01-12-12 - Handmade x-mas

It has arrived X-mas is here and the feeling in the studio, out and at hoome feels all that little bit brighter. Being a young creative I have decided that this year I want to put my creatuivty to work and produce my own x-mas wrapping paper and gift tags, if Kirstie Allsopp can do it, so can we!

This is not for the financial economics of it all but actually adds greater value than anything you can purchase in the shops. I decided I wanted to screen print my own wrapping paper and personal test my print skill set out with mass production. This was an extremely fun couple of hours having the print studio to myself and what appeared to be a little print factory with metres and metres of wrapping paper being printed. I decided to go for a classic snow flake design and was inspired by Pantone colour swatches for my gift tags.

30-11-12 "Loss of form"

This week as part of the 1st years "art and the environment" project, we dealt with the sub-theme of "Form". The lesson saw students look into the work of Neil Mabb and his work relating to form or more so the loss of form. Neils projects deal with the notion of removing form and suggest that we are to concerned with what we know (hard knowledge) as oppose to open up out creative minds with removing the identity of forms. The lesson started with each student bringing in an object of their choice purchased form a Charity shop and wrapping the contents so that its identity was removed and hidden form the other students.

The students then carried out a 3 part drawing activity:

Draw what you feel

Draw what you think

Draw what you see (the object by this point was unwrapped)

Of course like all lessons that hold ownerships onto how ambitious were the students in their purchases are a risk, some objects have more about them in terms of further experimentation. I wanted to challenge the students into seeing what else that could use their object for other than its primary function (a challenge for a 16 year old holding a random object). Below is a particular student who decided to use her object as a drawing machine and produced some great experimental drawings. I really hope she takes this further and develops a series of these looking at different medias to experiment with. 

15-11-12 - Tote bag wars

This year I planned a trip to take my year 2 students up to London docklands Excel centre for the 2012 UCAS fair. The fair is a great opportunity for students wishing to progress onto higher education meet with course lecturers and students and discuss the nature of any courses they are interested in. The fair is always busy and gets bigger and better every year. There was a series of lectures on throughout the day covering topics such as Portfolio design, Funding and course related areas.

With having some many students going to the fair over tow days is is essential that the stalls their capture the biggest audience and essentially fill you head with masses of information and you hands with a much free stuff as you can hold in an attempt to persuade you to apply to their institution. Being a lecturer I seemed more of a target than the students with course leaders and representatives wanting to fill my head and hands so that I would go away and discuss my experiences and interested with the students (a rather abstract experience at times).

It seemed that the designer tote bag is still going strong and that you wasn't worth applying for unless your chosen university had a tote bag with it name on it (an essential piece of equipment in the branding toolkit). well I cannot remember the last time I cleft a fair with some much stuff, pencils, usb sticks, booklets, badges, posters, and of course the infamous tote bags. It does work as i have seen at least 50% of my students use these bags and free promotional equipment since returning to college. Below is a collection of my totes showcasing institutions approach to remind people of their name.

11-11-12 - Mr Brainwash Exhibition

With being so busy with work I haven't been as frequent as posting up work and other stuff on the blog and completely forgot about the Mr brainwash "Life is beautiful" exhibition I visited a few weeks ago. Located in the old sorting office in London, This huge abandoned spaces has been overrun by the work of Mr brainwash (or Banksy but I will let you have that argument yourself). The space could only be described as an urban playground full of bright and bold work made to the scale of a giant!.

There was everything that really engaged with a wide audience form the 30 ft posters on the exterior of the building, walls full of painting, digital work and recreational screen prints, and a floor full of sculptures and installation like nothing I have seen before. A truly magical exhibition that restored love and life back into an empty space. The exhibition was free! you was allowed to take photos, allowed to touch the work and even received some free goodies upon your exit! (a nice playful identity on exit through the gift shop)

The exhibition was only meant to be on during the summer months but by public demand the exhibition was going on (nobody was sure of until when either) Below is a nice selection of photos that guides you around the space. It was refreshing to not feel intimidated by the gallery experience some places offer with tight security and a mapped path that you must remain on. Instead Mr brainwash gave us a working space that showed mess and life, minimal security just to see we was having fun, and Reggae playing throughout the space.