Pin-Hole Camera Workshop

Kayleigh Kendall recently held a workshop where we all created our own pinhole camera. I decided to make mine huge to see if it had a knock on effect on the display's size ad clarity, however I have yet to see if it works.
On one side of the box, a completely opaque side is needed (black card) along with a very small part of the side made of tin foil where a small pin hole is punched through. On the other side is grease proof paper so the image may be displayed upon it.
The light travels through the pinhole and is displayed upside down on the grease proof paper.

Bonderweb Workshop

Today we learned about bonding non-synthetic fabrics and materials together using a variety of methods, one of which was Bonderweb.
All requiring ironing, you would either place a cut out piece of Bonderweb, a piece of a fine web like material known as fuse fx or scatter a light amount of 'Super Mend' onto an area of the fabric and then place it between 2 sheets of grease proof paper and iron. This would make the glue melt from either the Bonderweb, fuse fx or Super Mend and leave the area stick enough for another piece of material to adhere to it.
For my piece I used a background of brown material, I painted a small square of Bonderweb blue which then made the glue blue when ironed, and attached the rest of the layers via Super Mend.
These methods when combined with the previous workshop's felt making could be used to make armour for my Thod Armature.

Manchester UCAS Event

On the 25th Nov, we went to a UCAS event held at Manchester called 'Design Your Future', in which a large hall held dozens of stalls from universities advertising a huge range of their degree courses from fashion to graphics, auto vehicle design to fine art . For me, many graphics and games design courses caught my eye, however it was a great time for me to look at other creative paths for me to possibly take instead of my current direction and degree ideas. I found modelling, special effects and animation quite appealing candidates when thinking of degree's to enrol in and will particularly keep my eyes out for these courses in future open days, and will highly likely at least bookmark some of the courses via UCAS. After the UCAS event we walked to a Museum that didn't hold much Art that appealed to me as much of it was historical, however there was an exhibition that caught my eye which was 'The First Cut' exhibition. This exhibition was full of amazing pieces all of which were achieved through cutting with a scalpel, paper mâché, folding and aligning. This made me reflecting on my recent introduction to the media of clay and how it was the first time I'd ever worked within a 3D space, but this exhibition truly shows that 3 dimensions are still achievable with mere paper also.
Soon after we went to another museum which sadly held very little pieces I was interested and the coach journey home soon followed.

Perspective Rigging

Close to the beginning of the course, the other Art Foundation Students drew from a stationary spot in the Art Department, a drawing that was wide enough to show the change and distortion due to perspective.
Joining late it was one of the first things I began but was constantly put off from finishing due to new projects taking my attention.
However I finally finished it one day and to make it unique, I decided to present it differently to other students. My idea was to make the drawing join from end to end so that when glued to for a circle, it forms a full 360 degree image. This was also to support my presentation idea of the drawing being suspended via string, by which a person could lower the drawing and stand within the circle so they can very easily see the drawing at eye level and at a full 360 degree with ease.
In the end I used a cross section of sticks of which the drawing would hang whilst the cross section itself would suspend. I owe thanks to my good pal Ben VT for helping me rig it into my area and make it able for the drawing to raise and lower by string and loops on the ceiling and wall.

'Thod' Armature

For all those who do not know, Thod is the main character of a graphic novel idea I hope to eventually make the center piece to my final project.
Because Thod is a stereotypical barbaric character, the first thing that springs to mind is a huge muscular figure like that of the classic Conan the barbarian, so I needed something to refer to on muscle structure, as this was an area I hadn't explored at all in my entire art education. From John's Armature workshop, he strongly recommended 'Grey's Anatomy' book which is a medical book, however it contains many illustrations of muscles that make it extremely handy for the artist aswell. I found the book very useful, and with it I pieced together the muscle structure for Thod with the sketc shown. However the book isn't perfect, as it doesn't contain some area's of anatomy and doesn't continue just a solid full image of the entire human body which I will have to look elsewhere to get.
But from the sketch I began making the armature, perfectly to scale with the sketch at a 2:3 scale (the armature being 1.5x bigger than the sketch). So I made the wire, drilled the board, anchored it with fibre glass and began applying clay. However along the way, it was to my horror I realised that the legs on the sketch and then of course the armature where slightly dis-proportionate. I'm attempting to fix this within the armature by bulking out and stretching the legs slightly, but it's my first shot at drawing AND sculpting the human anatomy, so I guess I can't begin perfectly.

Dyeing Workshop

On 12th Nov, Jan hosted a workshop showing how to dye cloth in a variety of ways, such as tie dying, using creases to alter the results of dyes and wax resist dyeing.
The tie dying I found was quite simple and interesting, by holding a piece of clothin the centre (or even pieces of clothing) and twisting it to form a tight swirl and then dropping dye onto the swirl via a pipette, the result shows how the dye was effected due to the swirl when un-ravelled. Another method was by scrunching the cloth, holding it in a position via string and then applying the dye, or my personal favourite which is wax resist, which is melting wax into the cloth so the cloth appears wet in that area, this wY you know it's gone all the way through, otherwise it simply sits ontop of the cloth and applied dye bleeds from the surrounding area and underneath the wax. But after applying the wax, I dyed the cloth and the waxed areas were left un-touched. I then proceeded to remove the wax by ironing the cloth between two pieces of thin paper until all the wax felt like it had left the cloth, I then dyed my cloth another colour (in my case red as you can see) and the negative areas are then filled in with the second dye. My method of dying was slightly different as I wanted my primary dye to be combined with the secondary dye to make it darker, if I'd of wanted the two dyes completely separate, I would of had to put wax surrounding the negative area and apply the second dye with a brush as to avoid the primary dye getting any onto it. Overall I enjoyed the process and the workshop and may use the wax resist method in my future work.

Armature Work

On the 6th Nov, John Stewart-Wood held a workshop on armature making and sculpting, showing us how to make the stands, the tools and materials we should use, aswell as showing us some of his own work for inspiration. In the end I decided to focus on my personal hobby of Warhammer, and sculpt the head of something within this hobby or franchise. I ended up picking my personal favourite within the hobby being that of an Orc, whose heads have smaller tops, big jaws, small eyes and huge bottom teeth, in particular their tusks.
I first drew the orks head from a combination of Orc drawings I saw from 'Warhammer Online''s art book, which held plenty of Orc drawings for influence and inspiration, and ended up giving mine a nose piercing, a broken left tusk and an angry frown which all orcs should carry.
I began the model by making a simple wire skeleton for the piece, which I decided to make a small loop for the flat mid-section of the face, and a big horizontal loop which would support his huge hulking jaw or lower lip.
After applying plenty of chavant clay to the wire skeleton, I eventually got a rough beginning to my Orc head, what I then needed to go on to do is his eyes, brow, teeth, ears and skin texture.
Upon finishing the sculpture, I had finally produced something I was happily with. To reinforce the ears, I used some small pieces of wire as the clay if simply added on would surely fall off from the weight of the clay. I also used this for the orc's teeth, this way I could sculpt the teeth on the pieces of wire, and with a small hook at the end, could easily be placed within the orcs mouth. And finally, after smoothing the skin with lighter fluid with a brush, the piece was finally finished.
Some critical analysis would be perhaps could of stuck to my drawing more closely, perhaps gave him some eyes and the upper part of his head maybe a little bit larger and to scale, but it's quite rarely I'm this happy with a piece of my own work so I'm going to leave it be, and maybe even in my free time create a full body for this head to sit on :) who knows.

Sarah Sze Interpretation

Here I imitate the work of Sarah Sze with her bodies of work where the pieces focused particularly in suspending things with string. Here I used cogs and bolts as I quite like the visual element to mechanics, and to the right of my piece you can roughly see me attempting to make my face, the 2 springs being my eyebrows, 2 cogs being my eyes and the bottle being my nose. I think this interpretation went well and the piece in my opinion shows a definite origination from Sarah Sze whilst showing my own influence.

Back at KEGS

After going to North Warwickshire and Hinckley College, I've decided that I'd rather do the Art Foundation Course here at KEGS instead, it's closer, more convenient, and I missed the people :) so at a month late I've got a lot to catch up on, so here's hoping this area gets filled pretty soon.

Hi

         Hi, I'm Kane Dickens and I'm currently attending the Art Foundation course held at King Edward VI College, after completeing my Art & Design: Fine Art A-Level there. I've started the course only very recently and late so as of to date my work is quite minimal, but all work I shall be doing shall be posted up here as I go along.
         I hope you enjoy what you eventually see and I hope you'll give me feedback, good or bad, along the way :).