Last 2 weeks

Bit of reflection on this blog so far,

It's really good to look back on progress but I haven't really posted anything that I feel represents the work that I have actually been doing. I think I will do some (best) works on summarising what i've learned this year.

Last 2 weeks:

Some kl peeps needed a substitute person to participate in a triathlon so I offered myself as i've been doing training for the british 10km, which was funny coz I did swim training once and nearly drowned from tiredness and I cycled the race on my granny bike (obvs removed basket to make it more streamlined). It was really good in the end, pretty relaxed and we came out with a good time! The bike was a joke though, just had to lol at myself. I only got round 1 out of the 2 circuits, which went unnoticed so I ended up quite high up + in the mens league table as i was subbing for a guy. Nothing spesh.

We saw Jim Pearson (hi jim!) who was touring Germany. He was not the only familiar face we encountered this week as Pete who is erasmussing in Strasbourg came to visit which was very nice. Good chats put the experience so far in perspective.

Overall we had a lot of gd chats comparing both experiences of Camberwell and abroad. I think being abroad you are always learning something new about a different culture and the rest of the world seems to be a lot more accessible which makes u feel more relaxed and have a more perspective.

Me, Pete n Ritchie had fun. Pete arrived on the most arty day in Darm, can't remember what the festival thing was about now but there was a crowd of people jamming on their own at the same time which sounds kind of horrific but was actually kinda kool. Then we met Ritchie and went to cafe chaos where we had lots ov food. Next day me n Pete met for brekkie then later we all went to watch an outside film which we didn't watch but we went to a great summer bar where we drank a bit. Next day me n Pete went to the lake which was gr8 then we all went to an art/design/stuff auction at skl and that was it. Was really fun and nice to have someone visit!

Need to catch up a bit more but can't be bothered to write anymore n need to do work.

How my poster turned out

Looking at it now i'm relatively happy with it for a first poster attempt (shameful to say that I avoided poster projects in the past).

BUT I realize that the type size is way too small. I really miss having a printer to test stuff. I printed it knowing that it wasn't 100% perfect, just wanted to get through it and see how it would come out! Looking happy with myself (I actually really was). Learning, learning.

Felt like this project was a really good experience as it was for this 'Welcome New Zealand' book fair competition so it forced me to be a bit more 'industry minded'. I was gonna be stubborn and do a painted version but someone pointed out that on A1 you would be able to see major details.

My idea was to use these maori sayings (your basket and my basket) and illustrate it by putting things from both places inside the basket. Still happy with my idea just wished I could have worked a bit more on the details. Other people did some really good stuff, it was very enjoyable to see how everyones ideas took form.

Things that come to mind

Diary

Ways I think about things

Civitella

We went to Civitella Italy for a week. It was a great great experience.

The point of the trip was to do drawing but I also managed to improve my german and learned a lot of cool new 'slang' words and a touch of italian (spoken with an awful english accent).

We drove up on the 27th April and the journey lasted from 5:30- like 8pm. It was long but nice to go through all the different places and be on the road. Left on sat and arrived back in Darm sunday morning.

When we got there it was really nothing like I expected. It's a really old rustic town on a hill which was pretty much deserted other than the visiting students with lots of vast landscape views over short windy brick walls.

On the first full day we all met up in the studio and discussed our plans for the week. My plan was to draw lots and lots and just somehow fit everything together at the end.

I started drawing focussing on perspectives and then tried to be a bit more looser using ink and oil pastels and experimenting a bit with colour. I also kept another small sketchbook doing simple line drawings. I had some feedback from my tutor suggesting to continue this and using small squared paper format and just make lots of these sketches to fill up the wall space so this is what I did for the entire week.

Although I usually enjoy using a more experimental approach it was good for me to do be able to do something with a kind of predictable outcome because it was really good for me to be able to focus and develop this style of drawing and manipulate specifics like where I filled in shadows and the layout etc. This way of working really worked for me and I was able to work really solidly, almost obsessively. I think I feel like it has been a good development because i've found it hard to be able to express what I want to communicate and get distracted by the main concept, but this week really proved to me the importance of basic drawing and the what interests me/ the way I see.

It was also good, as always, to see the way that other people were working. I really like working in a studio in close proximity of other people but also being able to have my own space.

Pics can be found on my tumblr http://thestuffclub.tumblr.com/

WELCOME poster for New Zealand

For one of my projjs for this semester I am designing a welcome poster to welcome New Zealand to Frankfurt (book fair).

This was my first try. It is of a Maori man. They have a traditional dance that they do where they over emphasize their facial expressions...



Feedback from crit: The most known image of someone sticking their tongue out is Einstein, what has Einstein got to do with NZ/Frankfurt/bookfair?

I also did this. It's Frankfurt and New Zealand skylines back to back.



Feedback was that nobody really knows the NZ skyline, it's not very distinguishable. I agree, I had trouble remembering which was which. I still like the image though.

Unorganised proj

Organisation of material a black hole in getting my work together and on time. I do things and it floats around and then I redo things and nothing links together. I loose things and it's really time consuming to finish projects because I have to organise a mass of stuffs.

START OF SEMESTER 2

I started my block photography course.

It made me realize- photography is HARD.

the tips I got from chatting to my tute today:

core elements

look for clean not busy background

If it's not 'clean' then scrap it, it's not a good photo.

do photoshop editing (I usually use iphoto?)

Focus + put thought into it (as a general rule).

I thought it would be quite effortless to get something good to be honest but actually it's really hard to meet the daily brief and do something that's coffee table book worthy (we're using these pics for the editorial course).

DAY 1:

take pic of unmade bed

10X pic without looking

Portrait of friend without face

What u eat

3X self portrait reflection

3X pic of something u wouldn't take a pic of

DAY 2:

(we were looking at Eggleston pics)

'Every element in the photograph counts'

All must be in the style of Eggleston:

Take pics of

tree

bin

shop window

woman

man

blossom

graffiti

'private' object

light

pic within pic

DAY 3

(learning about semiotics)

'we read signs all the time- even when dreaming'

find a personal context that represents femininity/masculinity

make 20 images that represent the vulva and 20 images that represent the phallus

DAY 4

Watched a documentary with Rowan Atkinson about ways to show humour

Watched a documentary about photographer Martin Parr who did photography with humour. Photos of boring in Boring.

Make 5 images of each phrase

'Aber hier und überhaupt, kommt es anders als man glaubt...'- Willhelm Busch

No matter what u expect, it will turn out differently anyway.

'Menschen mit Phantasie langweilen sich nie.' - Jakob Boshart

People with imagination are never bored.

Tomorrow we are going to Frankfurt.

Overall my natural instinct was to argue because I think that some of the things that we had to do kind of contradict the 'clean cut style'--- like taking photos without looking, it seemed like he wanted us to focus more about the concept rather than the editing so I haven't been focussing that much on creating 'good' photographs but then I realised that I need to gain this eye in my work in general (for example my surrealism publication) as sometimes I don't think of how everything fits together and I am not very purposeful when considering how everything fits together as a whole, instead I have been 'experimenting' and kind of sticking it all together. Good to be able to reflect on that.

So now I will take on the criticism and battle on..............

2nd semester

HALLO,

I've chosen my new courses for this semester. I will be taking:

A block photography course

In which the material I will make will be used on an

Editorial design course (we will be making coffee table book style books)

A freestyle typography course

and going on a trip to Civitella Italy to do drawing. Which is also a block course at the end of April.

I'm really looking forward to all of this and can't wait to get started (tomorrow).

LYFLYFLYF

It occurred to me that I haven't done a general post about LYF for a while.

This is a good thing, as I have actually been doing real living as it's been substantially cultural.

I have gone through a few obstacles in the past weeks since winter hols ended, Cambers Liv left so 'the English girls' became 1, Deadlines, finding a new place to live but i've come through strong and i'm alive and living on.

I went to a good 'diploma' (basically- finishing) party on the weekend which was really really great, was loving life and speaking german and meeting people and dancing. Lots of people that I met are leaving to do work placements/go elsewhere on Erasmus which is really sad! I only hope that there will be great new people to meet. Cool.

Me and my flatmates are getting on really well and i'm super sad to be moving out. They are also in the design department and it's fun to get another point of view because they are all doing exciting things and have been studying longer than me and know what they're doing.

I'm enjoying work a lot more now since actually finishing my projects. The Entwurf (publication-movements) proj was really challenging but talking to other people on the course it seems like everyone thought the same and I don't think anyone was entirely satisfied with themselves, which I think is kind of a good thing (I think?!) coz it makes you think of how you could have done better. The main thing I learned from that course was how to research and that you should be doing something you believe in so you can justify it no matter what anyone else says.

Frank said at the start of Erasmus that it was good to be unsure, I don't know if this was part of a learning strategy? Because we were SO unsure and then after the holidays we were so lost.

Then he said if you believe in what you are doing, you can argue the brief.

I have about a week left until I go back to England for a couple of weeks. Today I am going to Muenster for the weekend we also might drop by in Koeln for the CaRnIvAl. Then next week I have to move and i'm gonna apply for a job and go to the architecture museum! I'm also trying to sketchbook and keep on making stuff. Lots of fun things.

Danke.

MM Storytelling VID

MM Storytelling from Kate Bailey-Neale on Vimeo.

This is my vid that I made with the illustrations from the compact course that we did in the first few weeks.

I accepted the challenge of learning new programs and I am really happy with how it's all come out! Defs gonna do more vids now i've learned some AE skills.

GOOGLED type

A typeface made from googled letters.

All 15 pages of my publication

From this project I have been able to explore and understand some of my interests more. I really enjoyed exploring the Surrealist Manifesto and free writing and the more I researched, the more I discovered that it is an underlying theme in a lot of my work. I'm really interested in expressing the subconscious and the psychology behind how to do this.

I think that I could have been a lot more experimental in this project and that the theoretical side kind of inhibited me to totally let go. It was really difficult to get perspective after having researched so much but I still find this subject really interesting and I have ideas about how I can explore further.

ANDRE BRETON AND PHILIPPE SOUPAULT “The Magnetic Fields (fragment)” (1920)

The corridors of the big hotels are empty and the cigar smoke is hiding. A man comes down the stairway and notices that it's raining; the windows are white. We sense the presence of a dog lying near him. All possible obstacles are present. There is a pink cup; an order is given and without haste the servants respond. The great curtains of the sky draw open. A buzzing protests this hasty departure. Who can run so softly? The names lose their faces. The street becomes a deserted track.

About four o'clock that same day a very tall man was crossing the bridge that joins the separate islands. The bells, or perhaps it was the trees, struck the hour. He thought he heard the voices of his friends speaking: “The office of lazy trips is to the right,” they called to him, “and on Saturday the painter will write to you. ” The neighbors of solitude leaned forward and through the night was heard the whistling of streetlamps. The capricious house loses blood. Everybody loves a fire; when the color of the sky changes it's somebody dying. What can we hope for that would be better? Another man standing in front of a perfume shop was listening to the rolling of a distant drum. The night that was gliding over his head came to rest on his shoulders. Ordinary fans were for sale; the y bore no more fruit. People were running without knowing why in the direction of the estuaries of the sea. Clocks, in despair, were fingering their rosaries. The cliques of the virtuous were being formed. No one went near the great avenues that are the strength of the city. A single storm was enough. From a distance or close at hand, the damp beauty of prisons was not recognized. The best refuges are stations because the travelers never know which way to go. You could read in the lines of the palm that the most fragrant vows of fidelity have no future. What can we do with muscle-bound children? The warm blood of bees is preserved in bottles of mineral water. We have never seen sincerities exposed. Famous men lose their lives in the carelessness of those beautiful houses that make the heart flutter. How small they seem, these rescued tides! Earthly happinesses run in floods. Each object is Paradise.

A great bronze boulevard is the shortest road. Magical squares do not make good stopping places. Walk slowly and carefully; after a few hours you can see the pretty nose-bleed bush. The panorama of consumptives lights up. You can hear every footfall of the underground travelers. And yet the most ordinary silence reigns in these narrow places. A traveler stops, changing expression. Wondering, he approaches the colored bush. Without doubt he wants to pick it but all he can do is shake hands with another traveler who is covered with stolen jewels. Their eyes exchange sulphurous sounds like the murmuring of a dry moon, but a glance disperses the most wonderful meetings. No one could recognize the pale- faced travelers.

TUMBLR TUMBLR TUMBLR

I started tumbling pics I found from good mags in my flat. No need to steal when you can SCAN.

Check it HERE ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

Sounds like School

As soon as you feel off track ask the tutor otherwise you feel more and more lost and gradually disintegrate into a cloud of guilty failure.

Be aware of your interests and what you want to gain out of the experience/project.

Argue with the tutor if you strongly believe that you should take your project in a different direction (but you need the energy and focus to do this).

Be aware of the energy/dynamics in the classroom. How are you contributing to this?

Tackle the task head on and don’t try and bullshit that you know what you’re doing. If you don’t feel like you know what’s going on, ask other people in the class or gather a few people together to talk about it. Also talk with tutor.

Make energy for yourself by working in a way that seems natural and easy for you to gain enthusiasm for your subject. Research things you like. Obvs, but are you?

Our rock bottom= struggling through the project not really understanding and being told we’re missing the point of the brief. Being inbetweeners, not really embracing it.

Need to

Identify and admit to self and tutor when struggling/don’t understand.

Define what want to do/learn

Remain conscious and alert at all times.

Down arrow

The process of finding how to do this is enough.

Notes:

Feels like i've ploughed through a giant see through wall.

Things are still slow though.

(had to centre it coz otherwise it goes strange).

15th Jan

Decisions Decisions Decisions

Have been made.

I would like to now make a long reflective blog post.

In true camberwell crit style I will start with

BASICALLY, i've decided to stay for another semester. It's been tough and confusing and although I came here thinking that I would be staying for a year the decision was still questionable.

This past week has been especially tough and emo. Skipped classes before xmas because I really couldn't face showing the 'work' that I had. Pointless unnecessary work stress over hol impaired me to staying indoors staring blankly at a computer screen. I felt like I had lost it. Went back on the first day with a desperate idea met with a table of faces pretending to look interested and was shot down by the tutor.

"I don't think you understand the brief still, have you translated it?"

"Erm, yes." no.

So we had chats with Frank who told us some things which I summarised and typed out. I may make an extra blog post to add a dramatic effect that i'm sure my avid followers will appreciate.

TRY TO CONTAIN YOURSELVES WHILE I COPY/PASTE.