After looking through this blog and comparing it to my tumblr, apart from knowing that they are almost exactly the same, I realised that I do not seem to post much of the inspiration I get from things other than design. So, I thought I will remedy this by posting a photograph of a woman who inspires me very much so...The fabulous Dita Von Teese. I won't post as many photographs on here as I do on tumblr...Well maybe a few.
Anyway, enjoy!
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Whilst in my tutorial on Friday I was shown a beautiful concertina book, it was named "A Little Book of Illustrations from the novel This Crippled Flesh" by Alice Smith, a graduate MA Design & Art Direction student from MMU. I love the styling of her illustrations, they are very individual and tackle the subject matter in an outspoken way.
The book was beautifully made, I should have taken a photogrpah of it at the time. Although it was the imagery that caught my eye, the typography was beautifully designed as well, it was not too eye catching that it took away from her beautiful images but it could stand it's own ground on the pages.
Overall, a lovely book that was so well made it gives me something to work towards.
http://www.alice-wonderland.net/
I thought it would be nice to make my family Christmas presents this year but it turns out that I have so much university work to do that I don't have the time. However, I will power on through and somehow I will make all of these books and paintings I have planned...I must be mad.
I have also made the blanket stitched heart Christmas tree decorations, I am rather proud of them, even if I do say so myself. I do like to get a bit crafty.
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This is how I am feeling at the moment….A little stunned and a little confused, my mind wanders and I can see myself on my graduation day wondering what I am going to do with my life.
With 3 weeks until we break up for Christmas I have so much to do. People asking ‘What ideas do you have Heather’ and how I am doing makes me want to go and hide in the dark for a little while.
But then I love what I am doing and some of my ideas are working…So onwards and upwards hopefully.
Oh! And what I beautifully eerie image.
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As it is the first of December today I had a mince pie for breakfast, made Christmas decorations with my housemates and now all I need to top the perfect Christmas themed day off is some mulled wine but alas, I do not have the wine or spices to create the tasty drink.
I will have to wait until I get my boyfriend to take me to the Christmas market so I can soak up the atmosphere whilst drinking the lovely wine.
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Today we had a lovely lecture from Helen Murgatroyd, a design and art direction graduate from MMU.
I really loved her work, her presentation style was nice too, simple and unassuming, nothing pretentious just great, solid work. Helen has gone onto do an MA at the Royal College of Art in printmaking. Her work seems to have grown and formed into more experimental pieces, abstract and interesting. Although I definitely do not want to do an masters it was insightful to hear about her experience and how she has become more practiced in her work. A truly inspiring lecture.
I have displayed a piece of work that Helen was commissioned to do for Alice Russell.
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I decided to go wandering in the library again. I came out with a few books, one that I have looked at a lot before is ’ Appointment with Sigmund Freud’ by Sophie Calle. I find her personal stories in her books so fascinating, the photography beautiful and the whole understated tone so inspiring.
I wish I could keep it! One of my pictures in my Silence piece was inspired by this image. I The way something can look so still but still have life about it is so interesting.
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When photographing objects for my silence brief I took about million shots. I was trying to get a breakfast scene that looked set up but has style. I didn't use this shot but I personally like it, it reminds me of the Yorkshire tea adverts by Love Creative in a way...Even though theres are a lot better, I love the tone of the colours in theirs.
I really love setting up photographs and thinking about the styling even though I am not great at photography, I hope I can do more projects working with more art direction.
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Le Scaphandre et le Papillon
As part of our Kino4 cinema club at university we watched to film Le Scaphandre et le Papillon (The Diving Bell & the Butterfly).
Here is a brief synposis of the film: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a translation of the French memoir Le scaphandre et le papillon by journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby. It describes what his life is like after suffering a massive stroke that left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome. It also details what his life was like before the stroke.
On December 8, 1995, Bauby, the editor-in-chief of Elle magazine, suffered a stroke and lapsed into a coma. He awoke 20 days later, mentally aware of his surroundings but physically paralyzed with the exception of some movement in his head and eyes (one of which had to be sewn up due to an irrigation problem). The entire book was written by Bauby blinking his left eyelid, which took ten months (four hours a day). A transcriber repeatedly recited a French language frequency-ordered alphabet (E, S, A, R, I, N, T, U, L, etc.), until Bauby blinked to choose the next letter. The book took about 200,000 blinks to write and an average word took approximately two minutes. The book also chronicles everyday events for a person with locked-in syndrome. These events include playing at the beach with his family, getting a bath, and meeting visitors.
My own review- I was unfamiliar with the work of Julian Schnabel but as ever I was willing to learn from the film and use it as inspiration. The film was beautifully styled, a charming and emotional story of struggle and hope. I found the strength of the character particularly endearing and the belief of the other characters so heart warming. It was definitely a film that I could watch again as it really appeals to my design sensibilities. The subtle colours of the intro to the film are wonderful and the title sequence is like no other.
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And so we went to the Tate as well, it was great and the docks are so beautiful.
The ‘this is sculpture’ exhibition was wonderful, especially the sculptures of people. My favorite has to be Allen Jones chair scuplture. It has such style, attitude and the fetish angle of the figure is something that really appeals to my style. This also asks the question of what he is trying to convey about women, or if the piece is simply an interesting table sculpture.
There were so many inspiring things at the Tate it is difficult to pick out more, to see a piece by Rachel Whiteread was lovely, the simplistic, ghostly quailty of the light switch sculpture really has impact in the flesh.
Finally, we sat and looked at the works of Mark Rothko, this work is not to my style but I was so impressed by the sheer scale of the paintings. Even though the pieces are of such dramatic colour and tone just being able to sit and admire the blocks of colour really made me feel very relaxed.
What a lovely day.
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A wonderful jaunt to Liverpool
As part of a university trip we headed over to Liverpool, I had such a lovely day even though I was carrying vast amounts of luggage, not the best way to enjoy galleries.
I would love to return to Liverpool in the very near future to visit the Walker Gallery collections as we were strapped for time, it would have been very beneficial and inspiring to have a longer period of time in the gallery.
I particularly enjoyed look at a lot of the pre-Raphaelite pieces, I find the realism and aattention to detail fascinating, I could spend hours looking at those alone.
The Bridget Riley exhibition did not fail to impress, the optical illusions created by her simple pieces are astounding. I love the mathematical look of her pieces, they are almost diagrammatical but with a real artistic flare. The mixtures of red and pink clashing with such force inspired me a lot, I will try and think out of my comfort zone from now on. The use of these colours at the prefect time is something that can only be achieved with experience, truly mind blowing!
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I don’t know whether it is because I am eating healthily at the moment or my subject for my dissertation is influencing me but looking photographs of food that are shot really well is grabbing my attention and inspiring me.
Phil Cook has photographed food for Marks & Spencer (one of the reasons why I found him) and all of his photographs really do look good enough to eat!
Focusing on recipe book layout for my third year essay will be lovely I think.
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