Ready for Foundation?

Did you remember to visit the sculpture show at FE McWilliam Gallery? Because it ended at the weekend! Still worth a visit to Banbridge as there is a show of other works in the gallery gardens, and the cafe is good too. It's important to visit as it will give you ideas about where your work could be sited, if it gets into the student show. Next show in gallery space is painter TP Flannagan at end of month. 

You should get a letter from the college over next few days asking you to come in and register for course, on Thursday 26th August.

STRUCTURES AND DRAWING

Well done all who have been getting the ideas and images flowing out of the forest! The best thing to do now is to start making drawings in your sketchbook in response to all the stuff you have collated so far... don't over-think it! Just take a line for a walk, as Paul Klee once said. This will be useful as the first bits of work you'll do on the course will be mainly drawing based. Drawing is a primary tool for any artist or designer, the roughest of sketches can lead to unexpected places. A few things caught my eye over the summer...mainly 3-D and architecture. For instance, the fantastic new 'canopy' at the new entrance to the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh made me think of the relation between this and the canopy of a forest. Inside this building, another 3-D structure revealed itself to me. Also, a forest canopy type structure of concrete and wood is the basis of the Scottish Parliament building. So, after all these structure encounters I was having a coffee in the Botanic Gardens and used some coffee sticks and sugar paper to make my own little wooden structure, which revealed a figure in its shadow. Like I say, the smallest doodle can lead to unexpected places......

One last thing- remember first day of term is Tuesday 31st August for Full-time students. We have a study trip planned for Dublin galleries and museums on Friday 3rd September- please bring £10 to cover the coach when we meet you on Tuesday.

Yet again, by happy accident I stumbled across this by Escher. I love this - it is so eerie and magickal and a little bit haunting. I feel that it conveys a good sense of what a forest means to me; full of fabulous things but some are secrets within Nature and have their own powers and destructive abilities. I love the up-side-down roots of the trees in the reflection, and also the idea that perhaps they are not a reflection at all?!! I have so many ideas and images at the minute and I am so completely stuck!

seiko kinoshita

I remember standing under the branches of the tree and being aware of a barrier I wanted to cross. I realise the external environment reflected my internal one! The barrier was within myself. Between the me I know and the forgotten, hidden parts.

crossings by Ulla De Larios

I caught my reflection in a window and noticed there were a number of my faces there. The parts of me I want to connect with and befriend! Got my niece to photograph me!


Think I'm going to try to paint a face onto silk and weave it into a structure I can suspend overhead. I want to be able to stand under it and look up through it, like standing under the branches of a tree, reflecting the barrier within myself - the barrier I long to cross, to connect with and befriend the hidden parts of myself.

I'm still going with my 'crossing/connecting/befriending' theme.

I've become obsessed with faint obscure faces. Love these ones by Tim Hawkesworth.

I came across a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, and loved his reference to a forest and someone coming towards him.

'By what dim shore of the ink-black river,

By what far edge of the frowning forest,
Through what mazy depth of gloom are you treading your course to come to me, my friend?'

i have added a link to the story cause i cant be bothered to type it out lol cause this blog thing wont let you cut and paste :)

http://www.luminarium.org/mythology.ireland/werewolves.htm

I have Been searching the net for insperation for my project and i decided that i wanted to
stick to my my irsh roots and explore irsh folklore and mythology, i have always been fasinated by myths and tales from my nan who had all these crazy stories about faries and suchlike and i felt this would be perfect inspiration for and artistic out come :)

above shows some old irish illustrations from an old folklore story called

LEGEND of PRIEST and WERE - WOLVES.....

possibly my outcome?

I just remembered I took these images of artwork at a cafe in town with my mobile, so the qualitys really bad. I really loved the pop-up effect, and the fact there done in wood is perfect for the theme "forest" I could possibly maybe do something along these lines for my final piece, I know its still early days to be talking about final pieces', but I could take inspiration from what I have been looking at and my photographs. we'll see. :)

first set of photographs

These are my first set of photos, I used my beautiful two year old niece as the subject, I wanted to try use little red ridding hood and the teddy bear picnic as inspiration and I also wanted the outcomes darker. The fact that the images are showing a two year alone in the woods is dark enough (she wasnt really alone, clearly lol)

I used photoshop to do a (dodgy) colour mask one image, which after I did reminded me of the movie "schindler's list", its a brilliant movie, if you haven't seen it I'd recomend you do. After I coloured masked that I adjusted the others. one image shows her food for grandma scattered on the forest path, this I found quite sinister, almost crime scene like. The teddy bear picinc images are very cute, not really the dark effect I wanted. I have lots of images I just selected a few to post. I'm going out again to take more photographs to see what else I can come up with. All comments are greatly appreciated thanks. :)

oh p.s - if your going to take a two year old out to take pictures of them......dont! they dont listen and say "NO!" alot.

I found this Japanese artist by complete serendipity - happy accident! Her stuff is amazing! I have always had a thing for root systems - trees and branches. These are from her installation Urban Nature. Her name is NAOKO ITO. The comments that some people gave about her glass jars are funny because they show how some people really seem to appreciate it, and how others are poking holes just out of plain jealousy! I like the way she puts some little jars inside the bigger jars. I'm wondering how she preserved them all. Someone else also said within the comments that they look like the branches will grow, and so the jars will multiply to contain them. I think it's just fabulous!

These are my photos from Slieve Gullion. My niece showed me how to upload my images!! I had saved them in my word document instead of my images!

FOR SIOBHAN - I've just remembered how to do the pictures! Only because I just saw it again there now! When you go into the New Post bit and there's the wee Compose box to do the writing, along the top where the Font types and spell check and stuff is, there are wee icons of a rubber / eraser (!), a film reel and a picture - click the picture and it will allow you to upload pictures! Oh the joys of not knowing how to use this and making lots of mistakes!!

OK, I'm going to go with this one first - it's a painting belonging to my parents, well my Mama more so! There are all sorts of Witchy stories behind it, plus it has always drawn very differing comments from people! Some people hate it, others are transfixed by it! It has always reminded me of the Fairy Glen in Rostrevor, except I don't think that it is of there. The photo I took of it is the best of a bad bunch because I couldn't get proper lighting. I'm going to put other stuff on now too.