Graphics (cd covers)

These are my CD covers for graphics at college, the first picture being the front cover, the second the little insert in the middle and the last the back cover. Our brief was that a band named "the stuctures" has asked us all to create their cd covers, and we had to create this band from our imagination, give them names and so forth and create their genre. 

Using my Leavesden Mental Hospital shoot from Photography AS, I gave the cd covers an 'alternative indie' feel, of sorts, and using photoshop, completely molded the images to what i needed them to do or to be. 

I'm genuinely really happy with the result, I like how the insert is black and white, and gives focus on the front and back covers, and I like how everything fits together.

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maps

this is a scan in of my sketchbook, with a scan in of my personal maps and journeys book. I use my little notebook as a way to map all of the journeys I take, through my basic maps that actually have no relation to time, distance or actually where I go, it's made purely by closing my eyes and remembering the journey.

all of the little journeys I make and map out are then put into a large study of my journeys, I never do more than a week in a go, and they're not always beautiful looking, but it is indeed my life and all the journeys within it; as well as just looking at the journeys, i collect bus tickets, but tend to keep alot of them as a personal collection, but i do always intend to incorporate some into bits of art work.

Though this particular one is very plain, I really do love the way it looks, it's a true representation of myself, my journeys, my life and my mind, it incorporates my collections, my personal points of interest, and my idea of my life being too plain.

This is a scan in of a tea covered map with a photograph from my 35mm film on top, I think I'll make a few of them, and have a proper post about them

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35mm film photography.

this is my black and white, 35mm, film used in my photography lessons.

Anyone that knows me well knows I adore film photography; rather than owning a series of pixels you picked out yourself, you are suddenly the creator of a true image, it's something real that you can feel and own, something almost magical. I was using film photography in last years AS classes, and this year I've had the fortune to continue to use it. 

True 35mm film photography works by placing the film into a manual camera,  preferably a manual SLR (like my Practika MTL5, in which this blog is named after), choosing your shot, setting the aperture and shutter speed so the light meter indicates that the shot will indeed come out, and pressing the shutter release. This series of events ensures that the light will settle on the film emulsion so when it is processed it will come out negatively, creating the negative.

different films have different ways of processing, so that you can use them in the darkroom, but as an avid fan of black and white film, I can tell you it's easy to process, takes around 15-16 minutes, and 20 minutes for the film to dry, after that, you can scan each photo onto a computer, or instead choose to work in the darkroom.

There will, of course, be scans of darkroom work uploaded, but at this point in time, I don't have access to a scanner, but I do already have the scan in's of each negative, so until then, here are my photos.

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sketchbooks

As I take an art course, I obviously have a sketchbook, it's an interesting collaboration of drawings, artists and things I enjoy, and occasionally made to do.

this is a small collection of observational studies, complete with colour swatches to the true colours of what I am attempting to portray in a maybe more artistical sense, and the actual sizes of those things I am drawing.

I am not so much a fan of intricate little studies, although they're beautiful, and very much aesthetically pleasing, they are not a study of emotion or thought, which is always my main plan for artworks.

These are my maps studies, taking maps and creating art on top of it, the highest picture has the outline of my regular bus journeys, to show my own personal kinds of maps, and a rough sketch of my doc martins, something I'd probably doodle on a journey somewhere, the lowest (the one directly above) is my Tibetan prayer flags, which I have hanging around my room.
I adore map studies, I find them incredibly interesting to look at, and incredibly interesting to create.

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skeleton structure

I'm interested in people and who they are really, so this was actually a lot of fun to try and draw, I find the fact that the clothes disappear along with the skin after the shorts says so much about persona and individuality as a whole, we all have hidden things, and somethings are hidden beneath not just clothes, but skin.

The drawing was made from an image I found on the internet, which at this point, I am unable to locate, but all in all, I really enjoy this, and I'm actually very proud of it.

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Negative Space

I quite like the concept and (most) outcomes of negative space drawings/paintings.
They come out very much like a photogram and have a very unattached-from-reality feel to them.

- Photogram

- negative space drawing.

A photogram is made by placing objects onto some light-sensitive darkroom paper and shining the light onto it, to create a reverse shadow, or what is, essentially, a negative, whereas negative space drawings are drawing the area around an object to make it look the same.

I really like photograms as they're so easy to change and they can be created in a multitude of ways.

Photograms can be made on top of actual images, they can be done using the sun (then "sealing" the image only using the last two chemicals in photo developing and they can even be done as a drawing or image on top of clear plastic. My favorite series of photograms has to be by Man Ray, a photographer I became quite interested in at the beginning of the previous school year, and though I am not quite so interested in his general photographs now, i still enjoy his photograms, and of course, Le violon d'ingres.

these are a couple of my photograms, but developed via spraying developer onto them, the first is my hand and a necklace, the bottom one is my necklace and three rings.

I quite enjoy photograms, you never know how it's going to come out, which is always interesting..

these are my negative space drawings, taking 2/3 minutes each. I'm a fan of the aesthetic qualities of negative space drawings, but not of personally creating them. I prefer to add my own style to a drawing, but negative space drawings leave no space or ability to be able to do so, therefore, not so much a fan.

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Painting & drawing work.

 These two drawings have quotes above them, they are quotes from my AS cigarette packet work, (which you can find the post here or the pictures here, here and here) it's to show people as a shell, rather than real people