Side note, i also did work on a program called Zbrush which is a 3D modelling tool used by designers to digitally sculpt. It was very tricky to get used to and i could only have a small trial because the actual program costs 700 pounds. However the trial was free and this is the mid way point of a small project i got up to during the term. I suspect this is probably more the path of art i will be taking. The kind of work that goes into the making of scenery and ultimately every aspect of a digital environment you could expect to find in a film, a TV show or game. Every aspect needs to be drawn and designed on paper and digitally and it is something i like the sound of.

The Immobile, bright, colourful and absolutely free...

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/string-art-216854

meanwhile i also fell in love with this type of installation. Using only string as the material to create curtains of colour. Now although you may think this lacks the same depth as the other elements i have explored, there was something overwhelmingly positive about this kind of art. It was beautiful.



Now i have no idea how, or how long this must have taken...

This is an installation by Anne Patterson and i loved it so decided to do some playing with string of my own.
 

whilst they are not as big as they look there is something about them and may well pursue this kind of thing in the future.

at the start of this term i was very keen at looking at the refugee crisis and whilst that never particularly left my mind, it did take a back seat. It wasn't until i was with my cousin and her child that i had a brainwave when i saw she was playing with a mobile.

There was a moment when i remembered the child refugees i had seen in articles during first term and the irony that they were refugees, people on the move or on the run, yet they were stuck, poverty stricken in the towns and cities of Europe. they weren't Mobile, they were immobile and that is what i thought about.

as a small but meaningful installation, the hanging immobile is a stark reminder of how children caught up in this humanitarian crisis were being left abandoned with no where to go whilst children from Europe are free to live the happy lives we want them to have. lives with toys, mobiles and out of danger.

  although this is not the actual mobile as this image is from google, i wanted to show a quick comparison.



these are the hanging parts of the mobile. the shapes ARE NOT random and i talk about it in my sketch book. i plotted all the towns and cities a refugee fleeing Aleppo would have to go through if they were to walk from Aleppo to Dover. its a heck of a trek, and a dangerous one through desert, woodland and towns alien to them. if you were to draw a line of this trail, it would look like the shape above. The mobile is made from the shapes of the terrible journey child refugees must make.

 A large experiment on canvas of London. whilst i did make sketches at the time this one is done from photo just because of size. The canvas was large and i wanted to try and give a static shot some life and energy using a different palette. I think it went pretty well.

I did attempt other methods of capturing energy in still life by means other than just drawing them, these were taken in Lancaster's back streets and on the Lune estate, they were then turned grey scale for maximum impact. they do have a certain energy to them.

Myles Linley became a rapid source of inspiration, his work just packed so much energy using minimal colour, but with harsh lines and destructive use of materials such as charcoal his work really stood out. He is one of the reasons i made use of charcoal for my on the go sketches.

  Examples of linley's work

i did sketches on sight as well which can be found in my sketch book. However not all of them are of the Lune Estate.

The album 'the Last Ship' is all about a ship building neighborhood, a community. Now i have family in Liverpool and so during galleries week i went out to Liverpool with hopes to get some shots of the dry docks there which, according to Google earth were easily accessed and open for you to take lots of photos.

However this was not the case. Upon arrival at the dry docks i found that the docks now belong to BAE systems and all had massive roofs to them. more than that, as it happened during that week, a royal navy destroyer was having a bit of a refit, or something, the guy at the gate didn't say and i didn't ask. I did ask if i was allowed to take pictures or even speed sketch the cranes and dry docks, of course i said i had no interest in the ships. This wasn't good enough i'm afraid and i was not given permission to take photos or draw on sight. So no pictures for my project. Sad times.

But no one likes a quiter and on my way back to Lancaster i took a different route home and came across a bridge and industrial wasteland that was in serious need of being photographed.

Again i drew quick sketches with charcoal and pencil which can be found in my sketch book.

a day out at the Lune Industrial estate for some photos had some fantastic results. i have been influenced by an album called the last ship by Sting. its a fantastic album and it's all about growing up in an industrial landscape. This idea appealed to me, still does. i want to capture the energy of an industrial landscape.

Firstly, i needed some good shots.

Some more light reading...

The arrival of a project called dont follow the wind had me momentarily focused on the idea of radiation. The project going on in Japan certainly seemed interesting and i made a note of it. That said the seminar with the artist wasn't massively interesting. we didn't seem to talk about art, just a lecture about the issues with nuclear power. all problems, no solutions, with some uranium based glass ware which glowed green under the right conditions.

 I did however look into a book that was recommended to me. It had some interesting points i must say.
as for my position in terms of my art however, i felt there wasn't much in the way of achievable work. i find nuclear energy fascinating but it is an alien world that i could only work off by using google for images and interviews, something i want to use sparingly.