Stafford College (Tuesday Week Three)

Week Three    26/03/13

BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Art and Design - Year 2
Final Major Project


Student Four:

This students topic for their project is Concentration camps/ war and is considering using a link to this idea to create a repetitive design around. They are at the stage at the moment where they are experimenting with several processes and techniques. They have experimented with the image of a gas mask using the following processes: Relief print, Monoprint, Lino printing and different line drawings.The student now aims to experiment out of their comfort zone and use materials and sewing to collage and work back into the images to create the detail within. The student will be undertaking a silkscreening workshop on Thursday so i have suggested to the student they research some textile illistration artist to get some inspiration ready for Thursday and get there images ready to do the silkscreening.

Student Five:
Student five's initial idea was looking at negitive space, escapisum and doodling and why people doodle. They then started creating doodles themselves and creating images from what they saw within the doodles. The student is also looking at bubbles and shapes help you escape from situation and problems. This student is still very much in the developing stage of their project and don't have a set idea for the work she will produce for the exhibition but this is ok at this stage. I have suggested they research more to back up their ideas and look at artist to inspire the ideas further.

After sitting down on a one to one basis with these two students i went round the class and looked at the work each individual was working on and asked them if they had any questions, or if they wanted to see me about anything. Most of the students were ok and motivated to just get on with their work so i just reasured them that if they needed some help or suggestion then to just ask. 


 

Stafford College (Monday Week Four)

Week Four    25/03/13
BTEC Level 3 Extending Diploma in Fine Art - Year 1

Today was the year ones hand in so this gave me an insight of the excuses the students come up with to why they can't hand in like; they forget they were handing in, don't have any work or just don't turn up. It was upsetting to see that the majority of the class couldn't hand in due to one of the previous reasons but the experience was also made worthwhile when I saw the work from the students that did hand in. Those students made me feel proud that they had learnt, understood and achieved a new skill.

Stafford College (Tuesday Week Two)

Week Two 19/03/13

BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Art and Design - Year 2

Final Major Project.

Student One:

For the morning i worked with one student on a one to one basis as i wanted to get a better understanding of what they were aiming to do with this project to develop their ideas and processes to get to the final outcome for exhibition. I got the impression that the student was still unsure themselves of what would become their final outcome so we visited the library for an hour and had a search for artists that could inform their work.

I had a look through the book: Printmaking at the edge by Richard Noyce and found these artists:

1. Rebecca Beardmore

2. Barbara McGill Balfour

 

This image made me think of blood splatters, something you would maybe find in a crime scene and suggested to the student that this could be something they could think about trying to create and experimenting with different surfaces that you may find in a house for example.


3. Ingrid ledent

I suggested this artist for the student to look to show a more abstract way of working to convey the body for example they could look at finger prints within a crime scene but show them in an abstract form for the purpose of a secret coding system maybe.

4.Valgerdur hauksdottir



I suggested this artist purely for the purpose of looking at the instillation and composition as this reminds me of a collection of clues for an investigation capturing a journey. So i explained to the student that, how the work is presented is as important as the work itself as you don't want the viewer to be confused to as what your trying to portray and loose interest in the overall piece. I advised the student to start looking at other artists compositions to inspire their final outcome and how they will present it in the exhibition.

Once we had finished looking for inspiration we went to do some printing to produces some finger prints as a starting point in creating visuals for the project. The student experimented on different papers: white paper, tracing paper, and newspaper exploring finger prints for investigation purposes and finger smudging for at the crime scene. I suggested that the student look into other materials that the finger prints would be printed on in a real investigation as they wouldn't necessarily be printed on paper and if the student want the viewer to get a true sense that a crime and investigation has happened they need to research in depth to be exact.

Another thing they could think about is different ways of producing work that gives the viewer the sense that a crime has happened but not in the obvious way of setting out a crime scene installation, so whether the student whats and obvious outcome and for the piece to be a scene of interaction or to produce an outcome that draws the viewer in and get them thinking why.

In the afternoon i sat with another two students to explore their ideas and direction in more depth.


Student Two:

This students idea is linking old objects/ people to the new. At the present stage of their project they are working with images of old objects and new object and from the use of collage creating an new and unique object. Not only from the use of collage but thinking now about printing, painting drawing back into the collated image to evaluate how the images develop and whether they work as an overall image. But the student is now at a stage that they don't see their project going anywhere or developing so i showed them one of my projects on my blog that i did for the project title: Post apocalyptic and how i took objects and gave them a new purpose. The student found this helpful to see another way of developing their project but they explained that 3D was not only their strong point but they weren't interested in making 3D objects. I suggested that they could make these images into like posters and post them to different materials or even objects that link to the image for example they had created this image:

So why not apply this image to old glass bottles or even print them as stickers for the top of bottle tops. The images the student has produced are strong and unique they just need to research into possible ways of using them.

Student Three:


This students original idea is looking at commercialism and religion and how they view them as being similar. Their project started off with photoshopping religious and commercialized images to create an image which portrays their link in society. From these images sparked ideas for illuminated manuscripts with images of famous branded characters such as Ronald Mcdonald which they experimented with. The student has experimented with several different ideas which have been triggered new ideas from the previous idea to reach the stage their at, at present which is to produce an instillation that they can project an animation they are developing on, to stress their views on the topic of modern day worship. They either to depict elements from the animation and design to either hang them at different points or to make a cone shaped instillation from the elements to create a surface to project onto. I suggested the student looked at Hannah Perry and the exhibition below in particular as she took her video and depicted the imagery within it and presented them in front of her video which was shown at the back of the instillation.

The material of the instillation must be see through or at least translucent but they were unsure as to what materials they could use. I suggested to them the use of glass, plastic, acetate, clear resin and if they wanted a more delicate approach, invisible thread. They were interested in the process clear resin so as i have worked with clear resin in a previous project i showed them a possible way to use resin to create objects from the pictures on my blog. I then suggested if they wanted to experiment with clear resin that i would work with them next week to create the hanging shapes to experiment with projecting on the objects to create a possible way of showing the final instillation.

This is the blog that the student has set up to show their development through their project:


danpickeringfmp.blogspot.co.uk

Stafford College (Monday Week Three)

Week Three 18/03/13BTEC Level 3 Extending Diploma in Fine Art - Year 1


Firstly the students were asked to take one of their photographs that they had taken over the week and explore its strengths and weaknesses. Only half of the group had taken their own photographs on their theme so for the students that hadn't captured their own photographs they were asked to analyse the strengths and weaknesses on one of their chosen artists.

As a group we then brainstormed what things should appear in an evaluation or analysis of their own work. The students came up with:

1. Colour/ shadow

2. Composition for example: Rule of third

3. Strengths and weaknesses

4. Improvements

5. Links back to artist (How it informs your practice)

6. Exposure

7. Processes used


A powerpoint was then shown on sequencing

I then demonstrated how to drop mount their work for their hand in and next week they will take their own final outcomes and drop mount their photographs themselves.

For the final section of the lesson i worked with the students that missed last lesson demonstrating how to adjustment photographs in photoshop.

The students were told that they MUST produce 9 photographs for next weeks hand in.

Stafford College (Tuesday Week One)

Week One    12/03/13

BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Art and Design - Year 2

Final Major Project.

As the students are in the process of development of their chosen ideas i went round the students individually to get a brief idea of what everyone was producing and how it linked back to their original idea. I was also interested to see what artist they were inspired by and how that informed their practice. Some of the students had strong knowledge of where their at, at present and where they aim to go with the project, whereas some of the students where stuck and unknown as to what to do next. Me and the tutor then had one to one tutorials with those students that were stuck or perhaps needed a little guidance and suggested pathways they could take the project, advised other artist they could research and set them targets for the week. The students were then asked to carry on with visuals for the rest of the lesson.    

Stafford College (Monday Week Two)

Week Two 11/03/14BTEC Level 3 Extending Diploma in Fine Art - Year 1


At the beginning of the session the students were asked from your theme/ themes for collections, brainstorm possible ways you could capture them.

I then discussed with three different students what they had come up with and what they could go away and do for next weeks session.

Student One:

Body parts - Combining hands and feet with shadows.

I suggested the student look a shadow puppets, and what different shadow puppets they could create with their hands or feet, also to look at artists who create shadow puppetry. They could also look into design and making puppet characters out of card and photographing them in use. I suggested they look at Andrea Everman and owlyshadowpuppets.com

I suggested the student looked at the things i had discussed with them and to collate some research of their own by next week to inspire their own final outcome.

Student Two:

Nature, landscapes and movement.

The student was finding it difficult to decide exactly what they wanted to photograph for his final out come so i suggest that he collated a range of different photographs capturing each theme using a vary of photography techniques, for example to mess around with the shutter speed to capture movement within the next week. Once they have collated a vary of different images he can evaluate strengths and weaknesses to help them in choosing the process that works best to convey their theme in the final outcome.

Student Three:

Storing Crystals in ice.

Again the student wasn't sure how to approach creating the final photographs. So i suggested the student capture a variety of photographs exploring different compositions and photography techniques, evaluating the outcomes exploring strengths and weaknesses to help how to capture the final outcomes.

For the second section of the lesson we introduced the students to photoshop. I took half of the students and explained how to adjusting the brightness, contrast, colour balance, etc of a photograph.



Here is my original image before i adjusted it.




Here is the image adjusted to black and white.




Here is the image after using the levels adjustment:

80 9.99 255

Output levels

161 255




Here is the image after using the exposure adjustment:

+2.00

Offset -0.5000

Gamma Correction 2.00




Here is the image after using the curves adjustment.

After showing the students the adjustment settings using my image i asked the students to adjust their image with five different setting, print them off and evaluate them.

The students were asked to start taking photographs on their chosen theme over the next week.

Stafford College (Monday Week One)

Week One      04/03/13

BTEC Level 3 Extending Diploma in Fine Art - Year 1

The handout below was given to the students at the beginning of the session as where asked to complete it in 15 minutes.

The students came up with the following: 

Ways to Present work:

1. On the wall

2. Hanging

3. In a frame

4. On the ceiling

5. Outside

6. Posters

7. Magazines

8. Leaflets

All the students came up with possible ways for visual outcomes so i asked the students the following questions for them to think about:

1. Does art always have to be visually presented? Think about art captured through audio.

2. Does art always have to be presented in static form? Think about video, animation, adverts etc...

Reasons for Presenting Work:

1. To get your work out there

2. To make a statement

3. To get your point across.

None of the students came up with presenting work for COMMISSION.

For who is the Audience:

1. Adults

2. Children

3. Art Lovers

I was interested to see what the students opinion was on the importance of the audience so i asked the students the following question:

Is it important for the audience to like the work shown?

Yes: if for design or commission purposes

and

No: if to make an art statement or to get your views across.

We then split the students up into three and saw each students work in progress individually and discussed what they needed to catch up on, develop and decide for their final outcomes. 

Taking the project title of Collection into account the students were asked their individual ideas for their self directed theme.

Below is a tally of the themes and the amount of students going to develop on the theme.

People - 5

Nature - 2

Movement - 6

Recycled Items - 1

Colours - 1

Books - 1

Transport - 1

Personal -1

Body Parts - 3

Jars - 1

Crowds - 3

Emotions - 1

Stairs - 2

Reflections - 1

Crystals - 1

As the students have to submit a sequence of 9 photographs either all surrounding one theme or three different themes, many of them have chosen to pick three different themes that fit within one another.