The 22nd of September

I'm really glad that I'm not at college today. Today marks the 5 year anniversary of my Dad's diagnoses of Huntington's Disease and the 3 year anniversary of my Grandad's death. Thankfully I've never had to go to college yet on this day and I'm glad because whilst I've had crap day there, there is just something about this date that makes me feel uneasy. It's like today is the day that my family and I aren't allowed to succeed, it's the day that anything and everything goes wrong, the day that no one else seems to understand why I don't want to talk.
Normally when I feel like this I do something to take my mind off it but on this day it just doesn't feel right, like enjoying myself would be an insult to my family. So I sit and think, and think, and think to point it's a song's stuck on repeat. Pretty sure all this isn't helping my lack of ideas for this project, but all I want to do is sleep, sleep and wake up to everything being on, everything being easy. I'm not stupid I know that's not happening, nothing just becomes easy overnight.

Feeling a bit Overwhelmed

So after our trip to Edinburgh everyone seems to have all these great ideas, but haven't got a clue what I'm going to do. Every time I look at my sketchbook I just get more confused than when I started with it, I've done all the pages that seem quite random, disjointed and almost pointless. Probably because there isn't a point to them. I'm hoping that next week once we hand in our PLP's I'll be able to get a better grip on things.
The actual week it's self hasn't been too bad. On Wednesday we started our armatures for our casting process, mines doesn't really seem like much at the minute but I'm hoping that as the process goes on I'll be able to create something that I'm happy with. It was quite enjoyable getting to actually make something though, using wood, scrunched up paper and chicken wire. I think it helped me get a few things off my mind, just talking about different things with everyone but nothing to serious. In the afternoon we continued with our sketchbook work so I disappeared off to the library in the vain hope of being inspired. It didn't really happen.
Thursday was quite good we watch watch a creative documentary about a guy who filmed only inside a lift for a few weeks, it was really interesting and gave me a few ideas that maybe I'd like to create a video for this project. Video/Film is something I've always liked the idea of but never really had the chance to explore as much as I would've liked, so maybe this is my chance? Later I was researching artists who's work is based on Edinburgh and whilst I found a fair few I didm;t find anything that jumped out at me, nothing that I thought "I want to do that " so I think instead of looking only at artist whose work relates to this project. I'm going to just look at artists who inspire and look at why they inspire rather how I can use there influence in my work, as that way I should find a pattern and hopefully that pattern will help me find my pathway.
Friday we did some printing in the morning: printing is something that I've always enjoyed and it's been quite fun learning new techniques in this class. The afternoon was quite different from our usually lectures. We worked as a focus group as to design Scotland's new superhero? It was a strange task to undertake but it was quite fun, possible controversial after the Independence vote the day before, it was really intriguing to hear everyone's ideas on what Scottish-ness is and how it should be portrayed. I quickly realised that I did a lot of 'typical Scottish' things that the others didn't which was strange.

Some Sketchbook pages

These are some of the first drawings that I didn't after coming back from Edinburgh. I was really inspired by the architecture of the city.

Edinburgh Trip

Today we all made our way into Edinburgh, it wasn't as stressful as I thought it would be (I get quite worried about travelling) and it was nice to be able to spend the day with my classmates not in a classroom.
It was quite a busy day, we went to Mary King's Close, went on the tour, wander the streets, down to Greyfriars and saw Yoda and some stromtroopers. Although the aim was to help us narrow down what we wanted to look at I feel it has done the opposite for me I feel there are now too many options in my head, so I think I'll take some more trips back myself to see if I can get a clearer idea.
Here's some pictures from the day.

Week 2

Since we're off Monday and Tuesday I used those days to just get a bit more done in my sketchbook but the problem is that I can't really seem to find an answer for what I want to do with the Edinburgh brief. Hopefully when we go on Friday I'll have a better idea.

First Week back!

Well starting this week off, I haven't slept much so having to get up at 9am on Wednesday I was like a little zombie. Wednesday was a good day mostly filled with information and we didn't start doing much, we got our brief (the Edinburgh one) and discussed our other classes.
Thursday wasn't much different just starting research for the Edinburgh brief. However on Thursday mornings we have a new class, a video class which seems really interesting so hopefully that'll be good. The afternoon was more research
Friday in the morning we have painting which I think I'm really going to enjoy, haven't had a chance to paint as much as I would've liked so it'll be good to get back into the habit. In the afternoon we have contextual studies again and we are looking at knowledge and power, not sure what we're going to do with that but it seems like it'll be interesting.
I hoping that this year goes better than last year, I want to try my best and make sure that I speak up when I don't know what I'm doing.