A Rather Strange 2nd Week At AUB

(9th- 13th of September 2013)

Hello again everyone!

I experienced quite a strange and weird 2nd week at the Arts University of Bournemouth. For some reason I can't pinpoint the main reason why I felt like this. I just felt bizarre, sometimes a bit out of place...and also a little bit crazy :P. I think I'm at that point where I have scared my housemates and have shown people my eccentric side.

Anyway, enough of me blabbing about myself, I will try to summarise how my 2nd week went...

Basically during the foundation course we get to experience all the disciplines based within Art, Design and Media. At the moment our group, for two weeks will go through the disciplines in Art (which includes Illustration, Fine Art, etc). And then, I think after that we will work on another section, either Design or Media...I think (I don't exactly know how it works!) 

On Monday we first had a powerpoint presentation on Art Methodologies which I found quite inspiring. It got me to change my perspective on Art and what it actually is. It also marked our project launch.

But before that presentation we got set the task of bringing back what we ourselves considered was "good art". So off we all went to the magical library and I printed out a painting by the artist Francois Nielly due to the bold and eccentric use of colour within these two portraits. 

After we printed out what we thought was "good art" we all stuck our pieces of paper on the wall and had to write down the explanation as to why we picked that particular piece as "good art". I think what the teachers gathered from all of our pieces is that we chose them due to their aesthetics, by their visual appearance. I thought they were kinda right actually, I did pick mine due to the way that it looked. And basically that presentation informed me that Art isn't always just about paintings, drawings and sculptures- sometimes it can be an act of doing something. One example that we got given was walking underwater from one destination to another, or some turtles being put in a room where they're racing and them moving is the piece of Art. Art has changed dramatically over the course of time and we might not exactly not know what Art might actually be. It could be anything to be honest.

Ending that session, there were all different types of objects placed around the room within these 'islands'. And what we had to do was to pick out objects that stood out to us individually and make some research on it, gathering some sort of inspiration from these strange objects. At the end of this project we have to make a final piece, regarding heavily on what discipline appeals to us in Art. I think I will go for a more illustrative piece of work but not quite sure of what I'll base it on, it might also be something quite narrative. 

I was quite fond of the chickens/ birds, the sticks, skeleton and a few little odd things.

On Tuesday I got to experience life drawing for the first time in my life. And strangely, I thoroughly enjoyed it. This session was all about accuracy and measurement.

Wednesday's session was studio practice and we did a few drawing exercises within it. The first one we had to do a continuous line drawing of our journey of how we got to the university and into the room with these 'islands' of strange objects. I went for the more imaginative route and at some point I drew being on a boat, going through a keyhole and being on a hot-air balloon.

Next, we were told to stick one finger in our mouth and draw the mouth through feeling the textures inside. I know that might not make a lot of sense, but say for example if I felt some rough textures within my teeth I somehow had to translate this texture within my drawing. Like so...

(It was quite a weird experience doing that!)

The following exercise involved us closing our eyes and the two teachers made some rather loud noises within the room. Our task was to try and translate these sounds as marks on the drawing with our eyes closed. Mine was quite rubbish...

For the next one we were told to feel the objects in front of us and again translate this through our drawings. 

Another drawing once again, and this time we all had to draw and listen to some pretty terrifying native-like music (which I found hilarious at some point). So, at points during that musical when it was getting louder I was more aggressive with my mark-making and softer when it was slowing down. 

The last task of the day during Wednesday's session was to make a concertina booklet and draw a series of drawings within that (development on the booklet: line, drawing negative space, textures around the subject matter, and a close up of one of the previous drawings). After the last drawing we had to photocopy two sections on the concertina booklet we liked the most. From this we cut out the shape from that photocopy and made a sculpture . We then had to draw that sculpture on the following section of the concertina booklet followed by another drawing combining collage, made from the scraps of when we were cutting out the sculpture. Again, I know some of this might not make sense to you but this is how I remembered it and somehow I have to write this within my learning journal!

This is my giraffe sculpture

And this is ma concertina booklet.

So yeah, that was Wednesday.

Then came Thursday. Thursday involved a whole day of life drawing (unlike Tuesday where we only had a half day). This time we focused on tone and also movement. Again, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

In this last example the model had to pose for a couple of minutes on one spot, then moving forward again and stand in a pose and we had to show that movement. I was in that lucky position at the front where the model was walking towards me so this piece was pretty intense. 

Now, Friday was a strange one. Really strange (well, it seemed strange to me). After viewing a powerpoint presentation on Maps and Narratives, we got set the task of making a map and a narrative piece, our deadline being 3:30 and having critique. The fact that we had the freedom to do whatever we liked at first made me feel quite good but also kinda scared me at the same time. I had quite a few ideas within my head and I just didn't know where to go from then on. I don't exactly know how my brain works but it was going quite mental I guess. For my 'Map' piece I ended up taking photographs of the island at different viewpoints. I then printed out these photographs and traced on top of 3 pieces of A3 acetate with a black marker. I over-lapped the objects and drew this in a loose manner. After drawing them, I joined the 3 pieces of acetate together like a panorama, collaging them with paper at the background. I kinda ruined it, I think when I painted over the panoramic piece with acrylic. But, we were told to make plenty of mistakes during the course in order to progress.

I had spent most of my time on my 'Map' piece but not much on the 'Narrative'...I should have done because Illustration is mostly all about story-telling! Grrrrrrr. So, what I did was I quickly drew a seagull with oil pastel and just worked around the image, not really knowing what I was doing, I was completely clueless with this piece! It doesn't really tell a narrative but I've learnt my lesson from it.

At the 3:30 deadline, we all had to finish, clear up and display a mini exhibition, going around the room looking at other people's work. I was quite embarrassed with my 'Narrative' so I kinda just hid it underneath my 'Map' (lolz). The teacher picked upon that most of us over-thought our ideas. The main lesson that I learnt from this day was that simplicity can be effective. It might not be a good idea just to dwell on a concept and make it even more complex than it already is. And that was one major thing I learnt from Friday's session.

To come to a conclusion, this was probably the most strangest week I've come across in my life. I know I'm over-exaggerating there, but that was how I felt. I went through a series of different emotions from being happy and eccentric to being occasionally depressed- nothing serious, I promise, just a little bit down on myself sometimes. 

Next week I'll try to be a little more optimistic. The thing with me is that when I don't know what's going to happening it kinda scares me a little bit. Sometimes I have this mental picture in my head of what might happen but then it doesn't go the way I expect it to. During my holiday in the Philippines I had no idea what was going to happen but I kinda just went with the flow and I enjoyed that. And then all of a sudden I went back to expecting this week. One of my cousins told me before we left for the UK that I should stop thinking so seriously and just live my life to the fullest. I really need to learn how to relax and just breathe! I desperately need some sort of yoga teacher, telling me to calm down and give me advice. 

Maybe it's just stress that's getting to me.

The 3 things that I will be telling myself next week is:

1) Live life to the fullest. 
2) Don't think too much -otherwise that will turn into negativity.
3) Just breathe.

I know, I've spoken too much haven't I? Well, I shall see you next week (or maybe the week after that depending how much work I have to do) and tell you how I'm getting on with my university life.

Cheerio! 

Gianne x