The soap...

Here is one of the photographs i have taken of the soap carvings that i did at the start of the summer holiday.

When i'd made the face, which i wanted to resemble a cameo, i had the idea to make my name, with the head as the 'o'. I think that it looks good inbetween the 'z' and the 'e'.

Then i got an idea for the viral that my tutors wanted us all to try and come up with to advertise our degree course.

Idea... Carve letters to spell out 'fine art for design' out of bars of soap, then use everybodies individual carved head, to act as light bulbs around the title, which would then look like a sign lighting up. This would only be the first few seconds of a viral, but i thought it would look good, and it will advertise our work at the same time!

soap carving...

I did my soap carving last week and am very pleased with how it has turned out. I made my younger sister join in and gave her a little art lesson as we were doing it. She wanted to do something for her art summer project, India, so i helped her carve an elephant. I started on my idea of the cameo face, so i found a photograph of the side of my head/face and sketched onto the bar of soap. Then i got my rusty carving tools out and started hacking away at it, and before i knew it the table was covered in soap dust as my sister called it, and i was quite surprised that i had managed to do it without it crumbling!

I still wanted to find some other peoples work, so here is what i found on a quick search.

This is by an artist that i found on blogger, called Von Glitschka in 2009. It is quite similar to mine in the way that it is very curved and smooth.

I will put photos of mine up when i get onto my own pc.

balloon portraits>>>

As part of my summer project i am to make a balloon portrait of myself. i have attempted two so far but am not happy with the outcomes. I am trying to make all of my work link together, and as i love cameos as much as i do, i thought that this would be a good link for the work. So, so far i've just drawn my side profile from a photograph on the balloon, but its just sat in the middle, so im doing a little bit of research.

This first image is from "Lady luck rules ok" site which closed down some years ago, but i like the naive quality to the drawings.

Next i found a woman named Serena, who makes "twisted balloon art" on cruise ships. I thought her work was lively and has great character!

Here is a more intricate detailed balloon model, i think that the hair idea in this one will help me in my own work...

This man's work, Nathan John Booth, is different to all of the others that i have found so far, but when i came across it, i realised that i have done something similar to this myself already! When i drew some quick first attempts, and then popped them, the same effect was given, and i actually thought it looked good, so now ive seen a similar peice, i thik i may even make them like this!

Images and text

Katherine Streeter was another artist on the list of people to look up, her work is very of the time, it feels like the norm, i feel comfotable when i look at it, i feel like ive known it for years, i feel like i can see my own work in it, obviously her work is alot more rounded and she has her own distinctive style down to a "T".

I found this on "we heart it"'s website, and i chose it because again it has both imagery and text within the peice, i really like hand written fonts, i myself am trying to improve the different ways in which i can write things, i recently bought this book to help me with my skills and to try and learn a litle around the subject.

Paul Mccarthy

Whilst having a tutorial about my influence file, i was given this artists name to look at his work, i find this video very disturbing, strange, interesting, and the idea is an extremely odd one to say the least!

His drawings are what i was told to look for though, so i carried on searching and found some really inspiring stuff!

I love his line quality within the drawings he makes, the splashes of colour and random peices of other medias encorporated around the drawings, collaging it all together, i think that this will have an effect on my work for the summer project, which will be given to us within the next month or so. I am really looking forward to drawing now, where as before, when i first started this course, i hated the thought of picking up a pencil and trying to draw something accuratley, and still to this day i dont want to use a pencil, i have found that my preference lies in the dip pen and ink! I will certainly be looking at more of Mccarthy's work in the future.

water is an intersting thing

Whenever i am visiting a place, i am always attracted to whatever water there is, whether it be the sea, a canal or even a puddle!
For some of these photographs, i used a pin hole effect on my camera, i changed the colours from natural to either monotone, or pop art.

where's my foot today?

i have been taking these photos when i have seen a floor which ive thought to be unusual?! a couple are from museums in London, some from galleries in Dublin.