10. Another week, another huge entry.

Hello again! As I’ve got in to the habit of posting a large one at the end of each week, I’ll begin with what I’ve been up to since the last post. On Monday I went to web presence again and finally managed to fill my first gallery with pictures. I’ve also changed the menu bar and repositioned a few things, I posted it last time but here it is again with the latest changes.

Also this week, we finally had another meeting about the identity for our degree show and catalogue. We’ve completely moved away from the initial idea of a theatre/circus theme and it’s been decided that our theme be the studio, as not only is it the last year we’re there but also the last year for that space as it is being moved elsewhere. We now have a clear wall in the studio, which all third years will draw on/attach illustrations to.  I think it’ll be a good representation and celebration of a lively and laid back creative working space. Although I thought that our initial idea was a good one, in retrospect it did get a little out of hand and I know that a lot of people had concerns over its ambitiousness and the possibility of it becoming a bit of a mish-mash of ideas that didn’t make a lot of sense. I think that changed a little it could still work, but I’m really fond of the new theme as it’s simpler, more meaningful and we still keep (what I consider to be) the most important element of the last theme, which was everybody getting to contribute to it.

     Having found a gallery for our possible London show I called a meeting this week, but only a fraction of the people who expressed an interest in it going ahead actually turned up! It was decided that we need at least 25 but preferably 30 students to contribute work to the show and as the deposit for the gallery is £300, we have outlined a two week period in which everybody who wishes to be involved has to put £10 in a named envelope and hand it to Pete. I’m disappointed that there’s not more of a buzz about it but I really hope we can still get it together. I will view the space next weekend and if we have enough people by March 10^th I will pay the deposit and we will then have to concentrate on fundraising, planning transport and everything else both Southampton and London degree show related. Talking of fundraising (and I forget what I have and haven’t mentioned here) but the next one I’m planning is well underway. I’m really hoping for a lot of support from everybody as there are a few more expenses involved this time. We also delegated out the production of the poster to a second year student, which is looking really good and as soon as that’s finished I can get promoting it.

     Talking of promotion, finally this week we had our self-promotion work in progress meetings! I have now finished the project and I have printed six copies on thick matt duo paper on the printers in the photography suite. Printing double sided is complicated, even when it’s only one sheet but the colours came out brilliantly. This is what it looks like now:

  I also completed the work I was doing on the envelope. The first thing I did was to print my selected images on to the envelopes. It took me a few attempts to get them in the right place and the desired size. I then covered my fingers in fake blood/brown ink/white paint and smeared it over the envelopes. Finally I made myself a stamp. I bought a rubber designed to look like a £20 note from Hawkins Bazaar in town and cut in to it with a scalpel and it worked pretty well (I had initially started doing it backwards but luckily somebody pointed this out to me before I’d got too far…) I then covered it in fake blood and stamped it on to my envelopes.

     I’m pleased with the way it turned out and although it would have been nice to create a short booklet in order to represent myself, I believe that this does the job of representing my work well, and it’s on it’s merry old way to Pete (unless somebody at the sorting office finds the envelope offensive and burns it) …Fingers crossed these tales of Colin Mchenry whom we’re being critiqued by next week throwing the stuff he doesn’t like in the bin are just horror stories!

   Anyway, with that out of the way I’ve been able to make some more progress with my final major project. I’m still about a week behind schedule but I’ve finished my character development and can now move on to experimenting with media and making some solid decisions before completing my page layouts ready for the final illustrations. I’ve been continuing with my newfound technique of using ink and thick brushes first and homing in on details later rather than fussing over them primarily. I have also spent some time drawing settings and environments, which is something I slightly overlooked during the last project. I have been drawing things I’d usually avoid, some I’ve conquered and some I still have to work on but either way I have made a lot of progress. I also realized during this process that as it is set in a different time that I would need to think about what things would look like a lot more, and I have been researching a drawing things suited to the era my story is set. Here’s some examples of what I’ve been doing in my sketchbook:

     
Also, I forgot to mention in the last post that I had made a to scale mock-up book. When I’d made it however, I decided that painstakingly measuring and marking out the boxes just to fill them with more vague scribbles like in my existing storyboards seemed like an absolutely absurd thing to do with my time (and may or may not be another thing I did last time round…) I was also going to photograph it for the sake of this blog but then I realized it is fundamentally just a stack of blank paper, and would be incredibly boring and pointless to behold. Despite all the stick I’ve just given it, it was nice to produce just to get an idea of the physicality of it, and didn’t take very long anyway.

     I’ve also finally got round to starting the comic for an online anti-bullying magazine that I’ve been banging on about this week. I’m not blown away by what I’ve done, but I’m really in to getting stuck in to the Final major at the moment. Still needs a lot of work but ‘ere’s what I’ve flopped out so far anyway in case it’s of interest:

     So I guess ‘that’s all folks!’ for this week at least. Next week I have a tutorial with Johnny and a couple of lectures, I shall also be facing the appraisal/wrath of Colin Mchenry. Hopefully I’ll also be stuck in to getting my portfolio together (buying one being the logical start on that one). I hope to have finished puzzling over medias by the end of next week too, and perhaps even catch up by whacking out my layouts! Once the posters finished I can get the ball rolling on promoting the next fundraising event, and not to mention I get to pay our potential degree show gallery a visit on Saturday!

Cheers for readin’ guys,
Quim out!