The Glasgow Science Centre

Today my sisters and I went to the Glasgow Science Centre with the SHA group (a youth group for families affected by Huntington's) I haven't actually been to a SHA activity in a long time (almost 2 years I think) so it was nice to see people again. Also as it was the science centre I found some interesting information about the brain and the body that I think I could use in my sketchbook.

This is a persevered human torso! I thought it looked really cool. 

However something quite exciting is that for next Tuesday I've been invited to go along to a meeting with a design company, as the SHA are trying to produce a book about Huntington's as to give to children to help explain what the disease is, how the are feeling and how the disease will effect them. As this is so close to my project work I couldn't turn the chance down and I'm really looking forward to what it will be like!

Productive weekend

Over the weekend I've done quite a few papers in my personal sketchbook which has been really fun, it's nice to make pieces that aren't just for work. These are some of my favourites :)

A slightly more relaxed week

This Monday we looked over the PLP's again but mostly worked on our own. In the afternoon Ewan was back so he spoke to us all about what we were doing and we had a paper making tutorial which was really fun and I really enjoyed. It's something that I had done before when I was at school but it is still really enjoyable and I think that I may make my own paper for my book as it would make the whole thing that little bit more personal.

Tuesday we worked mostly on our own. I created a timeline of my life for the past few years and started looking at brain scans, as that is one of the methods doctors use to determine how to the disease is progressing. I then drew my own brains, created some patterns with the shapes that I created and then from that I made painted one (by folding the paper in half, splashing paint on one side and then folding the paper over to create a symmetrical pattern) these reminded me of ink blots so I think that I'll go on to look at that in more detail.

Friday was the day of the final presentations (last week was a practice). Following David's advice I wrote down what I wanted to say on flash cards so I wouldn't lose my place. I did still stutter a bit and lost my place one however I think it was better than the first one. I also think the using pecha kucha is a good method for me as it's timed so I can't keep rambling when I lose my place. As I'd had my mid mod last week I wrote up a response to brief (what I want to do for my final piece0 whilst others had there mid mods.
We have the next two weeks off for easter so I'm hoping that I getting a fair bit of work done in those two weeks.
Happy Holidays!

Ink blots

Been making my own ink blots today!

Another scary week!

On Monday we discussed our PLP's with Paul and he told me how I could work on mines to make it better and what to add to it. However he also asked me if I was going to be ok looking at such a big part of my life. I instantly said yes as I knew that I wouldn't have picked it if I didn't think I could do it. However since Ewan wasn't in this week we just worked on our own in the afternoon this gave me a chance to really think about what I was getting myself into. It was a little scary thinking about the fact that people were going to know how I feel as when people ask me about the disease I usually just rattle off the facts and rarely go into how I feel and how it affects me. However I think that looking at it in this project it can only be a good thing, I doubt I'm going to get upset but rather relieved to have a chance to express myself. Also Paul said similar things to Rebecca as she is tackling a similar theme it was nice to discuss it with her as she understood what it was like to hear people ask you if you could handle such a project. We both agreed that we could.

I continued with my had painting this week, I put my headphones in, started painting and the hours flew by. Dot wasn't in this week either so mostly just got on with what we needed to do and discussed with each other what we going to be doing. In the afternoon I showed Catherine my PLP and she pointed out somethings that I should fix and gave me some pointers so for project.

Friday was a scary day. I actually came in early not because I was doing any work but because I was stressing myself out by sitting around the house. So I was standing outside the  room with Rebecca (we were the first to arrive) which worked in our favour as we went first. I'm glad that I was 2nd as I think if I had sat through everyone else's presentations first I would've freaked myself out. It didn't go fantastically well, I stuttered a lot, lost my place (which meant that I lost a few slides) but I kept going and got through it in the end and once it was over I was able to sit down and enjoy everyone else's. For the mid modules I was 3rd or 4th to go and that was pretty good too, this went a lot better and helped me to firm up what it was I need to to do for this project and what I wanted my final piece to be like.

Week beginning the 17th March

On Monday we listened to some more of the presentations that people need to give, interestingly I enjoy listening to other presentations I just hate giving them. I like hearing who everyone talks about the same thing differently. In the afternoon we worked on our pathways stuff and I'm definitely sure I'm going to work on the Huntingtons idea as I think it'll give me more options and more things to talk about.

In the morning on Tuesday we continued with our paintings this week I started a large A1 piece of a hand. However I didn't use traditional colours, I went with blues and purples. This was because I wanted it to look odd and out of place as a way of symbolising how some people felt about the industrial revolution. We learned about using a grid to split up an image to make it easier to scale something up (that's why this painting is A1)  For pathways we continued working on our ideas and started a 1st draft of our PLP's.

On Friday we had directed study we all worked on our powerpoints individually. I've decided that I'm going to look at Lady Gaga's new album "ARTPOP" and where she is a contemporary artist or not. It's subject I find very interesting, looking at how people can be different artist and how their work can merge into more than one art form. Think that the reason that I find that this is so interesting is because I don't know where I want to take my own art and I don't know what category I want to be apart of. In Dee's class we worked on our sketchbooks because we have a mid module tutorial next week.

The rest of the week

For Transformation on Tuesday we painted the canvases that we stretched last week. We were to concentrate more on colours, tones and shapes rather than creating an image so what we did was take in photocopies/black and white print outs of images that related to out theme and cut them up and work with a small section of the image. I liked working like this and I quite happy with the outcome, it allowed you to create an image with focusing too much on getting it to look like something. Something else that I did was paint onto textured boards and pieces of wood as to see the textured effects that I could achieve. I'm quite enjoying working in this way and I like create these little samples, I think that I want to create some sort of mixed media piece for my final that would allow me to use the painting techniques that I've learned and use the collage pieces that I love creating.

On Friday we were looking at Pecha Kucha which is a Japanese form of presentation. It has 20 slides and each slide last 20 seconds and you talk about your chosen subject in those 20 seconds. It seems really interesting and as I hate giving presentations I'm hoping that by trying something new it won't be as bad.
In Dee's class we each worked on our computer work individually, so I made some more collages, something that I'm really enjoying and think I might use within my final piece.