The Ten Minute Session: Doodles

Description

A doodle is an unfocused drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes.

Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract lines, generally without ever lifting the drawing device from the paper, in which case it is usually called a "scribble".

 

Instruction

For the following tasks:

-        You may choose the size of your doodle

-        You may choose what you doodle in

 

Task

You have ten minutes to doodle these five items:

1.     A vase of flowers

2.     A house

3.     A cupcake

4.     A group of people

5.     A fish on a bike

The Road Sign Collection Colouring Book Update

I am now in the final stages of creating the first edition of The Road Sign Collection Colouring book!

I have had one proof printed, which was a soft cover with black and white images inside. In total the book contained 70 pages, one pager per road sign. I was not pleased with this outcome as the book felt too thick and the cover felt too unprofessional. 

The Road Sign Collection Colouring Book Proof One

The decision going forward is to look at printing a hard back colouring book to add value to the outcome. The idea is that the book is seen more of an artwork, rather than a colouring book. I am also considering culling the number of road signs within the book to make it more stream lined. 

I was pleased with the general appearance of the front cover and printed line drawings within the book and do not plan on changing these. There is a temptation to add some colour to the front cover, however I am not sure if that would be fitting or not. Leaving it uncoloured allows the owner to colour their own cover. 

In the first instants every road sign collected and drawn was included, so I am unsure how I will go about removing some of these. Below are some that I may remove, this decision has been based on the perceived low quality of the image, in regards to how easy it would be to coloured in. 

I would need to find a significant amount of others road signs to also get rid of to make the book smaller. The other option will be to cut the collection in half to create a second series of The Rad Sign Collection Colouring Book.

Once completed The Road Sign Collection Colouring Book will be printed as a limited run and will be available for sale. 

The Ten Minute Session: Continuous Line Drawing

Description

Unbroken line (do NOT lift the pencil off the page)

Lines may double up

 

Instructions

1.     Pick an object that you have to hand; a cup, your phone

2.     Set yourself up with some paper and a pen or pencil

3.     Look at your object carefully, decide where you are going to start your drawing from

4.     Put your pen on the paper – and do not remove it – and follow the shape of your chosen object. You can cross over lines and retrace areas if you need to get your pen to a different spot

Task One

Complete a 30 second continuous line drawing

Task Two

Complete a 2-minute continuous line drawing

ModRoc!

Since completing the Sculpture Matters workshops hosted by NUA remotely in the last couple of months I have been drawn into exploring my text more sculptural. After the Sculpture Matters workshop I wanted to play with the ModRoc and see how it could work within my art practice.

ModRoc Sculpture Matters Outcome, 2020

This is not something new to my practice, but it is something that has fallen from my practice in the last two years. The last time that I explored more sculptural text was during my MA, at this time I was exploring wooden board and plaster. 

Wooden and Plaster Letters, 2018

Since Sculpture Matters, I have returned to plaster, but this time in the form of ModRoc. This material is perfect of me at it fits into my DIY art process and aesthetic. It is simple and only requires simple tools and processes to create something from it (Vam, 2017). It is also relatively cheap (Benjamin, 2015).

I have been using this with wire, creating letter frames based on my font ACcomplete4 and then covering them in ModRoc to create the final outcome. The intention is for these to be installed in outside environments and the ModRoc comes with the bonus of bring white, allowing for it to stand out from the background making it easy to read from a far.

Wire Letter Frames, 2020

I do not want to paint or ‘finish’ the ModRoc lettering as I want them to retain their DIY-ness and imperfections. The finish is not even the biggest imperfection with these, I found that during the process of adding the strips to the wire frame the letters became a little distorted from the weight of the ModRoc and from the handling, meaning that they are not perfect representations of the font they are based upon. For my practice this is not an issue as I think it is important that something that is given shape by hand reflects that – if I wanted them identical there are many other processes I could have used. It just adds to each being its own entity, they are 'originals' of sorts (Judovitz, 1998), but also multiples Each has come about by the same process, but this has not been an identical experience (Benjamin, 2015).  

ModRoc R, 2020

In the creation of the letters there is a focus on each as an individual linguistic unit (Katamba and Kerswill, 2009), rather than on a final word or outcome. The intention being that the collection of linguistic units could be put together in many ways to make many words.

ModRoc Letter Collection, 2020

 

Going forward I plan to grow the collection, before playing with the arrangement and installation of them. My initial idea is to have them as something that the public would be able to interact with and move around themselves. 

References 

Benjamin, W. (2015) Illuminations. London: Penguin.

Judovitz, D. (1998) Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit. University of California Press.

Katamba, F. and Kerswill, P. (2009) English Language: Description, Variation and Context. Palgrave; 2009 edition.

Vam. (2017) Plywood: Material of the Modern World. [online] https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/plywood-material-of-the-modern-world. [accessed 18/07/20].

The Ten Minute Session: Automatic Writing

Description

Automatic writing is a Surrealist technique which allows you to free your mind and create free flowing texts. The technique is said to help you access your unconscious mind.

The results of automatic writing are often nonsensical and sometimes illegible.

The instructions below have been adapted from those written by Andre Breton, a Surrealist Artist.

Instructions

 

1)    Set yourself up with paper and a pen

 

2)    Put yourself in a passive state

 

3)    Forget your genius and talents – and everyone else’s

 

4)    Write quickly without a pre-set subject

 

5)    Do not read over what you have written