College One: Artist Influences: Robyn Woolston...

Robyn Woolston in her work titled 'Strangers in a Strange Land', explores the theme of being burdened with inorganic waste. 'Strangers in a Strange Land' is the winner of the 2012 Liverpool Art Prize, it features 9 large bales of waste plastic that weighs a combined total of 3,600 kilogrammes, this highlights our relationship with the Earth and it's infinite resources.

Speaking of her work in the exhibition, Woolston said: “Waste materials are abundantly available because of the way in which we consume.Strangers in a Strange Land offers a way to reassess the value of these materials so as to understand just how much we value their inherent possibilities."

Recycling and responsibility is the overriding message in Woolston's work.

College One: Artist Influences: Katharina Grosse...

Katharina Grosse is known for her chose in using vibrant colour palettes, large scale canvases and installations that all merge aspects of paint, sculpture and architecture. Grosse often paints directly onto walls, floors and the exhibition sites, in doing this Grosse alters the scale of her work each time, Grosse's work would also reinvent the architectural building itself.

Grosse incorporates her multidimensional paintings with various unsuspecting materials and objects, such as: beds, clothing, balloons, shaped canvases and soil, plus more. She believed that joining up these elements of materials and objects would create a continuous flow of colour. Grosse's work is not representational, it allows an ambiguity state of mind that changes how it is viewed by each individual. Her work can be walked around creating a relationship with it's viewer, I also think it creates an instability of reality, her work seems imaginary and dream-like.

College One: Contextual Influences: Jon Smith

Jon Smith fills empty light bulbs up with various objects such as: sequins, paints, powders etc, he then makes them explode whilst capturing it through amazing images and sounds. Smith shoots the bulbs in the dark and uses 'sound activated flash trigger' to capture and freeze the moment. Smith is drawn to high-speed photography because it captures something that we could not normally see by eye. The exploding of the bulbs is what we are after when popping the balloons filled with recycled materials in the workshop. I find his work imaginative and his outcome photographs stunning.

College One: Contextual Influences: Jackson Pollock...

Jackson Pollock is an American artist that was a major figure in the Abstract Expressionist Movement. He uses the unusual process at that time of laying a large of canvas on the floor and applies the paint onto the canvas using his technique now known as the 'drip' technique. Art for and to Pollock was about the movement and the creativity of the piece, rather than the finished piece itself. Pollock invented a form of Abstract Art that he called 'Action Painting', he would throw tubs of paint onto the canvas and sometimes work into them using unusual materials such as: sticks and hardened brushes etc, the paint flown from his chosen painting tool to the canvas. Pollock admits to feeling at ease on the floor because he can be closer to his painting and is able to walk around it. Pollack's approach and technique towards painting creates unique layers of colour, surfaces and textures- all aspects I want to be gained when the group workshop is finished.

My first full day work experience at DACA...

Tuesday 30th April was my first full day of work experience at DACA and even though I was nervous, I felt eager to get started. We all started the morning helping and working with a Year 10 class in Photography and I was surprised by how quite they were. We all chose a student in which we would work with for the morning, I worked with student whose interests lie with Photoshop and capturing images. I was astonished with her Photoshop skills, they are way ahead of mine. She told me she "likes using Photoshop because it betters an image", she believes editing a photograph "gives a different story to a picture". With this student I found her submission presentation and e-books interesting and a lot of thought went into her contextual research, presentation and photographs but she lacked in her journal area, this is where she could improve and she agrees.

I swapped over with Denise and worked with another student whose worked focused on the idea of being 'trapped'. She found it difficult writing down her concept and reasoning's to why she had photographed and edited certain images. She knew why because she explained it to me but she could not explain it in words, so  I began helping her evaluate her submission presentation and before the lesson was over she had half of her evaluation typed up. I found most students to be willing to talk and explain their work but they had difficulty typing it up, this student needed constant encouraging to carry on and be confident with what she was describing.

For the final 20 minutes of the lesson after a 20 minute break, I swapped over with Aalie who told me she had difficulty with one student because she was not responding to her advice. I found this student challenging, she was lazy and was not interested in applying the changes I recommended. In the end, I told her step by step, in what to change about her layout, she would then do it and I would ask her did she understand why and she would explain why but I felt no commitment from her. 

After seeing 3 different students, it became clear how diverse a class can be and how challenged the teachers must be when having to deal with it all at once. The chance to improve a students education encourages me even more to want to become a teacher or assistant teacher.

The afternoon lessons in comparison to what we did in the morning was different. I found the afternoon sessions to be fun and exciting. I did 2 sessions, both Year 7's in making 'pinch pots' and turning them into fantasy heads that the students already designed. I find that with each session I do, my confidence grows and in these sessions I felt like I embraced this opportunity and really enjoyed myself.

I got physical into it by actually showing the kids how to mould the clay into 'pinch pots' and how to attached the clay together using the 'Velcro technique'. Students began calling me over for help and they wanted me to show them how to do certain things and I felt honored to be able to assist them. I think teaching would be an awarding job, I can see myself being able to teach this Year group. 

There was a challenging young girl that was easily distracted and found it easy to distract others. The teacher moved her to the opposite side of the room, onto another table and that is the one I joined. Once I began talking to her and encouraging her work she began to settle down and focus on what she was mean't to be doing. I would argue she craves attention and with a little extra help she becomes more focused.      

College One: A workshop coming together...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4jmEwW95Uk

Today's meeting was about getting all of us together and on the same page with where the workshop is going. A lot of decisions were made, in particular with how the time-management of the workshop will run through. We all agreed on a presentation at the beginning of the workshop day to demonstrate the aims of the workshop and what the students will be doing, we also all agreed on having short demo's, evidencing what will happen throughout the day. The presentation will also have background information on the processes we will be using as well as similar contextual artists and references.

We will have 15 students and depending on whether people do not turn up, there should be 11 workshop demonstrators/helpers. 

We decided to test out how the balloons would react being filled up with different mediums. The first video demonstrates the popping of a balloon filled with crushed strawberries and red ink because of the thickness and weight of the strawberries, it dropped creating little splatter. The second video shows a balloon filled with green ink, popping and splattering on a larger scale, I think this is because the inks weight put pressure on the balloon and when the knife entered the balloon, it forced an explosion. The third video shows a change in medium, we used turmeric powder and the balloon popping created an expansion of colour into the air.

From these testers we have decided to use powders and unsuspecting objects like fruit to paste into paint and funnel into the balloons, we will use a balloon pump to blow up the balloons and a blender to make the objects into paint. 

The balloons will be hung over a large canvas and hung up using string that will be attached to a grid-like mechanism that will look a little like the diagram below. A mechanism like this would allow us to hang a lot of balloons securely.

More will be decided tomorrow after speaking to Louise. I am hoping that things will become clearer after tomorrow. 

College One: Workshop Activities...

Throughout the workshops, I encountered a broad range of materials and approaches to how a workshop could run. I responded to each activity and an outcome was produced for all of them, however, I liked some workshops more than others.  I particularly enjoyed working over someone else's work! This task demonstrated the idea of adapting myself to suit and work around a particular problem. It made me focus on risk assessing my workshop ideas and always having other possibilities in case any errors occurs.

I preferred working with materials because of my Textiles background but I did enjoy exploring the elements of 3-d and the idea of forming a shape using limited resources. For example: making a Totem pole that had the theme of Manchester using only railcard tickets, card and shredded paper. I did not like working with sweets, they made my hands sticky and the smell was sickly, I do however, understand why children would get excited to work with them. I found 2 workshop tasks to be challenging and these were the Origami Crane bird and the dot to dot. Considering I had the instructions on how to make a Crane bird directly in front of me, I found this exercise more difficult than I anticipated, it took up a lot of time. Creating a dot to dot using only 50 dots was not any easier, having limitations on workshops is what challenges our creativity. I ended up having 50 dots but 51 numbers because one dot was used twice, I underestimated a simple like a dot to dot, I need to be able to recognise what a suitable workshop is for my class' age.

Working individually adds more pressure on one's self but working in pairs or groups allows the ideas to bounce of each other and evolve. I think working in groups creates a better outcome because it is a collaborative of ideas but I also think it can hinder quieter people in a group. Every student will have an idea, it is about drawing it out and building on their confidence's to express them.

These workshops have made me aware of a variety of elements that I will ensure and think about when preparing my workshops, for example: all the students will respond to each tasks differently, to encourage the students creativity and imagination, some students characters and personalities are more dominant than others, to be aware of other people's distractions, limited resources can be a good thing and that clearing up is just as important as the activities as it signifies the completion of one.