Semester 2

Semester 2 Week 6 What once was lost now was found.

| harussell1

Waterless Lithography

I started off this week by finally printing off the symbol I had created onto material.I was advised by the teacher that wetting then drying out the material (untill it was damp) would help the ink to soak into the weave of the cailico creating quite a bold print which is what I was looking for as it went with the bold punky aesthetics.Due to the stiffness of the material it created creases in the final piece which was accidental but I created an aged look which gave it more of the feel of being an artifact.The next phase is to make the pole to attach it to which I plan to forge and use the ‘pineapple twist’ technique for the handle.

image on cotton was much bolder then when it was printed on dry calico,
Printed onto dry calico.
After soaking the calico and ringed it by hand the placed it between two towels and rolled out the damp.
Hung up not only to dry but to give the feeling of what it will look like as a flag.A small part of the top middle was missing due to me not getting it with the heat gun but I figured after alot of consideration and speaking to the technicians that I would probably be the only person that would notice that it was missing and to treat it as a lesson learnt in the future and to be more metriculous with the process.According to the technician it is reallly difficult to get waterless lithography ‘perfect’ and that at some point you just have to be happy with the end results.

The offical welding of the headpiece!

Welding the headpiece together cause alot more issues then was first thought.In regards to how it would be welded (this was tricky when trying to attach the inside) Try to bend the circle just right (this required bending it around a plastic pipe with grippers and by hand.And part of the head piece needed to be forged in order to be bent around the plastic piece at the side of the headpiece as due to the fragility of the metal and the plastic it couldn’t be welded together.This took alot of adjustments before it could be put right.It became alot more time consuming then what we initally thought.Luckily the technician found some hoops that he had made for another project and suggested that for my next appointment we just attach them as they were the perfect size and it wouldn’t be a waste of metal.

Decided on a mixture of steel rods and circular steel as if i made it all with the steel rods it would be far too heavy.I plan on making the circular steel rust by spraying it with salt water.
Measured by eye where each strip would go.
I find the different colours that appear with rust facinating,a variation of umber,browns and greys

Found artifact #no5.

The welding technician said that he reckoned the top half of the object was once a door hinge.
I found the cluster of stones and shells attached to this object really interesting.
Altho the twine is made from natural fibers I felt that it’s ‘chunkyness’ drew away from the fine details of the object.
I felt drawn to binding this object due to the man made holes in it but also in holding with the theme.

I wanted to attach the triangular top half of this piece to the rod and knew that welding wouldn’t be an option to the amount of rust on both object and by the metal being too corroded and thin and if i sanded down the metal it would end up coming through due to the fragility of it.So after conversing with the technician we decided the best idea would be to bolt it either with an already rusted bolt or with a new bolt then spray salt water on it in order to rust it.I will need to research the ratio of salt to water because altho i have heard teachers talk about it I have never done it myself.

I want the drawings to tell a story to help viewers piece things together.I want the drawings to look almost primitive/medevil through the use of sticks and finger painting to using ink and fine details.
Aboriginie cave paintings painted in the Northern territory of Australi believed to be 50,000 years old.These paintings depict ceremonies,to ancestrial spirits to animals brought over by the europeans and even drawings of the now extinct Tasmanian tiger.
Eerie looking shamanic drawings.

Medevil ink drawings

I have been trying to capture and essence of medevil ink drawings by using recycled paper and dying it with tea bags before drawing with ink on top.
Medevil ink drawing.In order to do anythink with ink it first had to be made using quite a labourus process which included cutting down boiling hawthorn.It was also quite matriculous because if it wasn’t boiled down in the right way it couldn’t be used.I don’t know if I would have the patience to use this process but in this modern day we luckily have lots of other alternatives.

The red lady ft the white lady

I was introduced by a fellow classmate to Balgay Park.I knew nothing of the history of the park and the cemetry and it wasn’t untill I got home and had posted some photo’s to my art instagram that a friend told me that the ‘white lady’ supposedly haunts the bridge that lays between the cemetry and the woods.It turns out that there are many stories about the white lady,but one thing that is agreed upon is that she was a beautiful lady,a beautiful lady torn apart by grief,after her lover tragically dies she throws herself from the bridge in despair.In other stories she hangs herself and another tale is that a wicked witch living on the other side of the bridge in a hut on the cemetry side throws her from it and that you can still hear her screams to this day and see the dent in the rock where her head hit.The rumour is that if you ever cross the bridge at night you will meet the same fate as the white lady.Ledgend also has it that if you run over the bridge backwards and forwards 12 times on the night of hallloween that she will appear.

I found it rather ironic that I found this location the perfect location not only to place objects that belong to the red lady but prehaps to also film whilst knowing nothing of the ledgend of the white lady.

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I felt that this was an appropriate place to place this object as prehaps the white lady was unhappy at her surroundings being cut down so let this as a warning?
Placed beside an old grave waiting to have the trigger pulled…
I feel that this will be the perfect next location for filming.I didn’t realise how many red tones there were with the leaves untill after I had taken the shot.I love the exposed tree roots and the way the light falls.

Mothmeister.

An artist I have become quite interested in latley is Mothmiester who is a collab of two artists from Belgium who create grotesque post mortem style fairy tale characters who often come complete with a stuffed animal and a variety or curiosities from their own private collection.I love the darkness of these characters and how they go against the fairy tale ‘norm’.
As a child I allways loved darkfariy tales like the Grimms brothers and Mothmiester reminds me of them.

Another source of inspiration that is allways at the back of my mind from my childhood is Queen Mombie from ‘The return to Oz’ Her stare,poise and voice were allways very powerful and literally terrified me as a child yet drew me in as I allways wanted to watch more!And altho I don’t plan on my character speaking there is alot to be said as I found out during my crit about the power of the stare,my friends mother would only have to glare at us and tighted her jaw and this was more frightening then words alone.

My plan next week if I get a chance between the group project is to film myself screaming inside the headcage when it is made.I wanted it to be filmed in slow mo and silent almost like the Sirus Black Azkaban prison shot in Harry Potter

Semester 2 Week one (the return)

| harussell1

I’m baaaaaack!And damn it feels good,after a turbulent nearly a year of being homeless,working in Orkney untill I found my feet again I have deffinately come back very reformed and very ready/eager for this semester to begin.

Because I had spent so long ‘out of the game’ it was hard to know where to start.So what better place to start then my blog itself.Looking back on my most previous post I occured and onimous hooded character who never had a chance for the character or costume to develop (certainly not technically anyway so I decided to start there.

I got so excited to start using the workshops that I imediately drew up a plan to make the bone mask into a metal mask and started off by looking at the shapes within the mask and making it more abstract so that it would work more effectively in metal,I also love the process cycle (i think that’s what it’s called) and how and object can change when made using different materials.

Original Bone headpiece using a birds breast bone and skull
Omninous character,headpiece could also be flipped.Could the same effect happen using metal?
I decided that the shape made by the breast bone would work more effectively if this shape was cut into the metal.I decided that it would all be made using sheet metal.

I talked over what the process would be with the welding technician,I wanted to individually weld together individual sheets of metal to make the headband to be in keeping with the asthetics of the original piece but we soon realised it would be much easier to just bend a piece of thin metal to the size of my head.(A very big measurement due to my alien sized head)

Used a bucket to bend the metal around then hand clamps to clap it into place before using a clamp to hold it into place and weld it/file down rough edges.
drew out the headpiece shape onto sheet mental
Used a plasma gun to cut the shape out.

I decided that i prefered to use the shape that had fallen out of the sheet of metal rather then the shape that was left in it.Instead,I decided to use this spare sheet of metal to practice using the spot welder on(a piece of machinery which i find genius).I ended up really liking this little demo piece and wishing I could use it for something!I think i will deffinately use a similar technique for a future process.

Once I was confident and happy using the spot welding machine I attempted to attach the copper welding rods to the metal.Via trial and era I realsied that it would be too difficult to use the original one rod that i was intent on using as i wouldn’t be able to successfuly sandwhich the metal plate on top as it wouldn’t balance properly so i instead decided to use three to help the plate on top balance out better.However,once I added the three copper roads altho i intitally thought it looked better once I put it together i felt like it looked worse and that i should of just left it how it was.

Overall i think it was a good first attempt and alot of problem solving helped develop the process and the finished piece in ways I hadn’t expected.

Drawn using the left hand
Continous line
double pen
A couple of developmental pieces drawn using different techniques as part of a process cycle after the handband had been sculpted,I really love how this accentuates the change,

I started working on a short film for this character and also wondered how i could attempt to use her in my crit on Tuesday.I decided that it would be interesting to see how this character could effect other people.I once did a performance workshop where one of the participants simply sat infront of the audience and just stared at each individually individually.I actuall found it really intimadating and felt that this would work well with the darkness of this chracter who is meant to be a mysterious myth and ledgend.

After pulling off the paint from a paint lid i realised it would look pretty cool on the eye
Idea for short black and white movie
Variation of styles drawing the character
Eye has an egyptian eye feel to it.Need to try out make-up and headpiece.
works in progress.

The idea I have for the film would be a black and white silent stop motion style film.The only noise would be the zzzaaaaapp of the teleporting shamans stick/wand that would transport her to different places in the woods.

This week I also decided to visit a couple of local exhibitions to help inspire me again and get the ball rolling a couple of these included the Bauhaus exhibition at the Cooper Gallery.I was super hungry during my visit to this exhibtion so I didn’t spend as much time there as I wished so will re-visit again prehaps later next week altho I’m rather embaressed after mistaking one of the booklets that belonged to the exhibition as a freebie and having to do the walk of shame today in order to give it back.The part of the exhibition that really caught my attention was the black and white video at the end which was a recording of art students talking about the huge ‘gap’ between what was being taught in schools and what was being taught at unversity.This still seems very relevant today,why has nothing changed?!?

I also visted the DCA’S Ray Yen Song and Tako Taal exhibition,my particular favourite being Ray Yen Songs as I loved the mix of media which intertwinned,as it was based on family mythology it made me think about ideas of how i could intertwinne different media’s for my current project aswell as the mythical element.

I loved the textural element of the gown and how it displayed the mysthical creatures faces on it and that the faces of the monster were on everything even the shoes!

I finished off this week by looking at medievil torture devices for the head as mentioned to me in my tutorial the headpiece was quite reminiscent of one of them.Which as i have allways been facinated by the darker side of history but i also love high fashion so why not mix the two together!I also thought that prehaps the headpiece could be part of the characters tale was she tortured and then in turn haunted the land?

Was she pacing the land forever looking to get revenge against thoose who scorned her?The silent movie could be reflective of her now having her voice taken away by the contraption due to tales of her gossiping etc.

I also felt that the head piece had a shamanic feel to it with the one that was made from bone and the one after that so looked at a couple of shamanic headpiece,I feel like it would be interesting to see how the style of some of them would look if created with metal.

I love how the bits with the ovals at both side look similar to that of a woman’s ovaries.
Not being able to see the eyes gives a further air of mystery but how would the character otherwise interact with the audience?
A shamnic headress made from bone prehaps?