Update

As I come hurtling back up the country on a train bound for the North, where Irn Bru flows in orange rivers and people can actually understand my accent and what I'm talking about (sort of), I can think of no better reason to have a go at blogging just for the fun of it and not look upon it as some tiresome chore. I must admit I was rather sceptical at the thought of uploading our assignments onto a blog as opposed to just handing them over. My views haven't changed completely; they have softened slightly however. I completely understand the purpose of the blog; as a direct insight into what projects we're doing and the research we're carrying out and our views on the world around us (seeing as we are the designers of tomorrow, and indeed, today). Still not entirely convinced about photographing and scanning the mind maps (bane of my life) into the blog. I think we should probably have to upload them and still had them in because I don't think you get an entire view of the work put in from a scan. Or perhaps that's just my appalling technological skills! I'm trying to get better and since I have been accepted as onto TBA as an honorary member, Ill need to tap them for help seeing as it's what they do for their skive of a degree! Just joking guys.

Well, the Vessel project came to an end not that long ago and we're onto the next one; the Wire project. The basic gist (if you will) of the Vessel project was to come up with a theme and create a 'vessel' of some sorts i.e. pot, vase, box, bowl ... etc. which featured at least one texture. I chose architecture as my theme (seeing as Dundee has some gorgeous Gothic buildings) and created a hexagonal box out of brass, which I aged using oxidisation (applying heat to the metal til it leaves a black residue on the surface) and then etched a separate sheet of brass with I wrapped around the box. Etching was fun despite all the warnings about burning my eyes out and the toxic fumes. To etch you cover your piece in either stop out varnish or black polish (both are kind of a cross between paint and nail polish) and then scribe (scratch) your image onto the metal. You then submerge the piece in nitric acid and the acid bites into the exposed marks you've left on the piece. All these wee bubbles appear and you have to sit and stroke your piece with a feather (and look like an utter nutjob) until you've decided that it's bitten deep enough. You then give it a wash, take off the polish and voila! El etching is done. Add a quirky wee moon and you have one vessel a la Letskii.

And now onto the wire project. I got started on this one much faster than the vessel project purely because I'd been out of practise. I chose birds as my theme because I'm v.illustrative when I draw and I thought I'd be able to manipulate wee linear drawings into wire fairly easily, but also because I've always loved bird jewellery and I've never really tried it before. It's going fairly well. Started out doing lots of inspirational and informative sketches of birds from nature books and the RSPB website. Found this amazing website (www.paperscissorsstone.info/; which I included in the previous assignment but I'll give you it again) when I was researching artists. It's got muy ceramic, jewellery, textile, fine art, illustration artists with links to their websites. It's actually also a blog so I may just be converted yet!!

We had to choose an artist from who we could take a particular method/trait/philosophy and incorporate it into your own work. I chose Su Blackwell (http://sublackwell.co.uk/) who makes these structures out of paper. It's difficult to explain, but basically she gets a book and makes a sculpture of the story inside i.e. Alice in Wonderland as well as one off paper constructions. It was her idea of "irreversible, destructive processes to reflect on the precariousness of the world we inhabit and the fragility of our life, dreams and ambitions..." that drew me to her as birds are fairly delicate creatures, esp. the ones I'm focusing on; tits (chuckle), buntings and tree creepers and I wanted to bring that quality of delicacy to my own work.

I'm still working on final designs, but I'll upload then as soon as I've got a better idea of what I want to do!