Monday - 28-02-11 - London photogrpahy Exhibitions

As if Group B hadn't already had a week off, I decided to book up a day of photography and the entrance to two brand new exhibitions.

London futures - at the museum of London, is a new contemporary installation of manipulated photos of iconic postcard shots showing the potential impact of global warning. The team were taken back by some of the outcomes and it really got them to think about the potential devastation we could cause. The exhibition was put together really well, with each photo being around A1 in size and having a light box fitted to all to really show off every bit of detail.

After that we took a train the to the end of the Victoria line where I took them to see Adam Pattersons Gang life exhibition at Brixtons Photo fusion. This exhibition was small and personal and in fact terribly emotional, in a two part series the overall picture is that back in 2008 Robert Patterson who works as a photographer photographed Jean Claude Dagron who was in a gang around the surrounding area of London. After 2 years of keeping in contact Robert Patterson re-visited Jean Claude Dagron where he had left london with his new family, left the gang and had started a new life in peace. the exhibtion was put together with personal touches as Jean Claude Dagron himself and revisted Photo Fusion and hand annotated all of the images. A remarkable day out and one hopfully Group B won't forget in a rush. 

Friday - 18-02-11 - Staff Development

That's it for another term, College was closed to all students and we had a staff development day we we discussed plans of moving forward with the Woodveiw campus and highlighted codes on conduct. we were situated in teams "Art and Design". 

See you all back on the 28-02-11

Tuesday - 15-02-11 - Pin boards

After the mass success of introducing Debbie Smyth's work to year 2, I decided to get year 1's involved (on a smaller scale) and let the experiment with the practical implementation of drawing with string. Earlier in the term as part of Unit 01: drawing, the team were asked to produce some sketches of the colleges atrium space. This was then used as the starting image for the pin boards which again supplied us with some fantastic results, a lot of noise, a few sore thumbs and a lot of fun. Some of those who manage to craft the art of drawing with string had their work shown at open night which saw a very good turn out with many positive reactions.

Friday - 11-02-11 - Woodview campus - Aida Challenge deadline

1st year GAD over at the Woodview campus will be submitting their final Aida design challenge work in today. They have spent the last 3 weeks working with myself toward producing a poster that could potentially be chosen to advertise the up and coming performance of Aida held at the Royal Opera House.

Winners should be announced in a few weeks and i am really hoping to keep on my winning streak form and get another announcement.

Wednesday - 09-02-11 - PTTLS training

Today I started for teacher training and begun my PTTLS course which will be an intense 5 weeks as the course is normally due to run for 12. From there and will start my DTTLS Diploma which will be 4 hours per weeks for a duration of 2 years. I'm am looking forward and interested in what topics will be covered and to watch my skill set evolve both in and out of the classroom. This week we discussed the roles and responsibilities of teachers and establishing ground rules with learners. The only issue that  Iam worried about is that Ihave been teaching since October and that I may or may not of dealt with some issues correctly. Saying that though, this is all part of my experience in becoming a qualified teacher and we all learn form our mistakes.

Monday - 07-02-11 - Drawing with string continues . . .

The pin and string drawings group B started last week were a great success but still needed to be complete, we were able to finish them off with the afternoon sadly seeing them destroyed as the team hammered always at the boards. Temporary Art always leaves you will a feeling a sadness but we have had some great feedback from other tutors some who want to discuss with me other lessons involving this method as well as some of the students who want to go on and create one of theses spectacular pieces for their final piece. That being said re-assures me that the choice of lesson was good and that i'm still shocking people and making a name for myself and a young lecturer.

Thursday - 03-02-11 - Mocking Fashion

Group C yr 2 are a hybrid group consisting of an all female class which want to specialize in fashion, interior design, jewelery and sculpture. They are an extremely hard group to plan for as the other groups are mainly of one chosen field. I decided to go with the idea of creating a range of t-shirts that were based on their adaptations novels but with a twist. we discussed the idea of taking iconic fashion labels and mashing together their formats or logos with the novels, which we then have planned to photograph later on in the year. Some of the ideas were string and overall the team were focused and enjoys their results.

Wednesday - 02-02-11 Organic Typography

A-Z is the new unit 12: Computers in Art brief that I wrote over Christmas. It explores methods, principles and the history of type with the end result being a digital/hand made alphabet book that showcases various themes and techniques discovered. Each week the 1st year students are given out their daily tasks sheets following this brief, it explains the topic, artists info and what the end result of each session should be. Organic type was an idea I had from seeing Sarah Keehan's work, I wanted the guys to experiment with fruit and vegetables to see what sort of effects they could create by producing letter presses. It was a fun filled task with most of the students smelling of onions, potatoes and lemon. But a rather effective display of characters was produced which they will go onto to use when produce a scene form a children's book on Adobe Photo shop.

Monday - 31-01-11 - Adaptation pin boards

The 2nd years have now been working on their adaptations project for a few weeks now, and they have been exploring different methods and processes in lessons based around the novels of "romeo & Juliet", "Frankenstein" and "his Dark materials. I have group 2B on a Monday twice so it is a great opportunity to create a larger task that can be carried out over the whole day. I Found out about artist Debbie Smith through blogger, and her conceptual method of drawing large in string. I decided to take the opportunity to divide the class into 3 groups representing a novel each and to explore this notion of drawing with pins and string. I also arranged one of my 1st years to film this as I knew the boards would only stay with us temporarily, Check out DRAWING WITH STRING at South Essex College.

Friday - 28-01-11 - Aida Design

As you may be aware now I'm teaching GAD at the woodview campus in Grays on a Friday. The first years are currently working towards the completion of 2 live competitions, both based on the opera Aida; one is to produce a graphical poster (specializing in computer in art) and the other is to design and make a costume based on one of the characters. it is a challenging project for some students as this is only there second term at Level 3. Below are some images form there costumes that they are working on. next week they will start to produce a physical garment ready for the competitions deadline. For more information visit AIDA