October 7, 2020 – Claire Smyth’s blog

October 7, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Alternative Means of Drawing (House)

Claire Smyth AAD009 Drawing in Practice: Alt. Means – House Brief (stilts / skyscrape)

For this task / activity for the whole day we were instructed to create 2 – 3 houses on stilts made from any craft and recycled materials around your house (which was able to freely stand) under a certain time frame. Making a city scape was in fact also instructed for us to design throughout this workshop in which I overall made 3 houses and 1 city scape, where my cityscape had various sizes of different windowed buildings include a wide range of household materials.

The overall materials that in which I was able to access and use to successfully build multiple houses on stilts and a cityscape was a range of: cardboard boxes, straws, hot glue gun, toilet roll tubes, coloured card, egg cartons, empty food packaging, cereal boxes, photo film, newspaper, wool, thread, matches, tin cans, pins, labels and an array of pens to add in detail like windows / doors etc.

I particularly enjoyed this task and creating / designing the houses etc as it overall required a lot of thinking in order to make sure that it was successful in regards to standing on its on (structure wise), scale and how appealing / realistic it looks, which to complete I used various cardboard pieces to create a solid standing structure to where I then added details of Windows and doors etc with other ranges of materials along with drawing.

(Date task was Completed: 28/09/2020).

October 7, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Alternative Means of Drawing (Digital Processes Online Workshop) Protest Research Task

Claire Smyth AAD009 Drawing in Practice: Alt. Means – Digital Processes Online Workshop (protest research task)

The overall aim of this task was to in which research one artist and one designer where their particular work is upon the subject of protests and its affects etc:

b2 protest contextual research

**Please click on the above link to access my research task on Microsoft word as I was unable to copy and paste it onto the blog.

(Date task was completed: 25/09/2020).

October 7, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Alternative Means of Drawing (Digital Processes Online Workshop) guess the object

Claire Smyth AAD009 Drawing in Practice: Alt. Means – Digital Processes Online Workshop (guess the object)

During this short research task we where in fact instructed to pick a random object within eyesight to then write a brief description about it without giving it away so that other students could have time to properly guess what exactly it is. I had chosen a tube of black acrylic paint that was sitting on my desk next to me.

My clues / sentences where as stated as:

Set on top of a wooden desk, I am short, tube like, sitting / standing placed within a tub or box among others, filled with a black almost like gloopy liquid / substance.

It is commonly used alongside the materials of a paintbrush or sponge, to create dark tones and imagery on various different types of papered media.

In the end, I was successful in the tasks completion as the rest of my classmates / students within group 2b where in which able to guess my object correctly, but not straight away until after properly digesting the material. This then meant that when writing my clues / sentences describing my object I was able to bot give it away as easily.

(Date the task was completed: 25/09/2020).

October 7, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Alternative Means of Drawing (Digital Processes Online Workshop) Monogram Task

Claire Smyth AAD009 Drawing in Practice: Alt. Means – Digital Processes Online Workshop (Monogram Task)

Creating, experimenting and designing examples of monograms regarding your own personal initials was in fact another highly creative, thinking and explorative task within / apart of day 1 of the Digital Processes Online Workshop.

To complete this task, in order to be successful, beforehand I took part in various secondary sourced research into looking at ideas / examples on various Pinterest boards in relevance to the structure and general design of the CS initial monograms. Using various markers and pens I started to draw multiple of my design, treating it as a trial and error basis to see what works and what doesn’t.

As a result, I then went onto design and make 2 final monograms (final pieces) using a much wider range of techniques and mixed media as I set out to incorporate aspects of collage work and stencilling (cutting out my initials), along with creating the CS initials out of various materials – including: newspaper, negative photo films and letter stampers, in which I am overly pleased with the outcome.

(Date work completed: 24/09/2020).

October 7, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Alternative Means of Drawing (Digital Processes Online Workshop) Portraits

Claire Smyth AAD009 Drawing in Practice: Alt. Means – Digital Processes Online Workshop (Portraits)

During the beginning tasks of the Alternative Means Drawing in Practice Digital Processes Online Workshop we where in which instructed to take part in a short ice-breaker portrait exercise to where we where split off into breakout groups with one other student to then draw / sketch out using any easy accessible art / drawing materials a recognisable portrait of the other person while on camera to then use it as our BlackBoard Collaborate profile picture. During this task I was drawing my fellow student / classmate Samina McMenamin, in which I created a portrait (continuous line drawing) using various materials that I had easily accessible to me at that time, which the materials used to draw the portrait included: black ball point pens, fine-liners and coloured wax crayons.

When looking back on the final result, I am overly happy with my created / published portrait that was done in a short period of time, as I tend to believe that I was in fact successful in gathering and putting across Samina’s facial characteristics into my designed portrait as I highly enjoy drawing and sketching in pen.

(Scale of portrait drawing: A4. Date completed / produced: 24/09/2020).

October 7, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Museum

Claire Smyth AAD009 Drawing in Practice: Museum visit / drawings

During the two full days off campus in the Ulster Museum, I have in which created multiple drawings / studies soley using the drawing materials of different types of charcoal along with aspects of pen through looking at and drawing from specific exhibitions and pieces of history placed throughout and around the museum.

Over the corresponding two days I produced 4 charcoal studies based upon exhibitions that I found intriguing to draw from, these included: dinosaur skeletons, bones, ceramics, structures (metal beams), windows, doors, stones and glass display cases that held historical pieces such as clothing, vases, medals and crystals etc.

Getting the chance to go to the museum despite COVID-19 restrictions was in fact extremely useful, educational and also visually pleasant as I was able to go round at my own pace scanning and looking out for significant exhibitions which caught my eye both intellectually and physically especially through the various selections of exhibitions available to where I feel that I was overly happy my ability to draw from what I see. In addition to this, the ability to just focus upon using charcoal as the main media for the drawings over the two days was in fact extremely worthwhile, as previously charcoal has not been one of the best drawing materials for myself personally to use as I found myself not being able to utilise it correctly and most sufficiently to achieve the best effects. However, getting to fully focus on just drawing, using and playing with different types of charcoal was in fact highly beneficial and rewarding as I was able to receive any relevant guidance / critiques, along with new improving ways and techniques as the time went on regarding the most successful ways to utilise, draw and experiment with charcoal to achieve a successful piece of drawing / artwork.

(Range of scale used in charcoal drawings: A3 / A2. Date over when work was completed: 6th – 7th October).

October 7, 2020smyth-c102 No Comments

Environment Workshop (mixed media drawings of surroundings / concertina project)

Claire Smyth AAD009 Drawing in Practice: Environment Workshop (mixed media drawings of surroundings / concertina project)

Over four working days, to complete this unit / task of work, I have in which created a variety of drawings / sketches from real life and the views of / around my surroundings using a wide varied range of mixed media, drawing materials and techniques, whilst creating art with materials and ways that I am familiar with and enjoy, along with pushing myself to draw outside of my comfort zone or with different materials / art styles or certain things that I have not experienced using and drawing with as much.

As a result, I created multiple drawings in various sizing scales of different areas, surroundings, buildings and places which included: The outside of the Belfast School of Art building, its surroundings, the MAC, skateparks, St Annes Square / Cathedral, nature, local forests, apartment buildings cars, signs, trees (nature), my back garden / the view outside of my window from my house etc.

The materials that I commonly used throughout this environment workshop, where in fact materials such as: charcoal, watercolour paints, pencil, pen, fine liners, wax crayons, coloured markers, oils pastels, soft pastels, sharpies and collage materials such as newspaper etc.

As pictured, within my drawings, I used various drawing / marking making techniques, some of these included: mark making, abstract, expressive, shadows, tone, depth, colour, detail, structured, aligned, playful, experimental, bold marks, subtle details, block shapes and patterns etc.

*To complete the concertina project, I based myself around St Annes Square in which I folded an A2 sketchbook page to create various panels to where I picked out different viewpoints for each when looking round the area, where then using a combination of different materials and drawing techniques, I was then successful in creating a concertina composition on the one page, viewing different areas of St Annes Square.

Overall, most aspects of this environment workshop was in fact highly enjoyable and fascinating as it was kind of a new way of created various / multiple pieces of art (drawings) with the main aim and end goal of using and experiencing a wider range of media to display my surroundings in various different ways: capturing sky scapes, closeup details, architecture, fences, buildings (both modern and ancient), natural and manmade, high / low viewpoints.

(Ranges of scale used throughout: A4 / A3 / A2. Date from when work was being completed: 17th – 22nd of September 2020).