So it's progress review day and I just realised I don't have any of my digital work on show anywhere!
I don't like photoshop and I didn't enjoy using it but I can see how it's relevant and will be of help in the future.
That said here is some of the stuff I was working on in 'Multimedia'.

This is a wallpaper I made by repeating a pattern I made by layering hands and pelvises over each other.

The rest of my work doesn't appear to be in my student file. i thought I saved it there but it isn't there now. I'm hoping it's on my memory stick but I don't have time now to go and get it, so for now you're just going to have to take my word that it exists.

So we're six weeks in and this is my first blog post. Now that our blogs aren't compulsory I doubt I'll be updating this very often! Especially seeing as it's only my dad that actually reads it!!!
Right so.... spaces, structures and systems. Not the kind of thing I would be drawn to usually but of course I made it my own and turned it back into self portraits as I always do. It's funny how some people have found the thing they're going to make the main focus of their work and will manage to work all briefs around that theme rather than following a brief to the letter.

Well enough talk here is a couple of images of what I've been working on.

This first picture is of a lino-cut we were asked to make for the Limerick Printmakers Culture night. The theme was 'Limerick' so I went with two small traveller children on their ponies and a bit of Limerick slang.

 These following 5 images are some collages I'm making for our SSS brief. I'm loving making them and as soon as my finger allows me too I'll be back to making them.

And lastly I have been knitting alot of very small hats this past week. In winter Innocent smoothie put bobble hats on their smoothies and then give 25c from each one sold to Age Action Ireland so I decided to join in and make a few hats to support the cause. So far I have 7 finished...I think... And I'll continue making those until the 25th of November so if you want to join in or have some ideas for a good hat - let me know!

'Pray For Me'

That's the title of my woodcut, and yes I did manage to get it finished, and even managed to cut a second colour! Very pleased with how it turned out, the only thing not right with it is the second colour isn't registered quite right because I forgot to leave a border around the edge to line it up. But hey I'll remember that the next time. And there will be a next time! Fiona Quill asked me and Kate the other day which type of print we had enjoyed the most so far or felt an affinity for, for me I think woodcut might be my 'thing'. Maybe it's too early to be saying that but I really enjoyed it and once I had borrowed the right tools (thanks Osh!) then it all seemed to just feel right or something. Maybe thats just my hangover talking. Anyway heres a picture of three different ways I printed the hands, black and gold, teal, red and peach and teal, gold and black. The red peach and teal are the colours from the dream that I had that inspired this woodcut but I think my favourite of the three is the black and gold.

Assessments are on Monday, so I'll be spending the weekend making sure I have all my sketchbooks in order and I might even go in to college tomorrow to hang my work! If I can find the bluetack that is.

Second woodcut

With only two days to go before our work has to be hung ready for assessment next week, I decided to do a second wood cut! It is 'slightly' larger than the last one, and I think it will only be printed in black as its not likely that I'll have the time to get the second side of the block cut, unfortunatly.
Here is how it looked last night at about 10pm.

It got another two hours work after that and I reckon it needs maybe another 3-5 hours.

Ok so I just have one quick pic of my woodcut for you today. I was printing the colours yesterday and geting increasingly frustrated with how it was looking, so much so that I asked for new blocks to recut the whole thing, but was encouragd to just keeping going with it by our tutor/all-knowing-printgod/Des MacMahon ( http://www.desmacmahon.ie/ )
And what do you know? It actually looks amazing, if I do say so myself!

So when its finished it will all be on register, the lips will be more red, teeth less yellow, skin less .... bandage hued, the square will be white with a blue airplane, and it will all be fabulous!

Now off to the Milk Market for lunch.

Woodcut

New brief today! Woodcut!
Ok we've been given two pieces of mdf 6inX6in, we have to do four colours(including black) and it has to be based on a personal story.
 Got my key plate/block drawn out, pretty happy with it, the rest however - not so easy!!!
Gotta get it figured out tonight and get it cut to start printing tomorrow.
If I get anything done tomorrow I'll post pics but until then I'm keeping it to myself!

Collograph

We have been working with collograph for the last two weeks and those of you who know what collograph is will know how frustrating and dissapointing collograph can be! For those of you who don't know what it is: you make boards from thin wood or cardboard with layers and textures made from acrylic paint, tile adhesive, pva glue, ribbon, or if you're me - teabags!! The point is to create places on the boards for ink to 'grab onto' so that when you run the boards through the press the most textured areas leave the heaviest amount of ink... does any of that make sense? Probably not but when I'm finished I'll put up some pics of my collograph boards and it might help to explain!
For now I just have one or two images to show you of the kind of thing I've been doing.

This is my pile of teabags that have been sitting on the radiator, drying, for about a week now. I've been looking at the patters and stains left behind when they have been used and left to dry. They look like maps to me.

This is a drypoint etching of one of my 'teabag maps'. I plan to print these over some collograph/monoprints that I finished on Friday.

This is a terrible (and sideways) pic of one of my favourite collographs. The square at the bottom is tile adhesive, then carborundum and pva glue with the back of a piece of board printed over it, then a 'teabag map' etching at the top.

This is a triptych of tealeaf readings. No I can't read much into them either...

Thats all for now, big 'Hello!' to Alan (whom Daddy informs me reads my blog!) and to anyone else out there reading this, although I really don't understand why you would be - have you nothing better to do?!

Keep in mind people (my imaginary blog readers) that all my prints are for sale at the end of the college year so let me know if you see anything you fancy.

Last of screenprint

Here is the last image I made in screenprint:

Yes it's a teabag!

I've printed a few extras too because everyone whos seen them so far has loved them so I was thinking they might be good presents or maybe I could try sell a few.

Collograph next week....... should be.... interesting?

Anyway I'm outta here, I have Easter eggs to eat.

Screenprint is fun

No really it is! Terrifying to begin with, there are so many steps to remember, but then you do it once and you're left wondering what you worrying about!

I moved on from cups and started using my passports and ID cards etc to talk about identity.
Here is my almost finished image :

And this is a close up of the green on the top half. I f-ing love this green!

Just a little aside: I can't believe that I am actually allowed to get a degree in this stuff. I know it's only the beginning and I shouldn't be getting too excited just yet and I know there will be hard work too but I just can't believe that I am allowed to go into college everyday and do all of this.

First week of print

So it's the end of my first week of being in print.

'Notions of Identity'

WHO AM I?!

'Are you a mug of tay and two cuts of brown bread or are you a cup of tea and two chocolate biscuits?'

My primary school principal asked me that when I joined Holycross primary school in 1994, after I moved there from London.
Meaning - are you Irish or English? Rascist? Yes obviously but also an amusing way to put the question.

Am I Irish? Or am I English?

I don't know. But I'm going to explore the idea of both.

Oh yeah - and I'll be using screenprint!

The End...

Well the end of electives anyways!
What can I say about painting? I didn't do my best this week and I know thats going to reflect in my marks that I get. But unfortunatly there wasn't much I could do about that as my home life was falling apart around me. Hopefully it will all be sorted this week and I'll be ready to jump into working again next week.
It would be quite ironic if my low marks in Painting brought down my grade so much that I didn't get into Print, seeing as Painting is my second choice thats where I would end up! Heres hoping that doesn't happen.

Heres a photo of my Freud, I found it very difficult but looking at it now I'm quite proud of it. Its a bad copy but an ok painting!

As usual Blogger has decided to upload it sideways but her hair is meant to be at the top of the picture.

I particularly like the way her nose turned out.

And I also realised that I hadn't put up photos of my last few prints that I did so here is one from the 'Clutter' project.

Again it's sideways so just tilt your head to the right!

And this is another one.

Oh for goodness sake! I'm just going to leave them the wrong way round from now on and maybe they will upload properly!!!
The idea, for me, behind this project was to look at the clutter we leave behind us when we're gone. I went to an abandoned house (the door was standing open, I didn't break in!!) and took some photos of the possessions that were still there. It was obvious that an older gentleman had been living alone in the house before it was abandoned and it made me really sad and upset to see his 'things' decaying with no-one to take care of them. It was as if the man himself was there decaying infront of me.
The photos that I ended up using were of a plug socket and of a plastic Holy Mary water font. The wallpaper was torn behind them and the concrete wall showing through. I made about 20ish prints from these two images and I really like them. I know we aren't meant to use the word 'like' when talking about work/art etc but these are the kinds of things that would appeal to me if I saw them on the wall in a gallery or exhibition.

So to sum up the electives - Ceramics was lovely fun, Print was inspiring and energetic, and Painting was enjoyable but terrifying.

Painting and other news

I have no images yet to put up from painting but I'll try remember to take some tomorrow when we're finished for the day.
So far we have been just using the primary colours to do 'blind drawing' with paint, then doing 'negative space' drawings and also (trying) to paint with plastic credit cards! My credit card one came out... well...we aren't meant to analyze them.....
So in other news.... I entered three pieces into the drawing awards exhibition and one of them was accepted. I'm really excited to see the rest of the exhibition now, so that will be on Tuesday.
Could really have done with a drink tonight after the highs and lows of the week so far but maybe hot chocolate in bed and an early night are for the best.

Inky hands

I finally got all the ink off my hands last night, just in time to go back into the print room to ink them up all over again!

So today I moved my prints, that I did last week, on another bit.
But sure I wasn't able to post the pics I took of my prints last week was I? So I'll put up some of those first.


Ok so this first one is very yellow. But I love it, the way the two tones blend into each other has that feeling I was trying to capture. But its also a bit bland and blah. I'm going to leave it the way it is for now though because I don't want to 'ruin' it by putting something over it that I might not be happy with.

This bluey one has got two shades of blue blending down into white, and it now has a water tower printed over it I think. And another shade of blue...I can't remember now!

 This one has decided to be sideways.... the blue goes at the top though so just tilt your head to the right and it should look ok.... This one was a bit of an accident. I didnt realise the lighter blue background was still so wet when I tried to do another darker blue over the top of it, so when I peeled the acetate off it pulled some of the blue with it. But sometimes there are 'happy accidents' and I think this might be one.

 This is one of my favourite prints that I've made so far. It looks a bit like rain, I think. I'm not sure yet if it feels finished. I don't want to put a big watertower across it but it might need something. I'll have another look at it tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, I can't wait to have another whole day in the printroom. I love it and I never want to leave! And if they make me leave then I will be forced to haunt them!

That week went by a bit quicker than I'd like it to have!!!

Can I have it again please? I can't believe it's Friday tomorrow already :( Then theres only Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and then it's Friday again and my two-week print block will be over!


I haven't been taking my camera down to the print room because well if you've ever been in a printroom then you'll know that it is one of the messiest places in the whole college! But I did take a few snaps at the end of the day today so I will show you some of those in a sec but I just realised I haven't even updated you on what I've been taking as inspiration!

Ok, so do you know that moment when your favourite song starts and you're just waiting for the beat to kick in? Or when you leave college/work after a long day, you walk out of the building, look up at the sky and are content? Do you know the moments I mean?
Well that's the space I'm working on, the breathing-space, head-space, blankness that comes from being purely content, just for a moment.

Well the sky at dusky-twilight makes me feel that way so these are some pics that I took of the sky to illustrate that feeling.
Or rather here aren't some pics! It won't even open the uploader right now so I will just have to try again over the weekend :(

Damn and blast you blogger! Just when I was starting to enjoy blogging you decide to stop working!!!!

Bye bye ceramics, Helloooooooo print!

Friday was the last day of my ceramics two week block and while I'm very sad to see the last of ceramics I am seriously excited for two weeks of print. I did a bit of research/planning etc on Friday and I hope I have some good starting points for next week :)
Not much else I can say about it til then!
Heres one of the photos I might use for inspiration.

Ceramics Two Week Block pt. 2

It's 11pm Tuesday night and I'm still so excited by what we did today! We had our 1st Raku firing!

Raku is an ancient Japanese pottery technique where the bisque fired piece is dipped into a layer of resist, fired again, then removed from the hot kiln and placed (straight out of the kiln) into a container filled with combustible material such a sawdust/shavings. This causes cracks, dots, spots of carbonization where the smoke penetrates the layer of resist, and where there is no resist. I really love the element of suprise involved because you can't be sure where the cracks will appear and have no real control of how the finished piece will look. But I suppose the same can be said of all ceramics, you can never really be sure whats going to happen once you put something into the kiln!

Here are about half of the pieces that I prepared for Raku. They are vessels, they are smooth and quite skinny and were dipped into resist at either end, so they should have some really intresting carbonization in the middles.

Here is the inside of the kiln when it was at about 700C!!! You can see some of the vessels are glowing a bright orange. It was so hot when Keiran took out the bung (isn't that a brilliant word?!) for us to look but we all crowded round and got pictures anyway!

Here is the kiln being opened, with Elaine waiting to grab the pieces and put them into the bins of sawdust we had waiting.

Here are the two bins full of pieces and sawdust, just smoking away!

 We had a sneaky look in one of the bins to see what was going on inside, look at those amazing colours! I almost wish that metallic sheen has stayed on them.

 This is one of my larger vessels just out of the kiln and about to be dunked in the bucket of water on the ground.

 There it is having a nice chillax in a bucket of water to cool down for itself.

 Here it is out of the water and with most of the resist scraped(sp?) off.

I love the way my camera decided that my boot was obviously what needed to be perfectly in focus in the picture! 

And lastly we have all the beautiful shards of resist that were scraped(sp?!) off the vessels. These are almost as beautiful as the actual pieces we made!

I'm so proud of my first Raku vessel and I can't wait to see how the rest of them have turned out!

Ceramics Pt.3 coming on Thursday night!

Ceramics Two Week Block

So I've been in ceramics for the past week, and so far it's been really intresting and enjoyable.
Unfortunatly I've been a bit ill (with the mankiest, most painful infected mouth ulcer in the world EVER) so I don't feel I've been giving my fullest but hopefully with the aid of anti-biotics this second week will be even better!
Here is a picture of my sponge. His name is Bob. He doesn't like to be used for 'mark-making' and screams when I try to do so.

This is a suprise.

And here is Catherina, looking a little nervous about throwing her first bowl!

I will try to post something longer/better next week, when I'm feeling better and have plenty of work to show off!

Assessments!

My assessment is tomorrow so I thought I better post something so heres a picture of one of my ceramic faces. I had a chat with Keiran about what to do with the glazes for the faces and although I had already glazed this with a clear glaze it hadn't yet been fired so we decided to experiment (after all isn't that what this year is about?!) so we diped it in a beautiful blue glaze and it came out amazingly! The clear glaze is very crackled and the blue is kind of ....rough? But I think it looks pretty good :) So I have to go now and get a good nights sleep so I'm all ready for tomorrow!

And for some reason it keeps uploading this sideways.... I don't know why so I can't fix it. Just turn your head sideways to look at it!