Odilia Bird FDA

 Artist research: Kate Semple: Kate Semple is a sculptor who works with Clay, I have Chosen two of my favourite pieces to talk about. When looking at the first vase I can see that the artist has used earthy tones such as grey and brown, I believe that this caused the piece to feel grounded and down to earth, the viewer is able to connect to this piece on a human level. I like the slightly wonky, rough and odd lines that are used in this piece, the imperfections allow the piece to be relatable and within reach of the viewer, it has character and charm. I enjoy the contrast white clay and the darker glaze that has been used on top it causes the patterns to stand out and catch the eye. The second piece seems slightly more refined, there aren't as many lumps and bumps within the sculptor, the blue and white tones allow a contrast in the piece while also complimenting each other. The small neck flowing into a wide body is pleasing to look at and I believe that the forms that can be seen...

 Artist research: Working with  wire: Susanne Mack paintings-mixed-media-and-illustration Susanne Mack is a German artists who mostly works with sketches and wire sculptures to create abstract pieces. Two of my favourite pieces of hers are both wire sculptures depicting flowers, the first is a bouquet of of flowers. When looking at this I can instantly see the use of curved curved and twisting lines and the black wire allows the piece to stand out and provide a contrast to the white background, the flowers seem to be slightly abstracted and remind me of a cartoon drawing, the line are oddly angled and wire wire can be seen overlapping and curving in on itself adding layers and depth to the sculpture. I believe that the disproportionate petals and kinks in the wire add a silly and childlike atmosphere to the piece causing it toffee inviting and friendly. The second piece is also abstract and I can see the use of repetition, the flower petals in this piece are all rounded which ...

 Projections and layering: I hooked up my laptop to a projector so that I had free range of all my photos to choose from such as different landscape scenes that I have taken I projected onto a plain white background. I selected a few landscape scenes as well as images of previous silhouette projections. When looking at the projections by themselves the images were sharp and clear and there was little to no pixilation, they were crisp images and pleasing to look at, however, they weren't overly interesting a I wanted to try to push them further. I decided to work a little bit more with layers and used the light projector from before to project new wire flower silhouettes over the top to create a more interesting image. I experimented with a variety of different scenes and compositions and thought carefully about where to place the shadows and silhouettes on the image. When looking at the final product I believe that placing the shadows in a natural setting completely changed the atm...

 Exhibition review: Reimagining the Victorians at the Djanogly gallery: On the 3rd of October we went to visit an exhibition named 'Reimagining the Victorians' being held at the Djanogly gallery at the lakeside in Nottingham, the exhibition was being held from Saturday the 23rd of September until Sunday the 7th of January. There were three rooms altogether, the first included photographs and sculptures, the second included drawings as well as a video piece and while walking around both areas were open and spacious, the third was full of taxidermy. Overall, I enjoyed this exhibition and found it very interesting, I particularly like going to exhibitions that include a variety of artists as there are then contrasting works and ideas that are being showcased.  The main hall had a combination of photos and sculptures, it was spacious and open and I was able to walk all the way around each sculpture to see it from every angle. The second room was very bare, it had a large projectio...

Nottingham castle: Vessels: We went to Nottingham Castle to conduct some research and create drawings for our 'vessel' project, I took multiple picture of physical vessels such and chalices, jugs and pots as well as metaphorical vessels such as alabaster sculptors that represented the more metaphorical side of the term vessel like a 'vessel of God'. I enjoyed this exercise as I was able to explore the more abstract and ambiguous ways in which something can be a vessel.  I created several rough sketches and decided to focus on the shapes and silhouettes rather than the finer detail, this allowed me to capture the essence of the vessels while producing multiple sketches quickly.  My favourite piece was a pale blue wine jug, when looking at it I appreciated the fine detail and the way the blue and white colours complimented each other while providing a contrast, I also liked that mat finish as it took away and shine and allowed the viewer to fully appreciate the work witho...

 Acetate slides: I decided to try to recreate victorian glass slides by printing images onto acetate which is a resource that is much more readily available to me. Firstly, to get the sizing correct for the side holders that they would go into I printed the images onto normal paper and adjusted the image size accordingly.  When using the slide projector I noticed that my image was very blurry and pixelated, I liked the image and thought that the blurriness contributed to the old vintage, victorian feeling that a few of my other images have had and I believe that the yellow and orange tint to the image causes it to feel warm and inviting, and also making it look like something that would be found in an old discoloured newspaper. I believe that the reason for this is because the slide projector that I used was designed to project images on actual slide film and that the images on acetate are just not clear enough to be projected properly. However, I wanted my projections to be s...

 Silhouettes, projections and making slides out of acetate:  To develop my wire flowers further I decided to try projecting them as silhouettes onto a white surface using a light projector, I tried a variety of different compositions, some using all of my flowers and some with just one or two, I also tried projecting onto surfaces with different levels, however I found that I preferred the result of a flat surface much more as when using styrofoam boards to provide layers I found that the image appeared choppy, disconnected and broke up the image in a way the I believe was distracting and disorientating. However, when using I white paper drop for the background it provided a whole intact image which I believe was much cleaner and appealing to look at.  Looking at the results of my first attempts I believe that forms created seem quite organic, like something you would see when looking through a microscope, I also experimented with different levels of focus having blurred ...