The Camel

This was what we finally made. We decided to make one big ‘mass’, using all off the most successful pieces we had done so far.

I found it ironic and pretty hilarious that we spent eight weeks, truthfully working really hard, and came up with what I thought it was a quite horrific piece of art work, but on the other hand I also thought it was brilliant, because it showed, in this case at least, that art designed by a committee was not a success.

Success Project

When the year started in September, and we were set the eight week group project, I was a little bit apprehensive as I thought that working in a group would involve too many compromises. Immediately I had planed to break away and work on my own, but when I got talking with some other students I really found what they had to say very interesting. So in the end I committed to working within a group our question being: can success be engineered?

We began with the idea of making a kinetic sculpture (a giant chain reaction machine), mostly just because I thought it would be enjoyable and provide the opportunity for a more logical sort of creativity, one which that would require many calculations and experimenting. However, it was apparent that we had not brain stormed or discussed any other directions to take the project, so we held a number of quite intensive meetings and eventually settled on the project that ultimately became ‘Art Camel.’

Using the phrase ‘A camel is a horse designed by committee’, we set out to discover wether an artwork that was designed by a committee (us) could be successful; Do too many cooks spoil the broth? I found that this would be an interesting experience as it actually reflected how I felt about working in a group to begin with.

As this was an eight week project we decided that we would create the final artwork at the very end, so in the weeks leading up to this we would each produce a small piece of art based on a predetermined theme. We then displayed everyones work each week in the link gallery with instructions for passers by, to vote on the piece that they deem the most ‘successful’ on the ballots provided. We also asked them to write why. We would later then use these results when constructing the final art work. Over this period, the six of us produced work for five different briefs. This is what I produced for each of them (images below).

Overall, our conclusion was that people tended to prefer work that either required a certain amount of skill or much more simplistic, conceptual work. We considered this when making the ‘Camel’ and included aspects of the top two pieces from each brief.

Summer project

Over the summer we were given the task of creating an alternative first aid kit. I came up with this box called my emergency peephole. Inside I painted my parents frowning back at me. So the idea is, no mater what the problem, I would look inside and know what my parents would expect of me, to give me a kick up the bum, to do the right thing etc.

IM BACK!!

I now have got internet back after a long time, so il be updating everything from my second year so far....

TWILL MAGAZINE EDITORIAL

I love this, iv always wanted to try a floating ink project, and i thing this is the way to go.

Norman

This is a technique I wanted to try out, its inspired by photographer Andrzej Dragan. I used a mix of dodge and burn tools, and high-pass to create this high contrast but also incredibly detailed image. I found it works best on photographs of old people, textured skin, scars etc. I would also like to try this out using more dramatic light and on colour photographs.

Andrzej Dragan

I just love Andrzej Dragan's photography, the dynamic lighting and the intense detail! I am trying to accomplish a similar look, by experimenting a lot in photoshop, of course a good photograph to begin with is vital!!