Summer briefing

General

• 15th Aug - 1st September Estudio changes to Level 6 so may have difficulty accessing estudio
• Estudio and noticeboards will have competitions and opportunities on them.
• Any emails CC Fred, Eleanor Tom and Joanne
• Thursday 24th September induction and registration
• Formal teaching starts monday 28th Sep
• Anything to do with your progression, opportunities etc will be flexible for getting the time off. Working for publishers, in exhibitions etc. 
• Extended practice 60 marks, PPP 20 and Cop 20

PPP Planning : Blog us your summer

• Post your experiences observations activities and reflections to your PPP blog labelled OUIL602prep
• You should be researching and contacting agencies, studios, practitioners, and collectives that interesting you
• Research into further study, MAs, PGCEs, Training and development opportunities. What do you want to be?
• List the professional skills and knowledge you wish to further develop over the next 12 months and research into how you will develop them
• Write list, action plans and timetable your activities, and stick to them. 

A summary presentation of your creative strategy saying this is what I'm about this is what I want to do and what I want to find out about

• Summary of your personal and professional aims
• evidence of research into professional practice and progression opportunities undertaken over the summer
• a summary of further professional research activities to be undertaken as part of level 6

Context of Practice 3 - 9,000 words. 

• Post your experiences observations activities and reflections to your cop blog labeled OUIL601research
• Gathering and critically evaluating texts articles images quotes
• read - identify refine and investigate the questions that arise from research
• make work relating to research - draw lines make images record people use media go back to playing and thinking through drawing, collaging, photography. Come back with sketchbooks of drawings ideas and observations
• Wrist list action plan and timetable of your activities
• Do little and often for dissertation

10 min presentation outlining your research project for OUIL601 COP. 

- summary of original proposal

- evidence of progress in your research and development over summer

- summary of further research

- proposal of what you intend to produce in response to your research

- outline dissertation plan including short section summaries, key quotes and specific images.

- Write as much of your dissertation as possible. A clear structure, context, images.

Extended practice prep

Negotiating your own briefs and presenting them to your peers

• identify 6 briefs projects and/or  contexts you want to explore as part of level 6 studio practice blog. Include at least 3 live briefs or projects
• identify a range of briefs that will allow you to develop a focused practice with a breadth of possible outcomes
• use existing competition briefs as a starting point and work out how you could develop a more comprehensive response
• consider these subjects content formats and processes that you want to explore
• generate initial ideas concepts research and thumbnails that will help you identify what you could do with a brief and why
• write a short 100 word summary for each brief explaining why you have chosen it and what you intend to do with it
• write list action plans and timetable your activities

Zine

After summer be looking at the sketchbook reviewing it and making a zine based on that for thought bubble november 9th. Deadline 1st November

• One drawing everyday
• Fun
• Sketchbook
• writing 
• poetry
• jokes - dog with tin legs, the milkybars are on me
• warwick-johnson cadwell
• write reflect collect
• draw what you just drew but draw it again better
• draw the best thing or worst thing you did that day
• draw whatever is in front of you at that moment
• wrist a list of what's on your mind and then draw that list
• study the form of an animal/building/plant or vehicle then draw it from memory
• get a new drawing media and figure out how it works
• clear your mind of all thoughts and let the pen decide
• fenton pub life drawing
• stephan marx
• evolve the drawings into a sequence of 16 images for zines
• keep it in the book for the summer, after summer you can put them into the zine
• movie, writer, music, poetry, writing, typology
• donald urquhart

Deliverables : 5 copies of each

16 pages 

A5

monochrome

5 pieces of A4 paper folded

thread binding

colour of paper optional

edition of 5 books produced on a photocopier

zine must include your name and contact details

MY SUMMER

My summer is not going to be one where I find myself, decide what I want to be when I am older, but more of a do nothing kind of summer. I need it. I need to sit and look at the walls for hours on end thinking about nothing at all, clearing my mind. I want to lay naked on my bed all day covered in food because I CAN! I'm gonna do nothing, and I'm gonna love it.

Greece

After a stressful second year I decided that I needed a break, as did my doctor when she diagnosed me with exhaustion. I booked up to Corfu with two girls I live with. We all decided it was going to be a chill holiday and not the usual girly 18-30 holiday where we would be skinny dipping and balancing shots on our heads. I actually wanted to sight see, and totally chill. And that I did..

Greece is a pretty beautiful place if you go to the right places. We took a boat trip to Paxos which had some gorgeous buildings, and guess what Fred, it was on A BOAT! Which I hate by the way. I have a real phobia of water, and it was really choppy I was getting thrown all over, as was my stomach, I was hot, surrounded by germans trodding on me, I was chlostrophobic. I felt like Karl Pilkington.
However, off the boat, the views were spectacular from what I could see. We rode through some caves too!

We stayed in the cutest little hut which I loved, at a family run hotel, whose family were really lovely. It was just what I needed. I even got in the sea! Which I never do. The weather was perfect temperature not too hot where I was going to sizzle to death, with a nice breeze. I tanned like a dream.
On one of the nights we decided to get down with the Greeks and smash some plates! It was such a laugh, we danced the traditional greek dances around in circles kicking our legs in the air and they even got me up on a chair to do some belly dancing! There was fire on the floor and plates everywhere, really great experience!

Home

When I got back it was about family time. Family are my everything. I don't like to go home much because home was a bad place for me before University, and the reason I moved away. Not my actual home, but the people in the town, I have some bad memories there. There is not much reason for me to go back other than my friends that I like to see now and again. But my family, I cannot fault. I try to see my nieces and nephews as much as possible. Anyone who talks to me will know I pretty much bring up my neice Heidi. My brother and his girlfriend have their difficulties and issues so I have made sure that my main focus is on Heidi and ensuring she has a good up bringing regardless of their situations. So it was about Heidi, but also my nephews and my brother had another niece for me, baby Violet! Who is gorgeous. Being off over the summer has allowed me to see her after the birth and spend time with her. Heidi wrote her a letter, telling her she was her big sister. It melted my heart.

I made Violet a frame with her name and date of birth and a little message on it. Kind of like a keep sake, so she can look back and see what a cool aunty she has! It gave me the idea of a new little side line business of doing frames like this with typography on it for other people's births, or birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, new homes etc. Something I will definitely bare in mind.

I spent time with my dog, Buddy. Playing in the garden and taking him for walks in the woods. Me and my boyfriend also took him to the beach which he loves so he was going wild. It started to rain but it didn't phase him he was in the sea, in the lakes, getting us pitted. I am not a fan of beaches really so I made a poem about that.

It was my dads birthday so we went out for a meal and I surprised him by taking all of the kids too which he loved so that was a nice day. It's nice to have the time to do these things I feel like when I am at University I don't get enough time for this. Especially seeing the kids growing up, I feel like a stranger when I'm away from them. This is exactly what I want my summer to be about, just surrounded by the people that I love and doing normal things. I am not interested in going to bizarre places and seeing crazy things, I just want to do nothing with the people that matter.

Moving house

I decided to stay in Leeds over the summer for the majority. Working at TGI fridays I can transfer back home if I want to to their store and work there but it is far too stressful there it's always really busy. Plus, my mam has now moved house and downsized so I don't actually have a bedroom there anymore! There's becoming less and less reason for me to go home now and I want to make my life in Leeds. I have lots of friends here, a job, and my boyfriend here so I'm pretty set up.

We got our new house in Headingley on a really nice road called The Turnways which I have loved since I moved here and one of my friends used to live on it. It's a really quiet, residential area with no trouble and few students. The neighbours are all really nice, they invite us to street parties and look out for us. Our house is really cute inside too and I'm living with girls I work with and get along with brilliantly so it's all good! Moving has been stressful though! I have been driving a white van around like a weirdo. I love looking at a bare room though and thinking up how I can decorate it. It's been nice to put my touch on the place.

Hospital Visits

I had to go home for a couple of days to visit my sister in hospital as she had a throat infection that took a turn for the worst. Her face swelled up like something out of The Klumps! At this I decided to take all of the kids out and off her hands too, so I was like a single parent for the day. I drove a family car with three kids in the back all screaming and playing and my life flashed forward ten years. To be honest, they were no bother, but it scared me to think that would be me soon. Give me a career over that any day! It's hard work!

I also went to visit my friend from school who is suffering with throat cancer which just totally broke my heart. He looked horrendous and I was not expecting to see him in such a bad way. Things aren't going too well for him at the minute but he was in such high spirits. He has not been able to eat any solid foods for two months and has had internal bleeding which needs to stop before he can have any chemotherapy. It just made me appreciate life again and how short it is. I tried my best to cheer him up, and took him some fishing magazines and books to read. What do you buy someone with cancer? It's terrible.. nothing is going to make things better. It really made me want to do more. In general, about life occurrences, if I can do more through my work and have something to say, I want to do it.
How ironic that in my summer I want to do nothing, but seeing him, I want to do more.


Drag nights & Gay Pride

My best friend is home from Dubai and visiting Leeds so it's apparently my job to show her the ropes on the 'gay scene' to which I am no stranger. We went for tapas and myself and Aaron took her out to the gay bars and drag shows. Drag queens are very intriguing, I stood in awe all night. I think they are amazing. What I don't like though, is the girls that come up to you and say, " are you straight or gay? " And I ask why, and they say, "you're straight aren't you" and walk off in a huff. I don't like this, because what does it matter what my sexuality is. Because I am straight does that mean that I should not be there, and why do I have to define myself. Furthermore, why do I have to explain myself, to someone I have never met, does this mean we can't have a conversation? Apparently so..
Gay pride was brilliant. As it is clear in my work I am passionate about equality so to celebrate pride with my friends was an honour. I had a great day surrounded by possitive people just having a good time, with what I have to say was also great music!

Wedding Tree

A girl at work asked me to design her a wedding tree as a gift for her friends wedding which was just a tree trunk, with their initials carved in. She would then get the guests to put a finger print on the branches to make leaves, as a guestbook.
I made her the tree and she was over the moon, as were her friends who tagged me in the photograph on Facebook. This opens up more ideas for me and where my creativity can take me. It's not the type of thing I want to be doing but it shows where you can make quick easy money.

York Races

For my friends birthday me and the girls (ten of us) went to York races for the day. I didn't win any of my bets, my tips were terrible. However the weather was really nice and we had a great day. It was nice to catch up with them all.

Heidi draws me

Spending some quality time with Heidi I've been teaching her to draw and paint. This is her drawing of me.. Apparently she included my spots, cheers..

Sister's heartbreak

My sister split with her childhood sweetheart after he cheated on her and I was able to be there for her to advise her. This is where I felt her sadness, I have had my heart broken many a time and to see your sister going though the same thing kills you. She has lost a lot of weight and my heart just bleeds for her. Quite a dark side to my summer, but being there for her has brought us closer together.

Barbecues

I had a lot of barbecues back home, I seem to have spent more time at home than I expected to. Catching up with everyone has been brilliant. I caught up with four friends I used to work with in my old job as a restaurant manager. We had a great laugh and some drinks out in the garden and that's what being home is all about. It's shown me how far I have come in such a small space of time. A few years back I was working 13/14 hour shifts running, opening and closing a restaurant thinking I would be in that industry for the rest of my life, and now, I am actually being me.

I got drunk, a lot

This holiday I spent a lot of time with my friends acting up being stupid getting drunk. This is something I definitely missed out on in second year. I really didn't make the time to just get drunk with my friends and be an idiot. I need to do this in third year at least once a month just take one night to let loose. I was so scared coming to uni that that's what I would get sucked into that I guess I've gone the other way and rarely gone out. Drinking doesn't really bother me, I'd rather have a nice glass of wine with a meal, but the whole going out thing isn't for me. Now and again though, I do enjoy it. Bad thing about never drinking though, when I do I end up in a state.

My friend smashed a load of shaving foam in my face

I worked a lot

So I guess I didn't become that do nothing bitch I wanted to be. I worked quite a fair bit, some would say full time! Who'da thought it! And I've got nothing to show for it, blew all my money but hey ho!
Work has been horrendous over the holidays it's just became poorly organised so we have had some of the worst shifts there this year. Extremely busy, horrible guests, lots of complaints, and I've been close to walking out. Oh the joys! I've explained to them that this year is going to be really testing so I have cut my shifts to just the weekend now. Then I will see how it goes, I noticed from last year the people doing best in our class were those that did not work and just applied all their time and efforts into the course which is something I may need to do.

Painting commission

Someone messaged me asking what kind of portraits I could do. Seen as I am most comfortable with my digital skills I told him I preferred digital portraits and I thought they looked best. He asked me to send examples of my work which he liked. He said however, that he felt painting by hand had more value and was more personal. He wanted me to paint a picture of a girl for her as a gift to boost her confidence as she does not have any. I said to him that I have not painted by hand for a while, but I would give it a try. I had actually threw my watercolour paints out and had to get some more. Watercolour is the bane of my life! I do not enjoy it at all. I used to love painting by hand, now I hate it i find I don't have the patience and I can't blend the colours well anymore. I don't know what's happened to me, but I am just not that strong at painting. Perhaps I need more practice.

This is the commission but I am not happy with it, he is though which is all that counts I guess! Plus my boyfriend brought me cups of tea and biscuits on tap while I was doing it - result!

Digging up old pictures

Since my mam has moved house she decided to sort out all of our family photos that were in the loft, as well as all of my old work. I came to the realisation I used to be so brainy! I've literally lost all of my knowledge because my memory is so terrible, but reading through my old work books I was genius. My art work however, was embarrassing. Things I thought at the time I was really proud of and wanted to show off, was actually terrible looking back. It's funny to see how far you come in terms of drawing skills. I know there's no wrong answer, but I'm genuinely embarrassed of my old work. I get embarrassed of my work after six months, which shows I'm constantly improving.

Date nights

For the majority of the last year my boyfriend has lived and worked away in Australia so having him home was about us two spending quality time together too, which meant we had to catch up on all of the occasions we had missed out on. The birthdays, the valentines, the Christmases. We had our little dates which could be anything from going out for a really nice slap up meal and cocktails to a simple walk in the park. I love nothing more than walking the dog with him and taking photos of the scenery along the way; I'm getting so old! We have planned to go to France for New Year so this summer for us was just about day trips out rather than any weekends away. We went really nice places like York for the day, chesterfield, countrysides, weston super mare.

Garden Party

We had a house warming party with our nearest and dearests which included inflatable animals, balloons, face painting, karaoke, beer pong and lots of booze! I had my family up on the morning with one of my old friends who is a chef. Her and my mam cooked us all a sunday dinner which was lovely, and heidi helped me set up for the party. She also painted my face like a rabbit, which looked more like I'd dipped my face in acid. Later on when I was drunk I took it one step too far and drew a full on beard on myself, and sang Backstreet Boys on the karaoke.
We also had a frequent visitor, a cat, which I have decided I've now adopted.
I made cheesecake, which was demolished at 3 in the morning along with the left over sunday roast.

More time with Heidi

I went home for the weekend and looked after Heidi as things got a little bit heated with her parents. We decided to help my mam out at her job. She is an exams officer in a school but has recently been promoted to the librarian too. She wanted me to help her re design the library. She wants something fun where the kids want to hang out, make reading cool. Me and heidi went in and between the three of us we blitzed it. Totally stripped the walls and re arranged all of the bookshelves and furniture. I designed the new layout for the library with different sections such as the games section, cinema corner, chill zone. Heidi took lots of books home with us and we read them in bed. I think reading is so important and try read to Heidi every time I see her. As much as she is a film buff and loves disney, she loves reading too. We also baked cakes and played around the house. I taught her how to tidy up after herself including washing the dishes. We played shops where she was the shopkeeper and I bought items for the change I had in my purse, this was to teach her to count, add and takeaway.

She decided she wanted to come stay up in Leeds which is a huge leap for me and something I was so proud of her for doing. She came up and spent a couple of days with me here and we had the best time. We went to tropical world, which she loved the meerkats in! We baked cakes, we went to roundhay park and fed the ducks, and we made a kite and I taught her how to fly it. She didn't want to leave, and it killed me taking her back. I love having her. My mam calls us Matilda & Miss Honey.



Dismaland

As soon as I seen it advertised I sent it to my boyfriend saying we HAVE to go. I was determined. This is everything I am all about, my interests, the reality. I absolutely love the idea of taking art from off a piece of paper, onto the streets, and further still into something like a theme park but a fake one. I just think its genius.
I tried to get tickets but the website kept crashing and I gave up hope. However, my boyfriend surprised me with tickets! I was over the moon! I said to him this is exactly what I'm about and potentially could help my dissertation too. I didnt realise how far away it was in Weston Super Mare but we could make a day of it.

Going there was the best thing I think I've done all summer, even more than Greece. I recommended that everyone go, because it opened my eyes. I left just honestly feeling inspired. I kept saying to my boyfriend my heads full of ideas I just want to get them all down, I was writing them in my notes on my phone. I didn't expect there to be so much art work there as silly as it sounds, I knew it was an exhibition but I didnt expect them to have exhibition spaces like they did. They had two galleries with incredible artists involved.

I loved the whole vibe, the whole depressing dismal staff, I'd love to work there! I was looking around thinking anyone could be Banksy. Most of all I was intrigued to see what kind of people were going here. What kind of people know its an exhibition and not just a theme park? What kind of people like Banksy? What kind of people like art. In the queue I was looking around and everyone looked really normal. It was in the middle of nowhere, Weston super mare is quite a rough seaside town it reminded me of Blackpool a little bit. It was obviously the best thing that had happened to the town in a while.

As much as I loved it, I did get the feeling it had been slightly dulled down to suit the audience if that makes sense? I feel like knowing how ellaborate and out there Banksy is with his work and his concepts, he played it a little safe with Dismaland. I feel he could have been even more extreme and certain pieces of work or factors were a little dull and too normal, or had no real purpose.
However I came away having learnt a lot about the reality of society today and current issues. One thing that felt very current was the migrant boat rides where you get the reigns of the steering wheel to steer around boats filled with migrants that rode over dead bodies in the water that didn't make it. This tied in perfectly with the news recently about immigration and I got the feeling everyone around watching that was thinking of the news of the little boy washed up on the shore.
That gave me the idea for my zine. I wanted to make something based on immigration too, as it is still raw.