I am apparently very bad at keeping track of things I have to do, especially when it isn't jumping out at me every day. Well last week was the week just after the holiday so I guess I have to account for 2 weeks worth of lessons...
Drawing - For Ewan, (the lecturer) we had to hand in our work to date, so that was the sketchbooks and 5 drawings of the college using positive and negative space with charcoals. To be perfectly honest, I never want to think of doing architecture-like drawings ever again, or negative/positive space! Was not interesting and just generally not my forte.. I like pretty pictures with proper detail, not, whatever that was. Anyhow, we started life drawing that day, which meant... NAKEDNESS! I was hyperventilating when I realised that is what we were doing that day, but it wasn't that bad. The man for the first week was lovely, smiled when he made eye contact, but generally it is awkward to have to stare at them areas to draw them. Last Monday however we had an older woman, and most of her time was spent prancing about the room with us all trying to draw her as she moved... I had a mini panic attack about having to draw over other pictures, such a messy look... but Ewan liked it so I guess it's ok. Was difficult but I think I am best when drawing people, its SOOOOOO much better than the space topic, enough so that I don't really care about staring at old people genitalia.
Conceptual studies - Well we had the first week back to have another 4 hours class time on our fruit projects so most of us worked at creating the 3D models to which I made 2 clay models and a wire structural form of one of the concepts. I liked them but the wire was fiddly and I didn't have pliers so I nearly broke my teeth. It was because of these clay models that I learned you can't use the kiln for weeks after construction... So yeah.. I handed in models that had only dried out a week and were only painted the day before hand in, which was the Tuesday after. The hand in went well really, the first 2 hours we were given as extra preparation and then the second period was all of us gathered to discuss our fruits as a group with our lecturer Catherine who seemed to like most of the ideas and to be in a better mood that day. Glad that assignment ended it was just too out there, too design-y as well, I'm definitely more into the fine art/expressive stuff.
PDP - We got to have group talks with Paul about how we were finding his class and in general, the course and basically most of us thought of all of the same things that are wrong... We work better when we can talk to one another, prompting one another on and giving each other ideas, I don't care if us chatting gets in the way of your staring at the computer... We don't know what we are doing half the time, and when we ask you, your explanations are confusing and pointless so yes, we will turn to one another for a decryption of your psycho babble. We are quiet if you are talking to all of us as a group, if you are not, I do not see the point in silence, it stifles creativity. Me, personally, I travel far, so it takes up a fair amount of my free time, so when I tell you I am pressured with lack of time, equipment and funds, just believe me and tell me cheaper alternatives or give me counselling or something, don't sit there as if I'm shoving excuses at you for my sparse sketchbook! Also, I am not a child, creative criticisms can be made to me, do not look upon me and my work as if I'm a 5 year old who made you a mud cake... Talk straight with me and I will try and do the same to you. To be honest, the entire course is overwhelming, I'm forever tired and stressed and the lecturers do not help in the slightest and as far as I can see, there isn't even a way in which they could...
(this rant was made as a generality for the entire course, not just for PDP, its just that is what we talked about in that class so I decided to rant there..) PS. I might have latent anger issues... or so this post suggests...
3D & 2D - When we returned we did plaster work such as the clay wall, using the vacu-former to create plastic molds and then poring plaster into them. I love the plaster work, its messy but fun, gloopy messy. I can see me using that a lot. My idea to create a nokia out of the plaster is gonna be difficult but I can't wait just because if it works I will be so chuffed. The vacu-former itself is really fun and interesting and I guess goes hand in hand with the plaster so I can't wait to see just how I can use it even more over the next few years. We had our hand in for the sketchbooks for that project as well, just a mid-module, check up thing and well on my days of, Wednesdays and Thurdays, I came in and did extra work, which caused my account for the printer to fuck up majorly and not let me print anything, also finding out in the process I only had enough money for 5 pages when I genuinely thought I had like a tenner still to be used! So after that made me fall behind and be proper ragin, I worked on annotation, used another students account to print off some of the necessary pictures having to leave the artists due to lack of funds and the printers temper tantrum... THEN, I stayed over night at said students house where we had no sleep whatsoever and just worked on our sketchbooks all night, sticking things in and writing everything we thought we could... arriving at college the next day DEAD AS ANYTHING! due to illness and sleep deprivation, thinking I had done everything I could, that maybe it would be enough, we still got told off for it looking like we had only done it all for the sake of the assessment.. Technically true but we worked our asses off trying to do what we thought we needed, getting in what we could under the circumstances and it just... blew up in our faces... This is why it is so stressful... the lecturers basically hate us, and yet there we are trying so hard behind the scenes...
Contextual Studies - Now that is a fun class, we sit and listen to David or Rob go on and make us really think about how the world really functions... I literally sit there and just marvel at most of what they say and truly start to think about the human condition for the rest of the day. I really like their class, they are fun, light hearted and talk to us and get us debating and truly thinking. I guess its kind of set up like school but a more mature-ish way and we don't feel so belittled. I look forward to that class every Friday.
I'm sorry that this post was mostly a bitch, and I know that lectures will probably see this since it is for our course but some of us feel very pressured and stressed, I am literally falling ill under stress.. Backing up a bit might help? I don't know, even if I were to be asked, I'd have no real answers or suggestions... I'm truly not used to this...
Anyway, thanks for baring through all that. I know its boring, my life = forever uninteresting.
