Our house, on the end of the street!

Whilst visiting my grandma in Whitby i took 56 photographs around her end of terrace house, because as i sat in the living room, i noticed that the sun was beaming in through one of her stainglass windows and making a gorgeous pattern on the wooden flooring. I chose these few for my blog, either for the fact that i think they are good, or they have personal meanings.

good boy!

Whilst relaxing in Hebden Bridges park on sunday, my freshly groomed westie decided to roll around in the newly cut grass. So i thought that if i took a short series of quick photos it could end up as a sort of flip book, if they were to be printed out.

photo-a-week

Grocery shopping snaps

I took these photographs in Whitby's Somerfield on a grocery shop with my Grandma. I used the black and white filter on my camera, and let the camera hang down on the strap, so i held it at torso level and took the photos disreetly of the passers-by.

Cartoon Museum Reveiw

Cartoon Museum Visit, Wednesday 2nd March, 2011.

This museum has collections of comic book drawings on the top floor, illustrative work on the ground floor and an exhibition area. The exhibition on at the moment is Ronald Searles’ drawings on “Mrs. Mole’s” life. The work is about the little creature in different situations and adventures throughout her lifetime. They are drawn in pen and ink, and coloured with water colour paint. I read in the brief piece of information at the entrance of the exhibition space that the artist made these drawings when he and his wife were made aware that she was seriously ill. Searles made a drawing each time they had to make a visit to the doctors, to try and lighten the mood and keep his wife a little happier.

The illustrations are very detailed, the colours are extremely vibrant for watercolour paint, the brush strokes are all precise and extremely thin. The quirky character of Mrs. Mole is presented to the viewers in every scenario, each time doing something different to the next. They made me smile and some even got a little chuckle out of me, and whilst I was walking around I realised that the other people there were smiling and laughing at the drawings. Mrs. Mole has big round brown eyes, with thick black eyelashes, she has a large plump body and a pair of thin and narrow feet. She comes across to me as a lovely lady, in the drawings she is always surrounded by nature and patterns or flowers, either in the background or on her clothing etc. There are some running themes in his work which jumped out at me as soon as I’d looked at the first three, love, peace and joy.

The work is presented very neatly, in a rather organised fashion, the paper used for every drawing is the same size, same type, framed up in exactly the say way, and hung at the same level in a horizontal line around the room. Because of the short explanation about the reasons behind this work, I felt as though I connected on a slightly higher level than I usually would. This exhibition made me become even more aware at how much time, effort and love goes into work. The pieces are personal to him but the scenarios and situations presented are ones which everybody can relate to in one way or another. I drew one of the illustrations myself, spending a good twenty minutes or so standing there, getting cramp in my hand from clasping at my sketchbook for so long, and even then my drawing looked like it could be worked on top of for hours yet. This just pushed me to think more about the time I spend on a single piece of work, Searle has thought about the whole sheet of paper, every centimetre is covered and has been considered.

His work has inspired me to want to be better in my personal studies, the precision in his work is amazing, the character Mrs. Mole never changes, she looks the same in every scene, allowing the viewer to become familiar with the work, making the collection even better to look at. I would definitely encourage people to look at his work and to visit the Cartoon Museum whenever they are in London, I found it one the most interesting places to be as an art student.

Martin Parr Talk at Galpharm Stadium

When we were sat in the meeting room listening to Martin Parr, i decided that i would look at his work closer when i got home, as i do know his work, but probably only a very small percentage. This is one of favourites, simply beacuse of the time period in which it was taken. I am attracted to the american flag flying in the wind, the gorgeous car the woman is filling up with fuel, and the woman herself, she looks like a mannequin you'd see in a shop window.

London photographs!

This is my favourite photograph from the whole trip. Here i am in the Borrowers room set, where everything is oversized and we look tiny in comparison! This was in the London Film Museum, here are some more photos from it...

Doctor Who stage set, i was always scared of the Daleks, so thought a photograph would help overcome that fear!

I took this photograph when we got off of a tube out onto ground level, its a real shame that this fountain was underneath a building which was covered in scafolding because then i could have gotten a better photograph of the whole thing. Nevertheless, the workmanship was amazing and this sculpture really got me excited for the War Horse show i was about to see the next day.

When i visited the British Museum this ancient head caught my attention, and held it for a long time, i dont know why i took so much interest in this particular one, but i decided to sit down and draw from it. After sitting there for a few minutes a group of foreigners walked into the room and stood behind me where i was on the bench, and started studying my drawing, all the time looking up into the glass cabinet to check how accurate i was. This spurred me on to want to make it a high quality drawing. I used 3 different inks to get the shading, and i am happy wioth the outcome, though it is not perfectly accurate, i like the piece's character, it looks asif it is alive in a way. I will try to scan this in at college, so that i can see any similarities or differences, maybe find ways to improve my techniques.

i took this photo whilst waiting to find out where my group had wandered off to! I think that i have a postcard from a few years back which looks similar to this. The roof is a peice of art in itself, i spent a good five minutes just leaning over the balcony up there, looking down at everyone.

This was a T.Rex in the London Film Museum, there was a smaller head on the ground which was controlled by a gear stick in a box, so whilst we were all concentrating on the small mechanical head, the large skeletal figure on the stage started moving and making noise, i managed to get a few shots of it in motion, i think this looks really magical!