes of year 8's with their Giacometti themed sculpture. Which actually was a lot of fun especially as I got to make my own too :) . (See Below)



I didn't just help out with the teachers in their classes that week... I was set a few technician style tasks too. For example finding and repairing a number of alphabet print blocks as well as creating a display withing the departments computer room. The display was composed of ex- students alevel work from photography to paints, both portraits and landscapes. I recognised a fair few of them as my fellow Art class Year mates.
There was one problem with just me doign the display on my own was I couldn't tell if I was putting them up straight, >.<>.<
On a brighter note I am feeling much better now and my appitite is back now!!! :)

I have a few ideas for some ceramic pieces and I can't wait until I next go in to the studio to start putting my sketches into reality. When I have finished them I might put up the photos on here for any who read this to comment and perhaps tell me what could be improved and such.

I'm really getting into my projects now. It was another slow and sad start to the year again due to the passing on of one of my oldest and dearest of friends. May she rest peacefully and happily where she has gone to now.
It been quite a hard and sad two years, with the passing of my dad, my boyfriends father and my dear friend. Too many good people have been taken. I was quite low for a while but with the support of friends and family I have started to buck up much more now. I hope to improve my grades for this year by working my butt off in this semester (my first semester marks of this year had dropped maybe a little bit for obvious reasons and I might have failed my History of Art module by two marks) So I am determined to bring things back around now.

Ok I am generally not good at these kind of things

Like the title says this blog will be my attempt to keep myself organised. However there are a few problems with this, I have a tendency to be a bit of a scatter brain really. My mind tends to flit around from one strain of thought to the next. Well when I think about it there are two problems; I am also pretty forgetful so the likelihood of this being a regular blog are pretty slim. I intend to give this ago though and hope to at the very least post up here at the very least of once a week.

So all that's left to say is....

Wish me luck