HEALTH AND SAFETY TIPS FROM A STAINED GLASS ARTIST

My mother is a stained glass artist and I made a post about her studio previously on this blog. Health and safety is very important in a glass studio as a lot can go wrong, I asked my mother for her advice about how to stay safe while working, heres what she said:

" Make sure to wear a mask when soldering to avoid breathing in toxic fumes! Also when cementing because of the chalk dust in the air, plastic gloves are also advisable"

"Keep plasters near because cutting yourself on glass is inevitable even when your being careful'

"Keep scalpels in corks to avoid accidental injuries, also lead knives are kept in cardboard covers as they are very sharp"

"Glass needs special storage, you don't want it lying around, if you just bump into it could break, you have to always make sure to put things back straight away or accidents happen"

"The kiln gets very hot so its important to let everyone in the studio know that the kiln is on so no one opens the kiln as the work could be ruined. In the summer we open the windows as it can get quite hot in the room'

Architecture Work Experience

In the easter holidays I did work experience for a week at an architecture firm in Teddington called Architecture WK The Powder Rooms.

It wasn't related to any of my college projects, was just something I did in my spare time for my own interest. I will be studying Interior Architecture at university next year.

I was given the measurements and plans for a small house and my brief was to add a loft extension and also to extend the back of the house.

My final presentation sheets, I used Google Sketchup to create my model and Photoshop to add clouds/background and make my presentation look more polished and professional.

I had never used Autocad before so I found it very challenging to use the program for the first time. My task was to re produce the floor plans and elevation, I also had to use a scale ruler to work out the scale in 1:100 and also 1:50. The program works in millimetres and I took me a while to get the hang of firstly measuring the drawings with the scale ruler, converting the measurement into millimetres and then using Autocad to draw up the plans on the computer. Everything had to be correct to the millimetre so it was very precise and took a long time.

Sketching on tracing paper to scale to start thinking about how I would adjust the plans.

I am really proud of the work I produced as I had not used Sketchup much in the past, I now feel that I have a reasonably good understanding of the program. I'm also really pleased I had an opportunity to use Autocad as it is a program I will be using at university.

Doing work experience confirmed in my mind that I have chosen the right course to study at uni and I think it was a really worth while experience.

Kasia Holmes-Moorhouse talks about developing ideas

My sister Kasia is currently studying fine art in Holland and I made a short video of her explaining the 'story' of one of her projects, I think it helps to understand how she has developed her ideas and linked different visual sources to create her final piece.

https://vimeo.com/93208147

Interview with Ward Blokland

I did a short interview with Ward Blokland who is a dutch artist. In the video he talks about his work, how he responds to commissions and briefs and also advice to young artists starting up.
An example of his work which he speaks about in the video below.

Here is a link to his website where you can view his projects: 

http://www.wardblokland.nl

Here is the link to the interview 
https://vimeo.com/93209578

My Portfolio

My Portfolio

I assembled this portfolio for university interviews, it is an A1 portfolio and contains large pieces of work, mood boards and sketchbooks.

 Fashion Illustration and Photo boards of my final piece, a garment inspired by Wabi Sabi

 Part of a model I made last year for a 'Reflect and Distort' project for college.

 60's inspired shift dress using PVC fabric, felted flowers and heat transfer pattern.

 Closeups of exploring and experimenting with surface qualities for Wabi Sabi fashion project

 Collograph prints

 Some sketchbook pages from a college art sketchbook

 Screen printing samples

 Measured drawing and collage

 Ink painting

Oxford Brookes Interview

About a month or so after sending my online portfolio i finally heard back from Oxford Brookes and they offered me an Interview! I was so excited because it was my first choice of universities and I knew that they get about 10 applicants per place. My interview was really casual and it felt more like a chat than a formal interview. It went really well and I left thinking that I had a good chance of getting a place. I was interviewed by the head of the program and he was really keen to show me examples of student work and went out of his way to show me around the studio and let me chat to current students about the subject etc.
A few weeks later they offered me a conditional place, I need to achieve grades ABB.
I was so happy to get a place and it is my firm choice, Nottingham Trent is my insurance (BBB).

Oxford Brookes Online Portfolio Submission

After going to university open days Oxford Brookes was definitely my favourite, I felt really at home there, and really liked the structure of the course and attitude of the teachers and students there. After applying they requested I send an online portfolio using a website called carbonmade. 
Here is the link to my Portfolio, it is a mixture of 3D and 2D work from both college and personal work.

http://freyahm.carbonmade.com

London Mapping the Makers Project

London Mapping the Makers project, I looked at Kew Gardens and my brief was to create a short concept film portraying Kew in a new light suitable for a different target audience than usual, for example teenagers.

I looked at botanical art, Japanese shoji screens, psychedelic art, silhouettes and cyanotype as my main sources of  inspiration.

Franz Andreas Bauer was born in Austria, March 14, 1758 and died December 11, 1840) He was a microscopist and botanical artist/illustrator. His brother Ferndinand also worked as a botanical illustrator. (they were later known as the Bauer brothers)

Franz and Ferdinand learnt about botanical illustration due to the arrival of Father Norbert Boccius, Abbot of Feldsberg in 1763 and under his guidance they produced over 2000 watercolour drawings of plant specimens. They also worked as flower painters in Vienna for Count Dietrichstein. Franz met Joseph Franz von Jacquin while working at the Schönbrunn Imperial Gardens and he accompanied Joseph and his father to London. His talent was quickly recognised and he was secured a posit as the first botanical illustrator to the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew (also known as Kew Gardens) in 1790. He stayed at Kew for the rest of his life produced a vast collection of botanical and anatomical illustrations. He was also appointed ‘Botanic Painter to His Majesty; King George III.

He did many detailed paintings and drawings including flower dissections and microscopic details. Taking great care to colour match precisely to produce an almost identical image of the real plants.

Enter the Void Opening Credits, skip to 1.54 for part mentioned in sketchbook

Enter the Void DMT Trip scene, Hallucinations skip to 4.00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Mb3mssgPhw

The Weeknd Live For Video (first 30 seconds only)

Here is the link to my final video: https://vimeo.com/93131179

Evaluation

For this project I wanted to look at botanical illustration because I thought it would give me an opportunity to do more painting and drawing. I found out about an artist called Franz Bauer who was the first ever botanical illustrator at Kew Gardens. 

I started the project with a trip to Kew where I visited the Shirley Sherwood Gallery of botanical art, the palm house and the Japanese garden. I also observed cacti, other plants and silhouettes in the sunset.

I really liked the observational paintings and drawings I completed while I was at the Shirley Sherwood Gallery, particularly the leaf as I think I matched the colours with the original quite well.

I used drawing to record the colours I saw, form and shape of the plants, outline, surface qualities and texture. For my brief I wanted to create a film which would show Kew in a new light that would be interesting to a different age group than their normal target market, for example teenagers.

Hopefully this would bring more visitors to Kew in the future. 

Throughout this project I think I could have managed my time a lot better, I chose tasks which took quite long to complete and often put off doing work I did not enjoy such as film editing. I ended up with a lot of work left to do at the last minute. At the beginning of the project however I think I planned my time well, I set time out to go on the visit to Kew and also gave myself enough time to do research.

I researched into Japanese shoji screens and the way that they are used to filter light, this gave me the idea to start making screens including plant form silhouettes taken from my first hand photographs and initials drawings. I also did more research into botanical art and found out about the importance of negative space in compositions.

Later on in the project my secondhand research into psychedelic art proved to be very informative for the creation of my final piece, also looking at cyanotype research was a good way for me to decide on colours.

I think i developed my ideas really well throughout this project, I feel that I spent a lot of time re thinking about my ideas and improving on my previous attempts, my sketchbook follows a clear story and I think I used contextual references very accurately to inform my own ideas. 

I think I could have spent a bit more time drawing to really refine the images that I used in my final piece, especially as I planned to do more drawing in this project. 

I chose to use iMovie to edit my final film as it was the only program I had available to me at the time, I found it quite confusing a first and spent a while watching online tutorials and eventually started to understand the program. Once I knew what i was doing, it was very a quick to edit footage.

A huge contextual influence in my work was the footage from the film Enter the Void and also the Live For video by The Weeknd, these videos gave me the idea of flashing strobe like effects and fast paced, psychedelic and trippy clips. This was the main focus of my film and really made it come alive. This was a huge contributor to the look of my film.

I wanted to try and communicate the huge collection that Kew Gardens possess and also the diversity of this collection. I was able to include a lot of different images in my film as it was so fast paced and I think this was a good way of putting this message across. 

Keywords to describe my final piece: Trippy, psychedelic, fast, strobe, flashing images, busy. ornate, kaleidoscope, complex.

I think I follow my brief quite well, I believe that I created a film that would appeal to a younger audience yet still put forward the concept that Kew's collection is very stunning and diverse.

If I could repeat the project I would include brighter colours in my final piece, a lot of my initial studies and contextual research suggested this however I did not have the capabilities to do this well due to editing software limitations. 

During this project I have been able to practice my observational drawing skills and also have learnt how to use a new computer program, iMovie. It was interesting to experiment with different media when creating my screens and I think I leant a lot about how to compose images, sometimes less is more, like in botanical illustration.

I knew that I usually work better under pressure however I feel that during this project I became a bit overwhelmed and stressed and this prevented me from doing good work. I also found it very difficult to develop my own ideas when I had received a lot of mixed feedback from various people including teachers and peer students.