Finished

It's been a long six weeks, a very lazy beginning 2 weeks and a rushing last 2 weeks. Pretty much summed it up. I was very happy with the outcomes of my pieces but looking back in my sketch books I haven't done enough research that I hoped for, but felt like I made up for it in experimentations and the final outcome of course.

Heres my evaluation I wrote for the project:

Final Major Project Evaluation - Ralph Pedersen

Looking back on my Project Proposal now; I thought I had set a good, open brief for myself. I thought it was broad enough and had lots of different pathways leading out from it. At one point I thought I was completely wrong, but the further I used research methods and experimented with practical ideas; my work began to develop and I ended up with a  successful final outcome.

The research stage of my project did not co operate with me, at first I did not find anything that really interested me about Idioms which was worrying. I did manage to use a variety of research methods including books from the library, the internet and most successfully the general public. This was when I discovered that my project wasn't becoming just about idioms, but how people interpret them. I began to look more at the wording and literal sense of the idioms. Questionnaire results soon gave me ideas and I decided to put the research to one side and actually produce some practical work.

I began to produce literal idioms in the medium of photographs, some were more successful than others but I felt like my pieces didn't really have a point to them, they may of had a nice aesthetic quality but that was it. My ideas quickly developed on when I came across one piece I found in a 3D Typography book by Julien Repentigny. The piece really did focus on the objects and words it was using and inspired me to create a couple of my own. The concept of my idea was slowly changing and progressing into something a bit more interesting and meaningful.

Sources in my Bibliography did become useful but were very limited to a certain idea I had at the start of the project. Although these references I made, did lead on to finding out a lot of great websites and other artists. I stuck to my action plan as much as possible throughout the project, although I did not plan on the size of my final piece which took up a considerable amount of time which I didn't have.

My practical skills soon came in helpful as my idea developed. Looking at 3D work really inspired me, a lot of ideas that came out of the final outcome were due to 3D experimentation and really getting to grips with the materials I had chosen to use. I could of saved my save a massive amount of time by simply asking more questions and taking a second to think about the idea before producing work. That is one of my main aspects I've learnt during the course of this project.

If I was do this project again in the future I will definitely look more at my time management, as a lot of time was wasted on this project thinking about the final idea instead of generating ideas and going through the whole process. I also really need to churn out more research as I have learnt through this exercise, you cannot come up with a good idea without research first. Never try and leap frog this stage.

And here are my final pieces

NEARLY THERE

Today was a good day.

Yes today was a good day because I basically finished all of my 3 idioms which I am very proud of.

• I finished nailing in on my nails and cropping the board to it was neat enough to present.
• I plucked out the styrofoam letters from my Idiom block and made the crack
• And I bought some more rope, and arranged my idiom word at home, sewing up all the letters and ready to bring it in to college tomorrow

FULL COVERAGE OF MAKING IS IN MY SKETCHBOOK

So tomorrow I will be having my mini PHOTO SHOOT! very exciting, I'll take my nice camera into Chelsea and set up an area with lots of white card and surrounding bright light. I'm thinking a plain white background for all the 3 pieces so they look part of a set (which they are).

Tomorrow I will also be finishing of al my paperwork and writing my evaluation now that I have finished. There was no point in starting to write my evaluation before I finished incase it didn't work or I needed last minute changes. 

Hectic rush to the finish line.

A lot of progress has been made!

So today was a bit of a hassle, getting a lot of work done but regretting some decisions I made earlier on and because the deadline is looming I cannot restart making idioms.

First of all I unscrewed the box of my 'chip of the old block'. The block was perfect but not completely dry on the front side. I could not take out the styrofoam without ruining some of the cement around the letters, so I thought I would give it a day to dry and finish it tomorrow.

As you can see from above its still wet so I thought it would be too risky to remove the styrofoam now.

Secondly I started working on my nails. It was time to use the big boy nails (the ones with larger heads). They were nailed in so only 2cm of the nail would stick out which I thought was about right. Unfortunately I couldn't finish it as I ran out of nails, so on the way home from the studio I bought some more to finish tomorrow.

Close up of the nails, trying to nail them all the same height.

As you can see I've filled in the slots between the letters and from a birds eye view of it being on the table you cannot see any gaps which is exactly what I wanted. Looking back now though I have some regrets,  wish I had nailed the first smaller layer of nails with the middle ones nailed in and the rest slowly rising to meet this new layer of nails. Kind of like a map you see in a geography textbook...

It may be to late to change, I will see how much time I have at the end to maybe re do the piece as I know exactly how to do it and the short cuts to take.

Now for the 'good money for rope' ordeal. Its been very hard and stressful with the time I have left to work out how I'm going to produce and present this piece. Today I went to Arthur Beale, The Chandlers in Tottenham Court Road. They had a massive supply of rope which wasn't to expensive. I found a perfect size rope (12mm I think) with the perfect colour. Bought it, took it home and measured it out, I DIDN'T BUY ENOUGH ROPE! pretty stupid I know so I will have to make another trip on the way home tomorrow, very annoying.  The rope I had was still okay though for the words, I just needed a bit extra for certain parts. For the letters to keep its form I had to sew the rope together, and it would then always be the way I wanted it to be. Very smart. Whether I sew the rope onto the large rope behind it...I'm not sure. We'll see.

All joined up!

Close up of the sewing. I did it on the back of the rope so you cannot see it when displayed.

Pick Me Up Exhibition and Sean Freeman

A lot of my friends went to this exhibition and told me great things about it so I thought I would pop down and see if I could find any inspiration. The exhibition was great, saw lots of cool stuff although not many 3D pieces of illustration/ typography which I was hoping for, most of the work was flat on paper which is fine but didn't relate much to my work. I got talking to this one guy asking about one piece, and the conversation moved on to me and my FMP, so I told him my idea and he suggested a illustrator/ typography expert he knew. So I went home and looked him up and his work was
AMAZING. 
Very relevant to my work and although it's not 3D the whole concept is the same in being that he's illustrating the word or idea using the word in it. Heres a couple of my favourites, plus one of his pieces was a lot like my 'good money for old rope idiom'.

Like I said above, this was the piece that is very relevant to my rope idiom, He hasn't made it 3D but probably on Photoshop by photographing rope then creating it from that. Really like the contrast int he piece and how the rope fades out into the darkness.

This piece was particularly relevant to me because he's used the word 'Cannabis' in the piece and illustrated it within the concept of the idea, which happens to me your eyes get very red and veiny when you smoke cannabis.

Saw this piece on the tube before I knew who did it, great piece of Computer Arts work. Brilliant!

Final Piece is coming together

So over the weekend I have continued to create my final pieces which has been a little slow and I have encountered a couple of problems along the way.

To start of my 'chip of the old block' cement should definitely have dried by now so I will check that out in the workshop tomorrow which hopefully will go according to plan.

The next piece I began to start was my 'hit the nail on the head piece'. Which has been going all right. The block of wood I chose to use is a bit small and not very thick which I will write about in my evaluation. I have acknowledged this small mistake but I think my piece will still work anyway.

You can see from this angle that the wood (MDF) is not nearly thick enough to cope with the nails. I did actually use two sheets of MDF glued together but its still not thick enough. And because I used two sheets put together, the nails have gone though one layer and into the next making a small crack along the edge; it won't be noticeable when it is displayed but it shouldn't of happened. So from now on i'm using clamps when putting all the nails in so the wood vibrates less and causes no more cracking.

I finished putting in all the nails for the first layer which turned out perfectly, I think I only screwed up on one nail making it bent but you can't notice it. I used a grid system, marking it out with pencil first so they are all roughly in line. I will be using the same grid system for the second lot of nails which I have bought. They are first of all bigger but have extra large heads, this means I don't have to happen in as many nails! I think they're called 'clout nails' but I might be wrong. I will be back int he workshop tomorrow and hopefully finish this idiom.

AND FINALLY, for my third and final idiom update!

I have started to create my final idiom, 'Good money for old rope'. As I said in my last blog post, I spent ages looking for the perfect pieces of rope. I ended up with a big success, I went to my cricket club and borrowed a spare piece of the boundary rope - approx 18-20m long! The rope is old and used which is perfect because it fits in perfectly with the idiom. So today I did some experimenting with my ideas from my sketchbook which I make very clear. I then went to Homebase to buy my smaller rope, unfortunately when I got home and put it against my big rope it was just to small! VERY ANNOYING! So I will have to go back and find some thicker rope, the one I bought was 6mm; I need about 10-15mm rope. So this idiom has set me back a bit and I hope to buy the new rope tomorrow. Below is a rough experiment...

I also experimented with the 'Hangman's Noose' as I talked about in my sketchbook, worked out quite well and works well giving a kind of 'crossword clue' for the viewer to guess the idiom which I quite like. Although not completely sure about using it, I will have to ask my tutor and peers about what they think.

Over and out, 

back tomorrow PEACE!

Nailing down the work

So today I moved away from looking for my rope idiom and decided to sort that out on friday/the weekend and start on my third idiom 'Hit the nail on the Head'. It is quite a basic concept tbh; I have found a lot of small nails in my cellar and bought some extras which I will be using. Its hard to explain, so I will upload a photo tomorrow of my progress on the piece.

And just to say, I must of nailed over 300/400 nails today and only hit my thumb ONCE. Very impressive

Running around!

So today I went in to the foundry, quickly bought some cement, mixed it up with soft/ silver sand and added the water. Once the cement was ready I added it to the the box I made yesterday and now all I have to do is wait a couple of days for it to dry. One of my made idioms is basically done which I'm happy with.

Although still got 2 more to make, one of my ideas was to create the idiom 'know/ learn the ropes'. The plan was to get 2 different thicknesses of ropes and have the thicker one on the bottom layer and the thinner one on the bottom. The top rope will spell out the word idiom in a cursive kind of font. All joined up by one rope. So I've found some small rope which I can buy from Homebase or B&Q but I'm not sure how much to buy (pay by the meter). So first I need to find a really thick rope; 30mm or thicker. After looking everywhere around my area I resorted to the internet where I looked up a couple of places that might have the rope I'm looking for. So tomorrow I'll be trying to find some rope and I'll report back to my blog if theres a problem. Definitely back on track!

Example of cursive type. The letters are all joined up with excessive loops that are really not needed. My bit of type will say 'Idiom' in rope.

Time to REFLECT...A lot has happened in the past 2 days

WOW! Its been a crazy 48 hours, my ideas have changed, moved on and I finally feel that my project has a point to it which I'm really happy about!

To start of this blog post I would like the present the finish of my 3D illustrated idiom 'A Chip of the Old Block' which I was again very happy at the final outcome.

Although it looks aesthetically good and i'm pleased with the outcome, I do feel like its just a very obvious literal idiom and thats it, nothing else to it. I realised I really need a point to my project!

So I brainstormed with my tutor and a few of my peers in a 'mini crit' session. It started by asking myself, why did I pick Idioms as a topic and what interests me about them? I soon answered my own question, I was creating literal idioms because I found out through earlier research that people don't take notice of what they're actually saying; especially when using idioms! So I wanted to create idioms to show what people were really saying.

The first idea I came up with, that I was close to settling on was to...create 3/4 literal idioms, this means actually making them not just a photoshopped image. Wait, the twist is that one of them would be fake; a made up idiom with a made up meaning behind it. Then the idioms that i make including the fake one would be displayed at the exhibition. The viewers would then look at the piece and establish and recognise the real idioms but then take a second look at the fake one trying to work out what it is. This would then make them realise how stupid and absurd idioms really are. They then may think more about what they say in the future. 

Although this idea was a tiny bit ambitious and stupid as making up my own idiom would be hard enough then having people question what I have made and try and guess a made up idiom they never heard of. I ran into a dead end...

BUT WAIT

Today I came in trying to back up my previous idea but I knew it wasn't going to work, and with a little help from one of my tutors I soon came up with my new idea.

Using the example I made of 'A Chip of the Old Block' the finished product was to obvious and to literal, I needed to make people think about idioms and the piece and work it out instead of the idiom being handed on a plate to them. I needed to make a kind of 'cross word clue' almost so people could know it is an idiom by looking at it but still have to work out exactly what it is. 

Before I had the word 'BLOCK' in my chip of the old block, but now I will replace it with the word 'IDIOM', this will tell the viewer its a literal idiom so now work it out. The piece still kind of has the point of asking, work out what your really saying but now I'm more trying to communicate my idiom and have the viewer work it out. This may seem very badly worded but it will become obvious in my sketchbook.

The idioms that I'm creating for this have a small theme to them which is subtle but noticeable. The ideas have a running theme that they are first of all;

• 3D Illustrated idioms using typography within the piece

and...

•  The idioms will be made out of similar materials, at the moment the materials that I'm using are all coming from a builders workshop; cement, rope and nails. This may change though.

Also the idioms that I create will have to be a similar size, and also I will need to look at if the colours of the 3D idioms work together. This will all begin when I have my solid 3/4 ideas. At the moment I think a set of 3 literal idioms would be better than 4.

Time to go back to the sketchbook and generate my ideas so I can start making.  

TIME IS RUNNING OUT BUT I'VE FINALLY DECIDED ON MY FINAL IDEA :)

3d experimentations

These are some of the pictures that I took during the production process of my experimentation. The main experiment I looked at is not yet finished as I added the cement I made on friday to my box which I have to allow time to dry over the weekend. On monday I will see how the experiment turns out and report back to my blog...

Initially I was going to use wooden letters in my mould. I chose a typeface which was bold and would work well in 3D - Impact

I found an open box at home which I thought was perfect for my mould but after speaking to the technicians in the foundry; it was firstly to small and not enough space between the letters. The cement would break to easily so I set out to make a new more spacious box.

Above is my new box I quickly made which had a lot more space and a smooth surface inside so it wouldn't leave any marks on the cement.

I also had to make the letters out of a different material as the wood, would apparently expand and would be very hard to remove from the mould once the cement was dry. So I carefully carved the letters out of styrofoam. I then used the glue gun to secure the letters down, back to front so they would come out the right way when the mould was finished.

Next I mixed my cement I bought with sand. At at ration of 1:3. then adding water to finish it off.

And finally I started to add my cement to my mould, making sure it filled all the gaps in between the letters, especially the 'C' and the 'K'. For future reference it would be a lot easier to make the letters bigger as I reckon you could get more detail and have less problems with the cement breaking in the tight acute areas.

The box was finally filled with cement about 2/ 3cm above the letters. So I will end up with a 6/ 7cm tall block.

Another Idea which I have shown in my sketchbook is to make the block out of wood and not cement. By either carving the letters into the wood or carving the wood around the letters I am not sure I'm really keen on this idea over the medium of cement. I will reflect on this in coming week with hopefully new ideas and finding out weather working in cement will work.

A Chip of the Old Block

I've been meaning to do this blog post for a while but I have been so busy, which is pretty strange as most of this project I have been more on the lazy side. Plus I have needed time to wrap my head around this possible FINAL idea I have been thinking about constantly for the last couple of days.

So I will try and explain my idea;
So first I experimented with photographing idioms,
Then I moved onto experimenting with looking at literal phrases, and producing small bits of work on literal words.
Now I want to incorporate both of these and come of the paper and make my chosen idiom.
My idiom I have chosen is - 'A Chip of the Old Block'

How I am going to produce this is still being figured out at the moment through ideas, testing and succeeding. The idea is quite simple although confusing to explain...I plan to make my idiom 3D and literal. That is all I shall say at this point.

The last couple of days I have been in the workshop trying to create my idiom through experimentation, I shall hoepfully upload the photos of this process on the weekend and maybe scan in pages of my sketchbooks to show my ideas and references.

back soon,
the project is finally coming together!

Experimentation behind schedule!

Its been a while since my last post but I have a valid excuse in that I've been hard at work and went to a couple of interviews which did use up a lot of time. After having a reflection with Max (tutor) and our discussion group I decided I think it was time to stop daydreaming about what I was going to do and actually go out there and produce some practical work!

Heres a couple experiments which are in my sketchbook; they are not finished ideas at all just small testers; guess the idioms...

If you look back on one of my previous posts, there was a picture I posted by Julien De Repentigny which inspired me to look at literal photographs/drawings of words or objects or eventually in my case idioms. I did a couple small experiments in my room with my television and wardrobe mirror. I'm hoping this could develop onto something a lot bigger and more successful. 

"I'M NOT A FINE ARTIST"

Looking back now on my Action Plan and seeing where I am now, I realised I am quite behind my proposed projection which is slightly worrying. I do feel I work a lot better when I am given a theme or a project to work from and not make up my own project. I MAKE SOLUTIONS NOT DESIGN THEM FOR MYSELF, I AM NOT A FINE ARTIST! Needed to get that of my chest. When I first found out we were designing our own briefs I was slightly excited but now thinking about it, I have not benefited from this project at all. I need a brief given to me, this is probably going to be one of the very few self initiated projects I do in my career.

3D Typography

I was at college doodling today and my friend Kat came in and showed me this book called 3D Typography which was a massive inspiration booster. The whole book focused on just 3D type, mainly different alphabets but also new and original ideas of displaying type. I saw this image by Julien De Repentigny who has the word milk pouring out milk into a breakfast bowl. I thought it was so smart and related to my project as the image shows the literal meaning of the word milk.

Another piece from the book I liked was from a designer called Marila Dardot who had created cemented 3D type in the floor. Again very cool and original, inspired me to use type in my project.

Below is a link to a video i found of moving type done in a very orignal way. The artist Miguel Ramirez uses a cheese grater to grate out the letters. http://www.holamr.com/index.php?/work/morph/

"Its a Small World"

So I had some inspiration from some images I saw on Flickr where people had created small planets on Photoshop from landscape/ panorama images and I decided to make my own for a literal image of the idiom; "Its a small world". Plus I was getting slightly bored of research and needed to do something more practical by elaborating on idioms and their literal meanings. This was just a tester and was not a great image in the first place but got me experimenting... 

Original Image ^

My Little Planet ^

It wasn't perfect, some parts of the landscape didn't line up properly. So I will use the knowledge I gained from this experiment to come up with a really good and interesting photograph in the future.

I also saw this music video which was based just on little planets. Its not photographs but they've used the effect on the video. VERY cool! just a shame the music isn't...

http://motionographer.com/theater/by-and-by-qa/

Look Again and Susan Hiller Exhibition

So I was reading the Metro newspaper this morning and saw this article about this photographer who used people's bodies as landscapes for miniature people. At first you don't see the naked bodies, they just look like deserted landscapes.
I thought the whole concept was very smart and maybe I could use the idea of not seeing something at first, or a hidden message in an image/ piece. Heres two photographs I liked and the Photographer is called Allen Teger.

SUSAN HILLER EXHIBITION -

I'm not a massive fan of the Tate Modern but I though I would give the Susan Hiller exhibition a go, lets just say it was a bit different to what I'm used to, lots of video pieces which I began to understand but were still confusing and slightly pointless. Then there was the best room of all. It was called Witness. You enter a large blue-lit room that seems to have a load of string or wire hanging down, with some kind of disc attached to the end. In fact, it looked exactly like this:

When you get closer you start to hear a weird whispering noise. A bit like a theatre audience just before a performance as heard from the stage. The discs at the bottom are actually speakers and each one has a recording of someone recounting a UFO encounter. They are in all languages so you soon find yourself wandering among the strands and speakers listening for English (presuming you are an English speaker obviously). There are quite a lot of English ones and the stories are really interesting. One of the best things though, is the strange sensation of wandering among the voices. You feel like Professor Xavier when he is doing that search thing among humans and you hear lots of snatches of conversation from hundreds of different people. To sum up this was probably the only piece I liked (sorry susan) but then again I'm not a Fine Artist so what do you expect.

Pencil vs Camera?

I was researching emotional idioms; looking at idioms you use in different emotional states, for example...
you would use the idiom "I'm cheesed off" when your pissed of and when your sad you might use the idiom "I've been down in the dumps all day". Whilst looking at these i was looking at different ways you could put this into practical works and came across Ben Heine on flickr with his Pencil vs Camera set which was amazing and I'd never seen it been done before...totally original!

Research

So all week I have slowly mounted up research, and today I will make a short questionnaire which I plan to hand out to people tomorrow to find out first hand; what people think about and how they use, idioms. I will then tally up the results which should show me a better understanding of idioms
Primary resource is just as important as secondary research.

Creative Photography

I know its a bit early to jump ahead to possible mediums to use later on, but I have been looking at some creative photography in books, magazines and on the internet. So I may post images that inspire me during the course.

Da Cunha Lope - Image I found in Creative Arts Magazine - An advert for a car trying to show the dark side of the product. Very smart and simple advertising/ graphic design. I'M INSPIRED

Marilyn Bouchard - Another smart piece of creative photography. Taking a simple concept and adding a slight twist. This is the sort of concept that I could use for my idioms; BRING THEM TO LIFE!

Johnathon Tay - Another very good conceptual photography piece. I love the humour expressed by both actors especially the doctor.