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Saturday, 27 April 2013

Camera Obscura ||

'Without darkness one cannot know light'






It was the strangest thing waking up to my accommodation printed on my ceiling this morning! It was really sunny so Sam and I decided to attempt the Camera Obscura again (see here for original post!) to see whether it would make a difference! It was amazing! The colours and results were so much clearer and more vivid this time! It was incredibly surreal watching people walk across my ceiling haha! I also managed to capture some clearer photos this time by messing around with the shutter speed to capture some photos I'm actually really proud of!
To find out how to make a Camera Obscura, we just googled it, so it's definitely worth making one of your own! The effects are really fun and interesting :D







Collagraph Printmaking

"Enjoy the Little things in life, because one day you'll look back and realise they were the big things"- The Vow



Hello again! Some more prints for you today! :D Can you tell it's almost my printmaking deadline haha? :P Just finalizing all the techniques and experimenting a lot recently, I also finally remembered my Olympus Camera today so I could photograph some of the machines we use during the workshops; Dad, (Neelz Expressionz) you'll appreciate these! :) I finally got round to printing using my collagraph plates roday, which I varnished the other day! I think so far, this is definitely one of my favourite techniques as the results are gorgeous in my opinion! :) I thought I'd take some photos in sepia for a different and more vintage look :)

This is over a century old! It's beautiful craftsmanship! :)







These are the plates I used to create the prints, although I forgot to take a photo without the ink on sadly! I used lace, a skeleton leaf, some string and also one with feathers not shown here~ Below is the main body of Collagraph prints I created! I love the way they came out so differently from the original plates! I printed some on brown paper and dictionary pages but I forgot to take a photo of them! In the left corner you can see the wrapper of a new found favourite chocolate called Boost haha, they're delicious and full of energy! I also absolutely love the way the dry embossed one above! (no ink), it was a happy accident as I printed it with a dictionary page beneath so it would go through the machine and the words imprinted onto the texture to create a really delicate effect!


Friday, 26 April 2013

Screenprinting!



Spent the day in the studio doing screen printing today :D The image above shows a set I made using a digital screen printing technique to produce a photographic like print using the printer colours CMYK and a series of dots.. I found the printing process a lot harder for this technique as it had to be aligned perfectly to create a photographic image however I did find the results really interesting. The colours and style are very Pop Art like! I really like the two tone ones and the one with yellow and black as they are very striking! I didn't use the exact CMYK colours as they had run out, so these might have turned out more accurately had I used them, but it was interesting to see what would happen if I mixed the orders and colours up!

The image below shows the end results of the illustrative screenprints I did a while ago, I forgot to upload a collective photo of them :D I really like these as a collection, it would be fun to do some more one day as the marks made are really interesting, especially in some of the backgrounds~ I hope you like them too : )



I also tried another new screen printing technique today using watercolour paints and painting a design directly onto the screen! I chose to try and paint a girl and a splattered/drip background as my project is focused on 'traces' so I wanted to try and produce a faint 'ghost' effect! I found the results really unexpected and unusual! Once the paint had dried (this was scary as usually the screen gets damaged if you let the paint dry haha) you use the screen printing medium to scrape it across like paint and push it through the stencil~ this way you only get about three full prints from this technique before the paint's exhausted, the print on the left is my first one, the way it picked up the outlines of the paint was interesting, however I prefer the softer effect after the first print as it creates a really gorgeous watermarked effect~




Thursday, 25 April 2013

"Life is like a box of Chocolates, You never know what you're going to get"- Forrest Gump
 Another quick post today, but I wanted to share this lovely surprise I found in the post this morning, from my parents :D Hot chocolate is my weakness haha so this really made my day, and it was lovely hearing from my parents :D <3 Perfect timing for the upcoming stress with project deadlines haha~

On another topic, I got some exciting news today! Sam's family have invited me to go on holiday with them to France during the Summer Break! I'm really excited as I've never been before! I'll be sure to take lots of photos ;)


Saturday, 20 April 2013

Day 19- An assortment of Memories and Sunshine


It was an absolutely gorgeous sunset this evening so I took the opportunity to take some more photos! :) I love my shelf full of bits and bobs haha, there's so many memories in one place! I think a stranger would think they're a very strange assortment of items haha; plastic dinosaurs, an origami dragon and lots of arty bits and bobs :) I also attempted the classic view in a glass image, I borrowed these off a flatmate, I can't decide if I like the engraved design as part of the image as on the one hand I feel it distracts away from the sunset, but I think it also adds another element of interest and depth to the image. 






Thursday, 18 April 2013

An art student's impulse buy!

"You can't take the sky from me" - The Ballad of Serenity, Firefly







Soo, since forever I've always wanted an indian headdress, finally found one on amazon and hello impulse buy; the art student way! :P It arrived today :D I can't wait to use it in photoshoots and drawing, it makes a really useful reference, that's my justification anyway :P For now, I hope you enjoy some of these photos with my boyfriend as the model till I get time to do something more creative with it! They look so surreal in a  halls environment haha...



I've also shared a quick doodle from my art journal, inspired by the headdress, currently a work in progress. I'm considering going over it in pen but I'll have to put it on hold for the time being while I finish off my project work :') Hope you like it so far!

The quote captioning the title picture is from Joss Whedon's TV series, 'Firefly'. If you haven't seen it yet, I'd highly recommend it! The character development and story is incredible, definitely worth a watch :) I thought it would be an appropriate caption as I always associate nature and freedom with the headdress~ and the theme song lyrics to Firefly are incredibly beautiful :)






Wednesday, 17 April 2013

Instagram Highlights



It has been an interesting week on Instagram :) These are some of the highlights, the top left an injury I'm still recovering from after full on hugging the pavement on the way to class :P  A new treat accompanying our Sainsburys main shop~ we had a meal in the cafe before shopping with milkshakes<3 It was very very tasty and so nice not having to cook :P I also have a lot of printmaking to show you which I'm excited about as they've turned out really well :D 
I'm not sure I will be able to keep this up to date very easily in the upcoming weeks due to deadlines but I will do my best!

More Drypoint Prints :D

Day 17-  Tea and Prints for Two! :)
 Some more printmaking today! I used the metal plate I made awhile ago again, this time trying some more experimental approaches to it; These are a varying selection of some of my favourites, I hope you enjoy the results! Such a messy process haha.









Monday, 15 April 2013

"Live a life from a new perspective"

Just a quick post today : ) I wanted to share this photo with you; it's the the reflection in light bulbs of  my uni accommodation. I really like the way it's so clear! It's a nice sunny day today again! Unfortunately I couldn't take too much advantage of it as I have a lot of work to do at the moment, including a 300 word essay, fun times!

I also want to share with you some amazing concept art books I found on Pinterest which one day I would love to have in my collection! I love the looseness of concept art, and these are particularly interesting to me as I'm  a huge fan of Disney/Pixar animation. I think it's amazing how the sketchiness of these illustrations are translated into full length animation productions. One day I would also love to own some of the Studio Ghibli Artbooks too! 

Art of Brave- Disney/Pixar
How to Train Your Dragon- Disney/Pixar


Work Space



Day 15 -The desk of an Art student :P


We finally had some more gorgeous sunshine today! :D Unfortunately I was cooped up inside finishing some work off  :') Thought I would share a photo of my desk at my Uni accommodation, I'm going to miss this next year! It's such a weird assortment of stuff, I like how you can just about see Skyrim and a cup of tea peeking out the sides of the photo :P Thought I would take the opportunity to organize my sketchbooks using the red box as a storage device~ I think it works pretty well! I counted them and found I had over twenty assorted notebooks and journals not including the ones I have at home! :P The sky quickly turned stormy and miserable, a perfect pathetic fallacy of having to work indoors :P




Sunday, 14 April 2013

365 Days!

Day 14 - I haven't done my nails in so long! Thought I'd make the effort today :3


As of today I've been with Sam a whole 365 days, it's crazy how quickly time goes, it's been such a fantastic year though! :3 The weather was miserable today, typical rainy day so we haven't done anything specific, especially as we had a really lovely day yesterday. We finally got a chance to see Oblivion much to Sam's delight who'd been pestering me about seeing it for a while :P Turns out I'm really really glad we went to see it, it was absolutely incredible!! Not just graphics wise but all round amazing, the visuals were stunning and the actual story itself was very very well done! Definitely worth a watch if you have not seen it yet! :) We then finished with a MAHOOSIVE caramel latte at Costa, it had two handles! It felt really strange holding it like that but it was very tasty! Here's to many more happy years and memories ahead :3







Monday, 8 April 2013


Day 7 - Oh I'm sorry, did you want me to smile? ;)
Back in Student halls again! I've missed them, It's nice having my own space to put everything in again~ So nice having a loan again too ;P It's been such a lovely Easter Break despite all the travelling and moving around aha. These were taken the other day whilst Sam was washing his car~ isn't he the cutest? :P I tried not to get in the way too much :P Our first meal back was an experiment naturally~ it tasted very nice! I personally think the pink rice was a nice touch :P Very excited to discover that vanilla coke is back on sale in stores, it was my favourite before they took it off the shelves :')