Hugo - 99 Problems and Bread & Butter

Ernst Haeckel Illustations

Illustrations taken from the biologist Ernst Haeckel book Artforms of Nature. 

Bon Iver - Skinny Love

I had heard Birdy's version of this song and had never realized it was a cover until just now. It's a beautiful song.

Progress

Pixelated animals turned in to origami boxes.

 Antarctica ice mold melted it was filled with a mix of soy sauce and water.

Worn project, we had to create something to wear. I created a hat using Papier Machie and covered it with foliage. I also covered a mask with foliage to go along with it. 

Pixelation

From working with the 100 endangered species list, I have now progressed on to photo manipulation, so that each pixel in the image represents one of that species. E.g. Sumatran Rhino's Population is <250 therefore by using photoshop's pixelation tool it consist of 250 cells, that look like pixels.

I have used this beautiful image of a Sumatran Rhino with their calf from Flickr under the Creative Commons licence. Original photograph is by user wAlanb. Alan Baker.

Public Warning From Metro Australia

100 Endangered Species

We have got a new self directed project to work on, I started by reading through various articles and features but one stuck in my mind was The 100 Most Endangered Species. Most of these species I have never seen before, so I can imagine there are many people that also haven't. I feel the forgotten/ignored is a vital part of the work I create. I want to draw notice to these aspects to cause people to question and rethink their preconceived thoughts.

From this article I have then began sketching some of the animals from the photographs. I will now progress on to manipulating these photographs to pixelate them. I will gradually pixelate the image over a sequence until they are completely distorted. I will then paint from those images.

 Another idea I want to pursue is to pick a name from the list and draw how I imagine this animal to be.Then I will draw from the photograph how it actually looks, then try again to draw it from memory.

With in this project I want to draw attention to that many of these animals will end up extinct and we will go the rest of our lives never seeing or hearing about them again. When a lot of these species have ended up endangered due to our input. We need to change this so that they are able to live.

 I could even place these images on a large scale as many people only take notice on conservation when it includes larger animals such as whales, pandas and tigers. However there are other species that are equally as important.

Manifesto Finished

I have now made the final piece for the Manifesto project, It has been placed within the foyer at the uni along with the rest of my classes work.

Fireworks

I was at the local fireworks display a few weeks ago and I couldn't help but going in to my trail of thoughts. They are incredible to watch, something beautiful about them. The colours, the shape. But then I began thinking is this down to the social environmental I am in, where the people around me enjoy going to see them, so there for it causes me to believe that I must like them too? But when I start to look deeper as to what it is I like about that I seem to fall short. The only reasons I have is, they are very pretty, and causes us to look up at the sky. Which the sky is a tremendous site without the fireworks, we all ready have the universe to gaze at which is more beautiful than the fireworks.
I feel that because we are able to look up at the sky to see the stars and planets when ever we want a lot of people, including me, take this for advantage as I know it's just outside my front door. Where as fireworks are less frequent, once or twice a year perhaps I seem to really enjoy it. Of course they are very different, the obvious one being fireworks are man made and the universe is a natural wonder. Something we have very little/no control over.

My other thoughts went on to how these events effect the nature around us, the loud noises make me jump let alone animals that live near by. For me I understand that it's a firework and isn't going to cause me harm where as a lot of animals won't have this understanding and will end up being in fear and hiding away. This is something I wanna know more about as why should our enjoyment potentially risk the wildlife around us? There are many advice campaigns as to how to look after your pets when there are fireworks such as with small animals bring them inside the house and try to block out sound. With dogs and cats keep them inside allow them to somewhere to hide. With horses and ponies, ensure fireworks aren't being planned to go off near by. But what about with wild animals? The birds, badgers, deer etc. Looking glass have a campaign to ban public sale of fireworks, on their website they state "As fireworks get noisier, sound levels are reaching decibels that can not only damage human hearing but also frighten animals and birds literally to death. If the noise doesn't kill them then birds and mammals in your local neighbourhood can easily become disorientated and suffer in other ways." On there website it includes an image of a badger that had got scared and had run in to a pond as well as other voters comments/stories.

http://www.looking-glass.co.uk/campaigns/banthebang.htm

My other thoughts went out to those working in terrible conditions in abroad factories such as China and India where they are working with harmful and potentially deadly substances along with risks of fires. In most cases they will be working long days for poor pay. There are many articles written on fires and explosions that have happened within these factories, here is one this year where at least 31 people were killed, as stated by Telegraph India, 40+ stated on The Guardian. The Om Shakti Firework company they worked for wasn't following correct procedures and had had its licence suspended. But within The Telegraph India's article it also stated "According to regulations, the sheds in a fireworks factory must have cement walls and asbestos roofs and be located at least five metres from each other." So along with the risks of explosions and fire this work can also lead to health problems in the future, such as cancer, if the asbestos roofs with in the factories become old and damaged. 

Is it worth it? Is it worth the risk to the environment, animals, and people?

Aren't we able to look at alternative ways to celebrate. Fireworks aren't a necessity  they are luxury, maybe its time to place legislation in place that they only happen on certain organised occasions?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/06/india-fireworks-factory-fire

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120906/jsp/nation/story_15944146.jsp#.ULPKIKVa8uo

Catch Up

I thought I would give a catch up of some of the work I have been doing since I started uni. Task was to use the artist we were each given, create something new inspired by their work, include parts of their own work and create a contemporary piece with 3 mediums. With a 1 week deadline.

 This was a piece I did inspired by the work of Larry Rivers, I then recreated some of his work to make it my own. Similar to what he did with in some of his work, shown in I like Olympia. Which is a recreation of Édouard Manet's Olympia'.

I like Olympia By Larry Rivers, 1970

 

 

 

 I really liked his piece The History of The Russian Revolution, 1965. Seen below


I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I liked using mod roc. A few years ago I created a piece by covering books in mod roc, so I then went along with using that again. I went to a charity shop and found one on the russian revolution which was a coincidence, I then chose to cover this book, and joined the pages together to make a book of only 5 pages. Making the word Russia out of paper on the front cover and then covering in Mod Roc.

After this I then went on to use the pages as a canvas, and then drew on top aspect of the Russia Revolution in my own style. As well as recreating other pieces of his work using pen, pencil and oil pastels. I wanted to create something new out of previous artists work. I also included some other imagery.

Manifesto

So I have been working more on my Manifesto, it has taken me quite a while to finalise what I wanted to write. I started off by writing bullet points but this felt too cliché  it felt like I was creating it for everyone else. Then I started looking at other manifesto's and decided to write a statement, at first it was directed to the viewers, but this still didn't feel personal so I chose to use I, me, my etc. This then lead me to write this statement:

I am insignificant. Yet I can still accomplish so much. There isn't a set purpose within my life yet this doesn't mean that i should feel deflated about the life that I lead instead that gives me the endless possibilities of having my own meaning rather than someone else's. for some that means being in the pursuit for money believing money is the only way we can achieve success. there are many inconceivable truths that I must learn within this pursuit but I wont allow ignorance to be an excuse. These are the times where I must confront these fears, and stand up. Be prepared for failure along with success. Be prepares for injustices but do not accept these as a reality. I must be willing to risk.

My first thoughts on this project was to use UV ink there for it would be a blank piece of paper and would only be readable using a UV torch. However from experimenting with the text on illustrator I then felt it would be more effective to have most of the text visible and only have certain words in UV. The words I chose to be in UV are those of emotional significance, words such as I, me, my, insignificant etc.

Here is an image of the template.

This is then being sent to print at A0,(minus the words in white) where I will then use a stencil to write in the words with UV. Fingers crossed it will be all ready for Monday, where It is getting hung up with the rest of my class in the University foyer

Will post pictures of the final piece.

The Beginning

Now I have made this blog, I better start writing. I am currently working on a Manifesto project for uni, I need 5 to 10 points about the things that influence my life and work this has then got to be included in a A0 size piece of work. I have been doing a lot of thinking about the things that push me to create my work. Along with all those cheesy motivational quotes that you need every once in a while. I think the key things for me is to release all the thoughts in my head, words aren't always enough. Sometimes they are too blunt, too obvious. I want to be able to question my work further along with it causing the viewer question it. There are so many things that I am passionate about and I know I can't change everything but even if I can just make people question the world that they live in. They are so many things that I feel so passionate for and I can't just choose one as more important than another, I think there are a lot of other people that are also thinking theses things. Should we care more for the envrionement as we having such an effect on it therefore it becomes our responsibility, should we care more for animals as they are the ones that can't speak up, but yet neither can children, most adults wouldn't take them seriously as there is still the impression that age gives maturity, that adults are more believable than children. The excuse "They don't mean that". Then do you support less fortunate people, that could be getting abused, sick, dieing or in poverty as they are the same as us? To be honest they are all as important, they are all part of the earth that we live in and each need our attention. Why should one be greater than the other? 

 

I have recently found an Artist who I have really loved, Alex Noriega, his blog is filled with lots of positive and motivational illustrations. You should check out his work out. Here is one of his images. 

http://www.snotm.com