Study Skills - Essay Writing

Essay Structure
The best way to construct an essay is to follow your typical structure. The structure is quite easy to follow all things considered.
Here's a simple structure found on De Montfort Uni site:
Title
An essay title contains an explicit or implicit text. Therefore, after writing this, your essay should focus around this title.
Introduction
This should only be brief - the introduction should introduce briefly what is coming in the actual essay. What will your essay include and what will be your focus?
Main Body
Typically, you have 4-5 main topics in an essay. They should flow off of one another, you need to include your evidence, how does it fit into the title in question?
Conclusion
Remember, do not include any new material in this section. Summaries your ideas/argument, link back to the title and restate what you consider to be the main points. Some people like to make a rough conclusion before the actual conclusion.
REFERENCE LIST
- Publisher
- Page numbers
- In alphabetical order by surname

Alternative Miss World initial research

Alternative Miss World has been an on going 'beauty' pageant, challenging beauty ideals since 1972. Since 1972, it has changed a lot - it begun as a party-like event where people were free to do anything they wanted; including drugs and having sex wherever they'd like in the venue. However, since then it has kept it's chilled environment and it's excitement with the idea that anybody can take part and anybody can be whatever they'd like. The name "Alternative Miss World" was initially sued due to it's name being 'Miss World' - which referenced to Miss World and Barbie. However, they won the case with help from Tony Blaire. The show consists of a theme; a swimsuit, daytime and evening wear time - which the contestants are not allowed to rehearse prior to the show to keep the show complete raw. When AMW begun, it struggled to get going due to people not taking the concept seriously and they struggled to scrape enough money to start it, but the creator Andrew Logan kept it at his dream and it still stands today.

Andrew Logan

Logan was born in 1945 and studied at Oxford. He is a jewellery designer, a trained practitioner in Yoga (which in the Art Show of Yoga based in London, Logan presented the show.) Andrew Logan's family and friends are all very supportive and always have been, of Alternative Miss World - which as a consequence Logan's family and friends are regulars in the show and in the audience. Logans work has been shown in the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford and this man certainly is a man of many talents. 

Logan was said to have highly influenced Derek Jarman, which led Jarman to develop a film based documentary on the social scene surrounding Andrew Logan and his lifestyle - including his studio. The studio that Andrew Logan was once based in, was also once home to Vivienne Westwood.  Logan continues to host Alternative Miss World all around the world.

Bruegel Senior

Bruegel Senior was a Netherlandish Renaissance painter in 1559. He often painted, paintings which his father painted (around the same context, not paintings) and he was also a printmaker. Bruegel was born in 1525 and died roughly aged 44 in 1569. Bruegel showed complete interest in the Netherlandish Renaissance - often known for painting peasants with landscape elements and religious work and it was obvious that his interpretation was a vivid deception of life.
Netherlandish Proverbs is the name of the above paintings, although it was originally named 'The Blue Cloak.' The painting in itself has many, many meanings to the point of the very background of the painting having in-depth interpretation. This painting is classic Bruegel with his involvement of humans, objects, animals and the illustration of dutch language proverbs. The running theme for Bruegel is the continuous running absurdity and how he included again, the weirdness and foolishness of humans (which is obvious from the man with his bottom out in the window to the food on the roof.)
(Source: wiki)

Week 1 Life Drawing

The above paintings are during my first week of life drawing. I can remember first years life drawing class and very much enjoying it - but I don't remember the techniques fantastically therefore my first week back to life drawing wasn't overly ace. They're inaccurate (room for improvement) however, they do work and the use of paint is something I have missed. Acrylic paint worked well within these paintings, because you can quite simply catch light and dark very easily. My technique is the lighter the colour (yellow) is placed in the section where the skin is lit. The darker colour such as blue is where the dark areas are. The red is used for shadow and to show shape and form.

These are the sketches I produced in life drawing. They're not terrible and my accuracy isn't awful, but they aren't fantastic. Sketching is not my strong point - especially the body; however for a first attempt since 2014, I don't think it's awful. The breasts so far, is my favourite place to focus on. They always have a large surface area to try and grasp the shadows and where to place your lines. The mark making skills we used again this year are the thumb x pencil technique, which I used on these. The measuring of the thumb to chin, to see how many times it can fit into the human form is something interesting.

Finally, this is the paint on black paper. I really love the contrast of white on black paper - therefore the painting sits nicely. The back, I found very difficult to comprehensively paint; it has so many groves and angles and it's very hard to capture it well. However, for a first attempt I don't think this is awful. My painting style was quick and instantaneous and I tried not to focus on the actual style too much - rather the shape and form of the model.

Next week I want to try some different styles and go darker with pencil/charcole to show more shape and form on her body.

Visit to Manchester - William De Morgan (A&C Movement)

Due to De Morgan being a decretive artist that has designed many things from the pottery above to the tiles below. He was an art's and crafts movement designer and he typically painted in Persian colours. All the designs you see by him, were all hand painted and they usually ended up in Victorian homes.

The designs by De Morgan were particularly of interest to me because I'm a huge lover of botanics and the beauty of nature. He, much like myself, loved the idea of nature and usually painted designs that were repeated and decorative - which I personally find very aesthetically pleasing. These tiles (above) were painted in '1872-1900' and were often used in Victorian homes on their walls. Today we replicate the style (to a degree) with items you can buy in places such as Jon Lewis with a very similar feel to De Morgans style. 

Thursday - Print Makings

The utensils I use when lino cutting. The utensils are sharp and should be approached with caution as it's very easy to cut through the lino with them therefore it's definitely easy to go through your fingers with them. The sharp parts inside of the handle are detachable and you're able to detach and re-attach them so you don't have to have multiple handles with each little sharp part. The sharp parts are (I'm unable to find a technical name) all different shapes and sizes therefore making it very easy to create the shapes you want. The wooden block on the left is what you place on the table and snuggly fits onto the table, therefore you can trap the lino and it doesn't move when you're cutting it.

 This is my little design that I tested the lino with. I wanted something simple yet for it to fit nicely into the subject in hand; nature. Therefore, my decision was a hare (influenced by Keaton Hensons album "dear"). They worked well, but I figured you need a lot of paint on the shape for it to press well. The design isn't overly accurate, but it was just a tester. The smaller amount of spacings between the edges, traps the paint and can easily wreck the design; but it's not too much of a problem if you press it down very carefully. The other designs didn't really work - the mushrooms were printed with ink which I had to paint onto the lino.

This is the little mushy design I did initially. I didn't really think it through - I literally just went to town on this lino cutting. the design isn't necciserily terrible but wouldn't be one I'd repeat again. This is because the design doesn't allow a large section to be printed; only the bits that I paint, paint or ink on. The leaves are very automatic and the mushroom looks nice in the left but on the right it didnt imprint the detail (which is sad, really.) I don't think it particularly works if you don't use a rolled; however the roller isn't going to work very well if there isn't a boarder because it would've done the entire background which I didn't want (plus, I tried and rolling ink doesn't work out.)

This was my set up. I put the paint in a lid to make it easier for myself at the end of the day. The rolled couldn't fit that well, though so I had to use a much smaller version. In future I would definitely use a bit pallet and a lot more paint.

A brief over-view of Surrealism, Dali and Magritte.

Surrealism is a cultural movement which began in the early 1920's. Surrealism is well known for it;s dream-like imagery and writings. Artist's typically painted illogical, untheoretical imagery which allowed people to question what they're looking at. The movement was an extraction from the Dada movement.
Dali:
Dali is single-handedly the most recognisable artist by the surrealist movement. dali was a Spanish artist and is mainly well known for his melting clocks and dream like imagery.
Metamorphosis of Narcissus:

Dali is single-handedly the most recognisable artists by the surrealist movement. Dali was a Spanish artist and is mainly well known for his melting clocks and dream like imagery.

Magritte:
Magrittes most iconic (and probably the most iconic painting in the movement) is "The Son of Man."

The son of man was to be said, painted as a self-portrait with the hope of creating an important message about himself. In regards to the painting, Magitte stated that “Everything we see hides another thing. We always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.”

Medieval etchings/engravings

1) An Etching by an unknown artist 2) A woodcut

 (Sources for this page: Wikipedia & instagram)
Etchings/engravings is the way in which people used to create art onto or for buildings or into stone for multiple purposes. They typically use flat surface by cutting grooves into a material which creates a perusable or engraved image.

They usually engraved into; stone, silver, wood, glass, or steel or create a printing plate out of copper or another material (typically metal.) Today, we can create a similar way or working with lino and a press. Engraving was historically, an important way to create imagery through artistic printmaking:- mapmaking, illustrations for books or magazines. 

We can see a lot of the same finish today in several ways and it's obvious that the unique finish of printmaking in previous years/centuries, has highly impact the way we see art. You can today, see tattoo's with a similar line making method that would be left on a print making image - This is @Mxmttt's work:

As you can see by these images, you can see that the lifework resembles that of an a medieval etching. The interesting way that it forms the shading is very popular in today's tattooing industry yet each person who adapts the style uses it in their own way and technique.

Sin eater's illustrations:

 I have made an entirely separate post on sin eater's illustrations; but due to relevance - here it is again. The way that sin eater uses linework and subtle cross hatching to create the style of an etching is ever so interesting. 

Diggingest Girl:

As you can see, printmaking is still a physical thing. This is a piece by an illustrator named "Diggingest Girl". She creates lino cuts and presses them onto paper and that leaves her with a pleasant result. These are typically used in books, or clothing or on accessories and are quite popular for designs at the moment.

Study Skills, Plagiarism, Copyright, IP

Study skills are essential for passing a course or anything based around studying. Studying is typically an important part of a course and the skills included when you want to successfully study are;

• Time Management 

You can improve your time management by creating to-do list's which gives you a steady but sure list of what you need to do and when by. Getting up and making your classes/getting up and completing parts of your to-do list is also very important. However, despite having to study, you also need to be able to have 'me' time to rest your mind and do the other parts of your life, which is very important. Sometimes it's a good idea to reward yourself after you have completed something or many parts of your list/what you need to do, so that it isn't just all work.

• Note Taking

Note taking is typically an important part of studying because then you aren't under the illusion that you have to do something or you do something wrong - because this could be time consuming and divert your attention to the wrong part of the study basis. Re-writing your notes after note taking can be important because you may run the risk of being too blunt and when you go back to look at it in time, you may misinterpret or you may not be able to understand your notes.

• Reading

Whether reading is a part of literature that you have to study for a certain unit or whether it's research to back up your art - reading can be important for your course. Typically, reading is something you will end up doing at some point if not consistently throughout your year; therefore to successfully read and take in the information, always take notes of the important parts and the relevance. Always putting a source on your blog after writing information taking from something you've read is important; especially if you want to go back and re-read something or if you miss a part off. It also covers your back incase the examiner thinks that said writing is entirely your own which could result in it not being included when you are assessed. 

(Selectively re-written from said source)

Plagiarism

"The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own" 

(Source: Google search)

Plagiarism could apply if you are copying something word-for-word or if somebody was to use a section of text and if they use a similar way of wording with very minor differences; it is still classified as plagiarism. 

An example of this: 

Led Zeppelin were sued for using a riff that had an almost identical riff in their "Stairway to Heaven" as Spirit's "Taurus". The consequences of plagiarism is that you could be sued, or asked to change said part of their song (etc) and they would have no choice to do so. Sometimes you could be sued for a lot of money and have no choice but to pay it out.

Copyright

"The exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material."

(Source: Google search)

Copyright exist to protect an author, a band and their name, songs, artwork etc. If copyright didn't exist, the more famous bands may have 100's of other following bands with the same name; or a book could be copied word for word and somebody else could put their name on it too. 

In the UK, you could face a penalty of 6 months imprisonment from the Magistrates Court; or they may be charged anywhere up to £50,000.

An example of copyright is:

Tuesday Bassen (a small illustrator) - her work was used without crediting her or paying/ or even permission by Zara and a few other big named brands.

IPR

"Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce."

(Source: Google search)

What your intellectual property rights are:

• The names of your products or brands
• Your work
• The design or look of your products
• Things your write, make or produce

It may be covered through copyright, a patent or a design if it meets a requirement or if you have a logo that is copyrighted and is distinctive. If you are self-employed, commissioned work sometimes falls under your intellectual property because it is their work for you unless your contract gives them rights.
(Source:Gov Site)

More thursday experiments

 My aim by combining ink and my fine line work was to put a spin on what I usually do. My love for doing lifework is something else; which I have done for a lot of the time I have been drawing. However, I feel like it's getting to a point where I'm finalising how I do my line work and needed to potentially mix it up a bit. Therefore, my theory was to add ink to my designs. But before I get into that, this is the above images of the lifework before the ink. It's so neat and I find it so satisfying. I kept swapping between 0.5mm and 0.05mm to do these to give it the perfect ratio of thickness.

Here's a close up of my little illustrations with the bright, vibrant blue ink behind them. The technique is literally paint brush, a little water and a lot of painting! It's almost impossible (or I found it) to paint the background evenly because the ink dry's differently each time. It really does spice things up a bit and definitely puts a spin on my original designs! I think I'll use this design basis in the future.

To summeries, this is the work pages in my sketchbook. Although most of my sketchbook work is not on my blog because i'd be here forever; but these are it. They're super lovely and I really enjoyed completing them. However, I think they'd be better compositionally if it was planned out and on a large scale. The left hand page is biro and ink - just because I had the ultimate urge to get creative and do a few different kind of designs/materials when it comes to ink/biro/fine.

Personal Statement.

I am currently a student at North Notts College, studying an Art and Design Foundation course. I enjoy the course because of flexibility and how you have the opportunity to thoroughly explore styles. The exploration required through the course led me to where I am now and was a big influence on how I found out illustration was for me. The way the course has led me, I found that I get a lot of my inspiration from the music I listen too, since most are artists along side their music. The musicians I am interested in (such as Keaton Henson) have a distinctive style with their music, which usually coincides with their artwork. Henson's hesitant artwork particularly interests me due to his quality of lines and the way he mixes his love for illustration with his installations. Another favourite of mine is David Shrigley. Shrigley has a similar feel to Henson (with his childlike way of working) however, his humorous take on the style makes it that more unique. I like that you can see Shrigley's work so frequent in shops as opposed to just museums, due to them  often being printed onto everyday items.
I have been visiting museums long before I knew it would influence me like it does today. My interest for museums and seeing art in the 'flesh' came from the frequent visits to places such as our local Millennium gallery in Sheffield, which later led me to places such as the V&A. This consequently instigated my curiosity into different art movements and styles very early on. My love for botanics for example, came from visiting The British Museum and seeing William De Morgans work in person. My favourite part of De Morgan's work is how he found the perfect balance between intricacy and simplicity. The simple designs are often met with the intricate pattern work behind it, making his work very eye-catching which I like to take high influence from. I have recently been experimenting with printmaking, which I love to add an intricate pattern or detail on top of the hand printed imagery, giving a similar effect to De Morgans tiles.
I love illustration and the process that comes with it. The idea development behind illustration and how you come about your illustrations interests me because of the exploration involved and I really enjoy that there's always something new to discover in the world that will influence your art. Sketching automatically when being on my travels develops my work. It's crucial to my personal development because the automatic sketches and travelling helps expand and change my ideas and influences me in a different way each trip I take. During my previous course in Art and Design, we were set a task where we had to work on a commission for the new bus station which entailed work for the frosting on the windows. I particularly found that this was one point in my journey to finding which art form was most interesting to me, because of the exploration into different styles and different ways of working. Keeping to a brief for a genuine (non hypothetical) client was an exciting step to accomplish, because you knew the end result was going to be something that was seen by many. I have previously worked in demanding restaurants and it felt quite similar; keeping to expectations and maintaining a high level of consistent work throughout so that you keep the client and yourself, happy. The sense of achievement when the final product was up for all to see, was extremely exciting.
I want to study illustration at a higher level because I think it would help me expand and stylise my work through meeting professionals and exploring more facilities so I can keep progressing with my art. I would really like the opportunity to meet other fellow artists who have been through every step that I am taking and hear how they got to where they are now. I am looking forwards to the challenge that progressing onto a higher level will bring and I am very excited to hear from you.

Gnomes and their deeper demeanour

Gnomes were originally based off of the mystic ideology that little men lived underneath the ground. Some magicians and other spiritualists; commonly considered gnomes to be very important elemental spirits to earth (the others being water, fire and air.) It was said that gnomes had the ability to travel along the earth as easily as humans, but if hit with sunlight; were turned to stone. (source: justsaygnome.com)

Cinematography

Film is used widely across all platforms; whether that's a music video; a installation; TV shows; youtube etc. The primary area that I'm interested in is the cinematography/actual objects inside of the video itself. For an example; Sophie Harris-Taylor who creates beautiful cold toned imagery.

GREGORY THIELKER 

Sin Eater T1

This is a piece by Sin Eater. Here's Sin Eaters self proclaimed life:
"Sin-Eater lives deep in the heart of Herefordshire’s countryside.Here his fascination of animal forms grew & gave birth to his passions for the collecting of taxidermy & theory of evolution.A cynic of photoshop all of his artwork is created by hand.His desire is for Sin-eater to belong among the Albrecht Durer’s. Detached from the contemporary Sin-eaters work is a call into the echoing chasms of the past."
This particular piece is on lots of items that Sin Eater has created. I adore the intricacy and to know that he does it all by hand is astonishing. I aspire to do everything so intricate and always have done, which is why Sin Eaters work particularly stuck out for me. I love that Sin Eater does botanical art combined with animals yet also incorporates skeletal pieces and somewhat dream like fantasies. 

This was the first ceramic piece I saw that SE had created. I adore that his wife(?) creates crockery and that he is able to draw onto the hand made pieces. They look so delicate and definitely delicate. I would like to create my own crockery piece.

Another one of SE's little drawings on a mug. It's so beautiful; it looks so raw and looks as if it could've been dug up from the ground, again fitting in with his personal style that's so intricate. I don't think that Sin Eater personally consecutively draws onto the cups himself - but this is beautiful non-the less.

I think it's a much more intricate version of Keaton Henson's work on crockery. Keaton also creates art on mugs and cups and dishes etc - which I find very interesting. This is a photo of the mugs, which you can see how hand created the mugs are by the difference in colour throughout them. I definitely want to illustrate on some form of crockery at some point.

Messy automatic Thursday

This was my work space at the end of the day. I was basically spending the whole day trying to work out what to draw, which ended up with lots and lots of different types of doodles including my usual botanics, humans and some snakes. Some of the doodles included quite fine, controlled work - other parts were very messy and very automatic.

This is my very neat little hand holding a snake. I have seen a lot of the black-out snakes at the moment (with being so interested in the tattoo industry in my spare time) and they really do interest me. I like the way that with a snake, you can do it lots of different shapes and the way you can incorporate them into almost any image because they can be so flexible in real life that they fit with almost any composition.

My onesie snake dude. Again, with the snakes (but I really do think they look good in any image.) This little controlled fine liner doodle, is one of my favourites. I doodled it onto tracing paper so I could place other more bold doodles behind it and they will show through so I could experiment with the way they sit and the composition. The little guy is quite detailed and theres snakes coming from where his head should be and he's holding a snake which he could be interpreted to be using as flute (from another students perspective aka Connor.)

This is my little teeny tiny experiment on how on tissue paper when using a marker or pen, it goes through and creates really interesting line marks. Although I'm probably not going to take this any further, this is really interesting to me and it reminds me of cave etchings with the broken lines.

A close up of some little experiments I did. They were quickly done and it was to get my idea's flowing - which makes everything look really productive too. The little berries was an idea stemming from last weeks penguin design because I really enjoyed doing them.

This was to test out some colours for when I finish off my larger piece that I'm trying out in 2D. I will do a separate post for that as it's a result after doing 2 weeks on the design. The colours are nice on the pot, however I don't think I'll be using these exact colours and will probably be using more red tones as appose to orange and a brighter shade of blue (if I decide I'm definitely going to use colour.)

Finally, these are my very delicate leaves behind the snake onesie guy. Gah, I love fine lining leaves. They look so fragile and the leaves can get so intricate and I just generally love the over-all composition of them. I think they look interesting behind tracing paper because they somewhat look frosted.

Experimental with graphic markers, ink & watercolour

1. I experimented with ink and fine liners because fine liners has always been a strength for me, so I figured throw in both something I'm strong at and something I haven't really ever tried before. Here's the result. You can definitely tell which is my strength and which I am new at, however I think it works well. A lot of artists have always combined ink and pen work because the ink typically makes the pen work 'pop', which this definitely did. The only annoying part, is that you have to concentrate so hard on keeping everything neat because it is very easy for the ink to run into the pen work consequently ruining the piece you have done. None the less, I think it worked quite well and it looks really aesthetically pleasing and should definitely be something I try on a much larger scale.

My little veggies. This is technique that Dave suggested; I'd never really thought of the technique as something you can experiment with, but here it is. A lot of water on paper, which then you add ink to very quickly and the differences you can do with colours is really fun because they run into each other and make their own colours and/or run into each other and dry flat and with a line of colour. It's a technique you can really get a finished piece from without using it specifically. My veggies worked well with the technique.

More experimental work with ink/watercolour. Watercolour is interesting because you can work into it with any colour and it blends really nicely. The spider guy I created on the left worked well; I love how the paints sit on the water colour paper and the way the dried so flat. This somewhat creates the feel of what a neo-traditional tattoo does because of the faded yet flat, colour effect. On the right is a bunch of automatic, very quick doodles with water colour and ink.

Heres a little automatic water colour painting I have done. The leaves are my favourite to do with watercolour because the paint can be made lighter or darker and when added onto a dry painting, it dried a lot darker and sits well and creates a darker effect to make the painting less 'flat'. This experiment was to see how well watercolour sits and builds, which definitely worked out in my favour.

Graphic makers are interesting when you've been working with paint, because they work as if you're smudging with water on the shiny side of the sheet. This is the result when working from a reference photo of my tortoise, flower and a pair of antlers. The colours work super well and add shape and form - consequently leave the over-all image looking bright but having shadow. The only thing I dislike greatly, is how working with graphic markers is soo easy to smudge - because you forget that you're working with something that smudges so easily because when it's paint you are aware due to the wet brush.

Finally, this is a very quick automatic sketch using graphic markers before realising that I really just don't want to use them. The little man worked interestingly because I wondered how the bright markers would work with th darker markers. It works, but it is quite unsightly and just isn't my thing. The other doodles really just didn't work very well, leaving me with a negative feeling when using graphic markers.