Sketch up

Throughout the development of our work for the exhibition at the Lit and Phil, Jodie and I have been learning new skills and trying out new approaches to making work.

Our ability to learn the basics of video mapping encouraged us to pursue learning how to use other software, more specifically the 3D modelling software, Sketch Up. This provides the tools to create all kinds of 3D images and designs, from woodworking blueprints to urban planning designs.

We have been using Sketch Up to create a digital model of the Lit and Phil library so as to be able to visualise how our work will be installed in the space. 

We began by drawing lines to create the outline shape of the rooms we will be exhibiting in, and then added in the furniture such as tables, bookcases, chairs and tables. For some of these items we drew lines to create their shapes and then pulled the surfaces to turn them into 3D forms. For other objects we were able to import readymade forms from the Sketch Up image stock. 

It is possible to move around the model and look at it from different angles and perspectives which really helps when planning the position of our work.

We still feel the need to make a physical model to help us decide where to place things, but it has been incredibly useful to learn the basics of SketchUp.

The Chromologist - for lovers of colour

I've just discovered a wonderful website called The Chromologist, with a mission "to delve deep into the world of colour, from art and home inspiration to food, fashion, literature and more besides."

"Colour informs our perception of the world around us. It swirls, flashes, hides and winks. It runs, gasps, melts and slinks – evoking emotions, memories and passions in all it touches."

The website includes colour related news, inspiration, ideas for homes, exhibitions and articles. 

One post that grabbed my attention was 

TAKE A PEEK INSIDE THE COLOURFUL WORLD OF THE CRAYOLA FACTORY

http://thechromologist.com/take-peek-inside-colourful-world-crayola-factory/

Painting in time at The Tetley

PAINTING IN TIME

3 APRIL - 5 JULY 2015

CO-CURATED BY SARAH KATE WILSON



Given my interest in artists that work across disciplines and question the notion of medium specificity, this is definitely an exhibition I want to visit.



Exhibiting artists include Polly Apfelbaum, Claire Ashley, Kate Hawkins, Robert Chase Heishman and Megan Schvaneveldt, Natasha Kidd, Rob Leech, Lisa Milroy, Yoko Ono, Hayley Tompkins, Jessica Warboys and Sarah Kate Wilson.



This group show brings together an exciting array of works by international artists practicing within the expanding field of painting. Exploding ideas of what painting can be, these artists work across sculpture, performance, painting and film. The exhibition includes inflatable paintings, painting machines and paintings that can be handled and reassembled by visitors.



Painting in Time consists of works that are in a state of flux: pieces will constantly evolve and in some cases only exist for the lifespan of the exhibition. New commissions sit alongside existing works reconfigured for The Tetley’s unique gallery spaces.

This exhibition acknowledges the enduring popularity of the medium and asks ‘what constitutes painting today?’
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A symposium, which focuses on painting and its relationship with time, will take place at The Tetley on 4 July 2015.

http://thetetley.org/painting-in-time/

Wild Oban by Sofija Sutton and Katie Wright

Delving into the faerie-seeped waters of Oban, Scotland to reveal the secrets of the mysterious basking shark.

"Wild Oban" combines travel, exploration, nature, folklore, and the production of a short narrative movie. Katie Wright and Sofija Sutton aim to create a film uniting local folklore elements with the real-life mystery of the elusive basking shark.

Find out more and support their project by clicking on the link below

http://kck.st/1CWzaxe

Another new home for BRIMMING unit

Following my BRIMMING exhibition last January, the units that were installed in the bookcase have been distributed amongst friends and people who have bought them.

I have asked each individual with a unit to take a photo of them with their unit and another photo of the unit it its new home.

I've just received photos of another unit in its new home:

Slipstream

Documentation of Slipstream, my performance for Drafting, the exploratory performance event at Baltic 39 in which a range of artists investigated drawing through performance, and drawing as a performative process.

 

NERVOUS SKIES - A collaborative work by Amelia Bande, Deborah Bower, Mat Fleming & Annette Knol at NewBridge Project Space

As a self-confessed lover of colour, NERVOUS SKIES - A collaborative work by Amelia Bande, Deborah Bower, Mat Fleming & Annette Knol at NewBridge Project Space is a delight to my eyes.

"It’s the latest addition to their Gel Film series, an installation of 16mm film, slides and text. Text and colour collide in a light show, which is as vibrationally intimate as it is technically spectacular. Multiple projections dance a thin line between oscillation and stillness. The piece seeks to bring about emotional resonances, by precisely cut intense colour rhythms and chance symbiotic relationships in the mind, the eye and the heart.

Nervous Skies was written collectively using automatic writing experiments. The four artists contributed with short texts produced fast and non-stop which were activated by prompt start phrases. The material was collected and edited into a single story by Amelia Bande."

The enjoyment of colour, texture and movement within Nervous Skies reminds me of some of Norman McLaren's animations. 

NewBridge Project Space, 16 Newbridge Street West, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 8AW, UK. 
Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12-6pm

More playing with VPT

Jodie and I spent another day in the project space testing out video mapping using VPT 7. 

Yesterday was the first day that either of us had used the projection mapping software, but through a combination of online tutorials, web forums, software instructions and trial and error, we had managed to begin to learn the basics, and achieved some interesting results.

Firstly we tried projecting video footage onto a reflective surface. This was very difficult to see.

We then tried projecting onto the inside of a triangular form.

The video was different colours of silicone pouring down a surface. 

Later we projected different video footage onto the different sides of the inside of a triangular form.

The footage on the bottom of the triangle was difficult to see, and we decided that the colours needed to be stronger as the projector tends to bleach them.

Our last exploration was projecting onto a couple of forms, one of which was behind the other.

I've really enjoyed learning something completely new, and although it was very challenging, we managed to test out a range of ideas. 

Unfortunately we are not able to use this for our exhibition at the Lit and Phil because the equipment (a projector) will not be available as all the supplies in the media suite will be used for the undergraduate degree show. We will just have to hold onto our ideas and try them out later.

Mersey ferry gets the dazzle treatment from Sir Peter Blake

As part of commemorations for the first world war, the noted British artist has repainted a passenger boat in homage to anti-submarine ‘dazzle camouflage’

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/02/mersey-ferry-peter-blake-dazzle-treatment-first-world-war

Mark Brown Arts correspondent

Thursday 2 April 2015

The Guardian

Seven ship painters spent 10 days covering a Mersey ferry in the reds, oranges, blues, yellows, pinks, greens, blacks and whites carefully specified by Sir Peter Blake and the one obvious thing now is that no one’s going to miss it.

“It is a crazy concept,” said Blake on board the ship he has now “dazzled” with wild colours and patterns. “They’ve done it so beautifully and it looks fantastic. It is very exciting to see it.”

The Mersey ferry Snowdrop has become the third vessel to be painted in this way in homage to the artists 100 years ago who painted British ships in “dazzle camouflage” to mislead German U-boat captains.

The organisation 14-18 Now, responsible for five years of art commissions marking the first world war centenary, estimate that 8 million people haveseen two contemporary dazzle ships that were unveiled last year on the Thames in London and on Liverpool waterfront. The Snowdrop is now the only one that will actually go anywhere.
Blake was chosen in part because of his long association with Liverpool, one that extends beyond his design for the Beatles album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club band in 1967.

On Thursday Blake recalled his first visits to Liverpool 63 years ago when he was stationed in Belfast for his national service. “I used to get the ferry from Liverpool. It was an old cattle ship and one had recently sunk so people were nervous, obviously.

“I remember coming back from Belfast on a New Year’s Eve and it was really rough – it was full of Irish Guards, all very drunk, and lots of nuns terrified of the soldiers.”
In 1961 Blake won the prestigious Liverpool-based John Moores Painting Prize – “junior section”, he stressed – ahead of artists including David Hockney and Lucian Freud.
“I’m very proud of it,” he said. “I remember coming up on the train and having a party in my room at the Adelphi and meeting the Liverpool poets. It was pre-Beatles, they hadn’t broken yet, but there was a definite vibe in the city and great music going on.
“I do feel like an adopted son.”

The artwork, called Everybody Razzle Dazzle, is the biggest of Blake’s long career, but creating it was similar to doing a small watercolour, he said.

Working on a computer, he initially planned it all in monochrome but quickly realised it needed colour. “It has to be cheerful: it would have been dour in black and white really.
“I was slightly nervous that there might be some diehards who’d think I’d messed it up, they preferred the old livery. But I was very respectful of it: I checked things like whether I was okay to change the funnel.”

The plan is for the Snowdrop to have its Blake livery for two years. It set off for its first newly dazzled journey on Thursday with Bill Haley and the Comets’ Razzle Dazzle playing on a loop.

Not far away from its setting-off point is is a static vessel, the Edmund Gardner, dazzled by the the Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez last year.

Liverpool’s mayor, Joe Anderson, said the city was proud to have great things in pairs: two great cathedrals, two great football teams. “We’ve got two ferries and I hope the other one will be painted as well ... I was told not to say that.”

The dazzle ship project shines light on a story largely forgotten today. During the first world war, professional artists would paint wild patterns on British ships to confuse the enemy. The idea was that U-boat captains would spot the ship but have no idea of what class it was, or if it was coming or going.

It was, Blake said, the invention of optical art and he had a great time following in the original dazzle artists’ footsteps.

Blake praised the painters at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead who had done the hard work. “We came up about a month ago when they were still working on it. To see it today when it’s all beautifully cleaned and polished is terrific.”

Arthur Hardacre, who led the team of painters, said it had been a bit like a very big paint-by- numbers exercise. “It was no big problem really, it’s all paint.”

The result is magnificent though. “It is absolutely fantastic and it’s great that visitors to the Mersey will see such a colourful ship.”

The project was commissioned by the Liverpool Biennial, 14-18 Now and Tate Liverpool. 

VPT in the Project Space

At the moment I am collaborating with fellow Newcastle University MFA student, Jodie Dunnill, working towards an exhibition at the Literature and Philosophy Library in May.

We have booked out the Project Space and a projector for a couple of days and today we have been experimenting with projection mapping.

"Projection Mapping uses everyday video projectors, but instead of projecting on a flat screen (e.g. to display a PowerPoint), light is mapped onto any surface, turning common objects of any 3D shape into interactive displays. More formally, projection mapping is “the display of an image on an arbitrarily complex surface”.

Projection mapping has many alternate names including the original academic term “spatial augmented reality” and 'video mapping.'"

We had never used the software before, and were both very new to the concept of 'video mapping', so we began by watching a tutorial providing us with instructions about how to work with the software. We also watched a couple of examples of 'projection mapping' in action - the results are incredible.

We began by creating a layer as a solid block of projected colour to fit onto a triangular form we had in the space.

We then added another triangular form of a different colour.

Our next challenge was to project an image rather than a block of colour onto a surface. 

And then combined this with the other shapes.

We then progressed to using a video source as the imagery for the projected shape.

It's been a productive and fun day with a lot of learning and problem solving taking place. I'm looking forward to a further day of experimenting tomorrow.

Neon with neutrals

Lovely colour combinations - neon with neutrals, displayed in a neat but funky arrangement