Pathways Part 1

                We have been informed that for next couple of weeks on Tuesdays we will be spending the day doing pathways, two each week so we can get enough work time in each section. These pathways will be working specifically around art which I don’t have much optimism for. I feel this may be a waste of my time considering I want to work solely in media and have no intentions on swapping courses. The pathways consist of; media, photography, textiles, 3d, visual imaging, fine art.

Day 1

                 Today was our first day at working on our pathways, to be honest I am not excited about doing these considering I am a media student and know where and what I want to be in the future, and all these pathways are focussed on art. Hopefully though each pathway will have a positive effect on me in some way, for example I can predict that photography will benefit me seeing as it works with lighting a set.

Visual Imaging

                When I heard what we were going to do in this pathway I was sceptical about it considering that I have low talent for any kind of drawing but once I was shown previous pupils work and how a lot of them struggled with it at first then created impressive pieces I was more willing to jump right in with it. A piece of work I was really impressed by was this.

This really stood out to me because we were shown the original pitcutre of the foreground which was orignally a image of a pub, but the way the student has adapted it shows real creativity.

                We started out by doing what would be considered to be primary school work by sketching out an image that stood out to us, sadly to say I didn’t do at all a good job at it, it reminded me how bad I actually am at drawing. I think I went for something too detailed and it just annoyed me which caused me to lose interest quickly.

                Next we were told that another way to transfer an image from one sheet to another is by using PVA glue, you layer the PVA over the image and ensure there are no air bubbles, if there was any air bubbles that section of the image may not come through well enough or even at all. However I spent so much time focused on doing a good piece of sketching that I didn’t get round to doing this.

                The work produced shows that I don’t have a natural ability interested in this pathway, however I understand the necessity in being able to draw at an acceptable level as a media student. We need to be able to draw for our storyboards in which is usually a key importance in pre-production.

3D Modelling

                In 3D modelling we were focusing on working to create each our own piece of wired sculptures, we were shown other pieces of work which were really impressive but seemed really difficult to create. The tutor showed us how to safely weld the materials together and what types of wire we had available to us; we had the choice of using either metal rods and/or soldering iron, (easiest to bend). We had to create something that was on our person at the time and the only thing I could create was my glasses.  I started out by making a life size version of my glasses and simply used my real glasses as the framing, but I thought I was doing it wrong or doing it too simple because I had created all of it within minutes. I asked the tutor to help me out a bit and she explained I had done it wrong because it wasn’t all equal enough, by this I mean my 3D model of my glasses lenses weren’t identical in size or shape. She went on to recommend starting again but making it roughly three times larger. So then I started scaling each section of my glasses to make them equally the same.

Once I had got all my pieces I then started to wield them together which was easy enough but I kept forgetting to not touch that area for couple of seconds otherwise you get burnt. Also I had a bit of difficulties seeing as I was wielding another piece together, it would snap and the only way to mend it was by over lapping the snapped sections on top of each other, which made it dangerous with a sharp rod sticking out.   

 

I did find doing the activity really difficult considering it was my first attempt at wielding but I did enjoy enough to consider making it my chosen pathway. In preparation I have looked at other examples of wielding sculpture on the internet that I would like to attempt to make.

 

 

Day 2

        Unfortunately I was not able to attend these pathways due to illness, so instead of forgetting it I decided to do more research into what the subjects is and would it have any effect on me choosing these as my pathways. I am believe I can ask to do these tasks in a private session which I hope to do once we have settled into our chosen pathways and I feel comfortably up to date on my work.

Media scratch film

I picked up a copy of the brief and learnt what they did on that day session. They were working on “producing a piece of scratch film that explores the themes and techniques of drawing and light”.

From this I learnt it can be called “drawn-on-film-animation”, this is an animation method were footage/images can be made onto film stock. There are two types of films stocks which can adjust the method on creating the image; blank film stock & black film stock. With blank film stock you can do a range of techniques of creating such as; draw, paint, stamp & glue onto it, with black film stock you have to scratch in the footage. If you were going to include “found footage” you must be aware that the quality may not be as good considering it would be distorted by the mechanical and/or chemical used.

There are different sizes of stock footage that can be used, large formats are considered 35mm film or higher, the class was utilising the size that is used for drawn on animation; 16mm. This task can seem to be quite challenging considering there are 24 frames per second, so to make it move seamless, you would have to draw or create the same image repeatedly then slightly modify it appropriately for the next 24 frames then again and again until you sequence is complete.

Once I learnt the basics of the task I did the research recommended by the brief which I will upload later. From what I have learnt I believe I would not enjoy this aspect of media, it seems like a slow process.

This clip is a short example of what the final piece would look like.

Fine Art

In this lesson I am unsure on what was actually been done, from what I had seen of other peoples work and everyone else input about the session was that they was doing a form of print making, they were using a range of methods to change the effect that you got from an image. In a simple term they were painting over photos with colours.

Some of the methods used were finger painting and spreading with a ruler. When I first heard about this I thought it was another primary school task which would be deemed pointless but once I looked at some images I acknowledged the effect the paint had made, it would give a whole new meaning to image itself.Making it more intense, more attractive or give more meaning to the original image but this all depends on what the photo is and what colour you use to spread over. Whilst doing this they could use a range of fabrics to work on, one of Richards examples was an image of a cartoon character and placing it onto a Rice Crispies container.

From what I have heard I honestly don’t think I would enjoy the pathway or even have any benefit towards my goals. At best this may help me to better understand in the area of props and how certain things are designed.

Day 3

                After doing the session from day one and learning about what I missed on day two, I didn’t start off with much enthusiasm but once we started the day I began to enjoy it more.

Textiles

                Today we started in textiles which I wasn’t looking forward to considering it was painting images on different types of paper, which made no difference to me. I don’t have much skill painting or drawing so I spent a moment just viewing everyone else’s. The tutor explained trying to form an image from the shadow off the projector of another image. So I began working around that but decided to start free forming with lines and waves, I then used bleach to make the ink bleed and changes colour, but in my opinion the bleach didn’t make the image look any more attractive, just wet.

                Once I did that I found an image that I wanted to stick onto my piece of work but accidently noticed how much better it looked cut up into piece’s and positioned on a piece of brown sheet. I then sewed it on which I was told look impressive, when I did this I found another image and I wanted to attempt to give it a second meaning.  

I cut the image up so that it would represent a women who appears to be happy, but it is actually torn on the inside.

                Strangely enough I found it easy working on a sewing machine seeing as I had previous experience from school so I wasn’t afraid to rush it and I found it quite enjoyable as I was getting praise for basically making messy work. However I can’t see myself doing this as a chosen pathway considering I would eventually make clothing of some sorts which I think won’t benefit me for the future.