So, You Want To Do An Art Foundation?

Here is an outline of my situation this time last year - Fresh out of a-levels, still as passionate about art and design as I had always been but with no idea of how, or even if, I was going to turn this love into a career. No direction in terms of what degree I wanted to pursue (a business degree was still a strong possibility) but a place on the Manchester School of Art Foundation Diploma in hand.

Manchester School of Art Degree Show: The Private View

The Manchester School of Art Degree Show is now officially open to the public (13th-24th June 2015), showcasing the talent and achievements of final year degree and foundation students. But before the exhibition opened its doors at the weekend, there was the annual private viewing on Friday 12th June. It was such a lovely evening and felt like a real celebration of all the hard work of everyone from across the art school. It was a wonderful opportunity to finally relax and see the fruits of all the blood, sweat and tears over the past year!

FMP #3

Before I start this post I want to apologise for my less than consistent attempts at blogging over the last few weeks. Hopefully this post will go some way to explaining that but the short version is that I've been crazily running around trying to get my final exhibition together for the foundation/degree show at Manchester School of Art. My final deadline is Monday 1st June so I'm really looking forward to having more time to dedicate to blogging soon. For now though, since my life is revolving around my final major project and completing my exhibition, I thought it'd be good to do a little update. If you haven't seen my previous two FMP posts I will link them here and here so you can take a look at 'the story so far'. 

The final countdown for my FMP is well and truly in full swing now. This week I've been getting my hands dirty preparing my exhibition space, getting it cleaned, sanded and repainted as well as measuring everything out to within an inch of my life. I'll tell you now, if measuring burnt significant calories, I'd be a very skinny girl by now! It's no secret to people that know me that I'm a huge perfectionist and so everything's taking a fair bit of time to get right, but I'm really happy with how it has gone so far *touches every item of wood in sight*. I have been allocated a wall space in a corner so I've had quite a few obstacles to overcome including a big red fire alarm which has played havoc with my need for clean white surfaces! Preparing the exhibition space has been a fun experience though and it's been lovely to make some last memories and spend time with some really great friends I've made on the course. 

To a certain extent I thought it would be nice to keep my actual exhibition as a bit of a surprise for when it's fully complete, so I won't be sharing too many photos of it today. I will say that I'm still continuing with the theme of experimental typography which has evolved into using techniques such as crochet and knitting to make letterforms. Over the last 2 weeks I've been locked away creating what must be hundreds of little wooly letters - but I don't want to give too much away! All will be revealed very soon and I'm working my fingers to the bone to get it finished by next week. 

I realise this has been a very quick insight into what I've been doing with myself these past few weeks but I hope you all understand! There isn't too much completed new work to share but I still want to document the process of this project and I think the exhibition preparation is a big part of that. I can't wait to share the finished results of the show as well as photographs from the private view later on in June. One last final push!

*Sneaky preview!*

Final Major Project #2

Last month, I shared some work which formed the beginning of my Final Major Project at university. I had such a lovely response from that post and I think it's about time a did a little update. As well as the fact that I love sharing my work on my blog, it'll be so nice for me to be able to look back and see how things have improved over time. My project has come such a long way since the original post and it's kind of scary/exciting to think that in just a few weeks time I'll be putting up my exhibition, and soon after that it will be open for the public to view.

While my FMP subject is still 'Experimental Typography', I have now become much more focused within this subject. Textiles has begun to play a major role and I can't wait to share that part of my project once it becomes more developed and final. For now though I thought I'd share some images from various things that I have done within my work since my last post.

Above is an image which I created within the time constraints of one day while I was on holiday in Devon. I decided to make use of the seaside environment and went on the hunt for naturally formed letters on rocks and pebbles. It was surprising how easy it was to find letterforms once I'd started looking! I've always loved beach combing so it was a really fun little thing to break up my main project.

This next image is another 'mini-project' which I based around phrases and idioms. I wanted to illustrate the saying 'humble pie' in a literal way using typography and this is what I came up with. It was a nice, easy, quick image to make and was great fun - plus I got to eat the apple pie afterwards.

I was so overwhelmed and happy with the positive response I received from my first FMP post and so I hope these updates are something you enjoy seeing. I can't wait to share more of my work soon as my Final Major Project comes into it's final stages and ultimately post photographs of my complete exhibition in June!

Final Major Project #1

As I recently mentioned, I have now started work on my final major project at uni, which is the very last chunk of my art foundation course and is what I will ultimately be graded on. It is a ten week long project and we can choose to do it on any subject we like. We are completely free to write our own brief and spend the ten weeks how we see fit. The end result will be an exhibition which will go up alongside all of the degree shows at Manchester School of Art in June which will be open to the public!

The overarching title of my project is ‘Experimental Typography’. Throughout my foundation experience in the graphic design area, I have taken a keen interest in typography and this now reflects in both my work and research. However, so far this has always been within the context of a larger subject matter. For my FMP, I want typography to be the main focus, taking influence from designers such as Paul ElIiman, Oded Ezer and Stefan Sagmeister.  

I thought I'd share some of my initial work for the project. The images here are of an alphabet I created using cake. The idea began as I wanted to write 'A Piece Of Cake' using cake letters. The rest of the images are a selection of the extensions I completed following on from this, from burning the alphabet to a crisp, to making a negative with icing sugar. It was a lot of fun and it's always a bonus when you can eat the work afterwards!

I'm thinking about posting updates on my work as I progress through the ten weeks if that's something people would like to see? Please let me know if it is!

5 Lessons I Have Learnt At Art School

I can't quite believe that I have now started work on my Final Major Project, which means it's the beginning of the end of my first year at art school and of my foundation course. It's all gone by so quickly, it really doesn't seem like more that a couple of months ago that I was walking though the doors of this big scary building on my first day not knowing what to expect, how to dress, what to do and what I was even interested in. I feel like I have come such a long way in knowing what my direction might be in art and design as well as developing my artistic skills. I have learnt such a great deal in a relatively short amount of time and today I thought I'd share 5 of the valuable lessons I have learnt over the past academic year.

1. Breaking Up Projects Is Key

As it happens, my final major project is really the only project on my foundation course which will last longer than a few weeks. The projects up until this point have been very quick, which I have become quite fond of because it stops things going stale. However, even shorter projects can be broken down with quick one day or even one morning projects. I've found that I have created some of my best work under the time pressure of 24 hours, work which can easily stand up next to the final result of longer projects in my portfolio. Breaking things down into small projects just forces you to stop THINKING and start DOING and can really help you make the most of the time available.

2. You Can Achieve A Lot In A Day

As I have said, quick one day projects have been a key part of my art foundation experience. But even day-to-day, it really is amazing what you can achieve in just 24 hours if you set your mind to it. Make a to do list, set an ambitious goal and stick to it, tell your peers what you will have done by the end of the working day so you are held accountable. Everyday has the potential for you to create your best piece of work.

3. Sharing Your Work Is A Good Thing

Before I came to art school, I was very reserved about my own artwork. I didn't like to share it with others and I kept my projects very private. But I was swiftly thrown in at the deep end and encouraged to come out of my shell and share my work, thoughts and ideas with others. Now I'm a convert and a completely changed person! I love to show my work to other people, collaborate and bounce off each other. I even share photos of my work on this blog, Instagram and Facebook which is something I wouldn't dream of doing not long ago. Collaboration is key to creativity, there's nothing more inspiring than learning off of each other.

4. There Are People Out There Just Like Me

Nobody else in my family has ever been particularly creative, and I've never really been around people that 'get' my love of art. So it was a very new and refreshing experience to be around people every single day who are just like me, and share the same traits of collecting *hoarding* everything, taking photographs at every given opportunity and just being generally more creatively minded. I firmly believe that you just cannot use up your creativity, the more of it you use, the more of it you gain, and so being around people that inspire you on a daily basis is key to unlocking your creative potential.

5. Graphic Design Is Far More Than Just Posters

By far my biggest discovery since starting at art school is my love of graphics. I hold my hands up and admit that I had previously written off graphic design as a boring monotonous job for ‘MAC monkeys’, and not something where I could express myself freely in any way that I wanted. Oh how much I had to learn. I now specialise in graphic design and will continuing it onto degree level in September. Never once have I been held back or told I can’t do something because it doesn’t fit into the umbrella of graphic design. That is why a foundation course is so valuable - it challenges all of the rules drilled into you during your a-level.

A Look Inside My Sketchbook: Remixing LOVE

Last month I created a post sharing some pages from inside my art foundation sketchbook, and I got some really lovely feedback from people saying it was something they were interested in seeing more of. It was really flattering to get such positive comments because anyone that knows me well will know that my sketchbooks are kind of my babies! So for this post I thought it might be nice to share a page from my current sketchbook in the context of the project it was produced for. 

Last weekend I was set a one day valentines project to complete. In short, the brief was remix 'LOVE' by Robert Indiana in any way we wanted to. It could be a flat artwork, a 3D model, we could change the colour, word or font, stack our own letters, create a photograph, alter the sentiment, literally anything! I chose to stick close to the original image, but I tuned it into an ice block! I photographed my giant ice cube in different locations around Manchester as it went through the melting process. It was a really fun little project and I enjoyed playing with the juxtaposition between the coldness of ice and the passionate connotations of love and the colour red. I certainly got some strange interesting looks from people while carrying that thing through the city! 

So, here is the sketchbook page I created to document my valentines day project along with a few of the finished photographs...

A Look Inside My Art Foundation Sketchbook

It is a very stressful time of the year for me at the moment, UCAS, digital portfolios, portfolio mounting and interviews seem to be taking up a huge chunk of my time and are obviously rather important. This week I have been busy running around trying to get all my work photographed and ready to be sent off to various universities. 

In the process of this however I have managed to get some images of pages from inside my foundation sketchbook which I thought would be nice to share here. I personally adore looking through other peoples sketchbooks and I find it incredibly inspiring to see different creative processes. So I thought it was about time I brought something to the party!

My sketchbook throughout the foundation course has become something of a visual diary. I try to add to it every day to show the entire process of all of my projects from start to finish. Photographs, samples and little explanations all tell the story of how I get from A to B. Hope you enjoy!

(P.S. I'm thinking about doing more posts about my experience doing an foundation course. Please let me know if you would be interested in this!)