A week or two ago I painted with stick and ink onto acetates in the design of the brain. Once I have finished with my wire drawings I want to create multiple sheets of the acetate pattern and place them all on a window. My tutor said it would be possible for me to put them on one of the college main window panels, I think this will look really cool once it's done, like a stained glass window. I bought 30 acetate sheets but they're the smudge resistant ones and aren't fully see through so I'll see how it goes.

Ceramics

This week I attended the ceramics workshop. I really enjoyed working with clay. My tutor Kieran had suggested awhile back that I experiment with x rays through clay, by making holes and marks through a lump of clay and then slicing it up to show the patterns of movement. I made a small prototype just to see how it would turn out. I was pretty pleased with it, its very rough and quite small, so next week I want to go back to the ceramics department and create the same idea but on a larger scale and more refined. Kieran mentioned that he would be giving a talk on glazing also. So I look forward to moving on with this ceramics idea of movement through the brain.

Unfortunately I broke my camera on Halloween so I have no photos to upload for the moment, but in a week or so I should be able to sort that out. So since I've updated last I continued on with the scans and MRI and how I felt movement and motion was conveyed through these scans. The acetate box I made was just a rough draft, the wooden frame is quite crude and the acetates are quite opaque. So moving forward with this I made substituted the acetates for wire drawings, this week I have been making wire drawings of the head and brain that when they are put together show a 3-d head, of sorts. I'm still getting used to using wire so its a little messy at the moment. Ill update photos later.

          


Back to the idea of conveying movement through the brain by layering, like X-rays and MRI's.
 I found an artist called Angela Palmer who etched markings onto sheets of glass and when they were put together as a block it formed a 3d image. She also got this idea from MRI's and X-rays.

Link to Angela Palmer's gallery:

http://www.angelaspalmer.com/nggallery/page-577/album-2/gallery-3/




I liked the idea of the movement being shown by layering and scribbles. If you follow these scribbles and markings it brings you through the path of movement in the brain/body.

  For a few days, i made observational drawings of people and objects around me, by layering up markings and lines to build up the image.


 I went to the materials room and asked one of the technicians if it was possible to get a box made out of 22cm x 30cm small spars.

 Once I had that I began my observational drawings on sheets of acetate using ink with a stick. I made about ten sheets of mark making, which when layered up together form a 3d image.

I liked this concept and now that I know how it turns out once layered together I would like to continue with it and perfect the mark makings and the drawings themselves.

 I am thinking of getting a bigger box and using A3 acetates and creating a much more detailed drawing. 

Brain matter

I really like using ink with a stick, In my previous post I inked on a large sheet of wrapping paper and I really liked how it turned out. I did the same but on a smaller scale on a sheet of acetate.

 Then I tried marbelling ink on acetate sheets, two days later they're still a little damp so the photos aren't very good but hopefully once they're fully dry I can place the Indian inked acetate over the marbelled acetates.

Brain texture

My own MRI's

 

 I dropped just a little in and then blew on it so it spread out and the colour stretched.

 I cut these sheets of marbelled ink out into shapes of the brain.

 Then I photocopied them onto acetate sheets with black behind them to create my own MRI scans.

Movement through out the brain

My tutor Kieran and I were discussing the movement through out the brain and he suggested I try a process he uses in ceramics, where I would get a block of clay and create paths of movement, holes and tunnels by sticking things through it and then cut this block into slices to show my paths of movement. I'm hoping to do this after the reviews and feedback when there's more free time.

 This made me think of X-rays and MRI scans and how they cut up the brain and body into slices and by looking through them you see the movement through the body itself.
I looked up cat scans, MRI's, X-rays and pet scans.








I liked the MRI scans and the thermo-scans, which conveyed the temperature in the brain. The colours were beautiful so I played with that idea. I marbelled ink for awhile.

What's on your mind?

I wanted to think of a metaphore for the brain, so my work would be a little less literal. So I brainstormed through the brain.. What's in the mind of a 19 year old girl, my memories, loves, fears, worries, pressures and reliefs. With this I mapped out what was on my mind. I liked the idea of the brain as a map or a labrynth, which brought me back to the idea of optical illusions and M.C Escher.

I came to the conclusion that I am an open book. My thoughts, worries, fears, hopes are on my sleeve. So for a few days I recorded all my thoughts in a little notebook. Every random word or ramble that came into my head. I got a book and covered the original words with masking tape, and obliterating all the original works by writing my recordings over it. 

  My tutors liked this idea, and suggested I move forward with this. I enjoyed it and I like the concept so I think I will try and continue with it by recording the movement in my brain, all my thoughts and ideas.

Self Portrait

We were given a project by our photography tutor to take a self portrait. My housemates and I rented a camera from the college and went out on the front balcony to try take some photos. I was lying down really low trying to photograph my housemate jumping in the air with her guitar and my panda was looking great so I got my friend to take a picture of me like that.

 The picture won't rotate for me, so turn your laptop sideways. I went to the electrical store near my college and I bought a really long extension cord. I peeled back the plastic, assuming I would find a few coloured wires underneath, but over the coloured wires was a silver cover that worked really well with my idea.
 I created the shape of the brain with a think garden wire. To represent the activity and movement in the brain I put a bundle of the coloured wires inside. I let some fall out and twisted and curled the ends to convey the path of movement that comes from the brain. All the activity and motion in the brain controls the rest of our body.

I felt there was a sense of chaos from the wires that are leaving the brain, this represents the movement of the messages in the brain by electo-chemical conduction.

Happy Halloween :)

self portrait-optical illusions

I hadn't painted since my portfolio course so I thought I'd try get back into it. I'd been so used to painting with gouache and I really like the smooth finish of gouache paints and how easy they are to blend. You really only need the three primary colours. Unfortunately I had forgotten my gouache paints and only had acrylics with me. Also gouache doesn't work nicely on canvas, it's a very light paint and it seeps through the weave of the canvas.
 So it took a little while to get used to the acrylics and to mix the right colours. I was pretty happy with the result.

The optical illusion of this painting creates movement in your brain when there isn't actually any physical movement present.