Sixth session - social marks

Sixth session

Social induced marks

In this session, we have studied all sorts of social induced marks, from the marks us, as a society live on everything we touch, as we lead our lives, to the marks created by artists through putting together various aspects of social manifestations ( from newspaper articles, to bus tickets).

For this project, I have taken inspiration from the works of Kurt Schwitters. I  really liked his collages, which, even though they try to create aesthetic sense of the world around him, they allude to social events happening during that time. In one of his works, titled "Picture with turning wheel (1920), he "combines a series of wheels that only turn clockwise, alluding to the general drift Rightwards across Germany after the Spartacist Uprising in January that year" 
                               ( In the Beginning Was Merz, Mayer-Buser, Orchard, Hatje Cantz, p55)

The collage that attracted me the most was En Morn (1947) which features a collection of proto-pop mass media images having in the centre the image of a blonde girl, while the message underneath states: "These are the things we are fighting for"...

Kurt Schwitters - En Morn (1947)

So, in line with this, I have chosen the idea of taking photos of some of the closed down businesses in the center of Plymouth, as a way of showing the social impact they have on the community. I have also thought of transforming this mini experiment into one of my final projects. For this, I intend to print out all these images, create a collage out of them and arrange them into a funnel shape above a toilet that I will draw. All these closed down businesses will be shown as "going down the drain" , while on the lid of the toilet I will have the Plymouth College of Arts motto: "Magic is what you make", in an attempt to show that all that social impact created by empty shops, can be overcome through a positive and proactive attitude. We can be better than the times we are living in, it is all a matter of approach.

Here are the original photos I have taken before tempering with them ( I intend to post process them in Photoshop before printing them out and creating the final collage).

While the other images are pretty obvious in regards to  which shop they represent, this one might be a surprise for many Plymouthians:...this is the inside of Woolworths!!! Photo taken in May 2013... This shop has been closed for a few years, boarded up and noone knew what was going in inside and IF there was anything going on inside. Well,...through a very small gap in the sticker attached to the window, I have taken this photo. Now I am extremely curious as to what this extremely large space will become...

A very interesting instance into a shops life: It has been closed down before the owners had a chance to empty it. This shop has been closed one evening and prepared for the next business day (tables set, menus on, etc). Meanwhile, a court order allowed the owner of the building to change the locks and deny access to the business owners. Also, since then, noone entered the premises, so everything was left intact. Below are two photos of the inside of the cafe and one of the court order stuck on the door...

Inside of JAcksonz Cafe

Court order allowing the proprietor to change the locks, denying the business owners entry to the premises...

Funky modern stickers the centre of Plymouth has been filled with recently. ...

Very interesting and extremely explicit closing down notice in one of the shops...

Another sample of the funky stickers that cover the windows of the closed down shops.

This shop has been through many stages, the last one, a pop up shop with a very short life,  being Inspired Rooms. I have lived in Plymouth for 8 and a half years and have never seen the original wall above this shop. It was always covered with the shop signs. To see Lawson carved in the stone, was really interesting for me.

Fifth session - Machine induced marks

Fourth session

Machine induced marks

In this session we have learnt about all sorts machine we can build and set up to make various marks. The very first one we all did, was a box, equipped with a spring and a drawing device. We have attached papers on each wall inside of the box and set the boxes in motion. I, personally, have chosen, again, an oil bar inside the box and have thrown it a few times from the top of the stairs. The marks achieved through this experiment were quite surprising, and I have found the session really interesting. Unfortunately I have lost the drawings made (they were quite small), before I had a chance to photograph them... I am a little upset about this, as I liked the result of this experiment. But I will try and recreate it at some point.

I have also attempted another experiment and have created another machine. I have taken some thick cardboard and rolled it into a cylinder. I have then attached some oil pastels and soft pastels with some masking tape to a spring each and to the cardboard. As it was cylindrical in shape, I have started rolling it back and forth for about 5 minutes. This is the result achieved.

side view

view from the bottom up

top down view

machine opened up. Inside I have got a red oil pastel and a blue soft/chalk pastel, attached to individual springs and to the cardboard.

better view of the marks achieved

Fourth session - Nature induced marks

Fourth session - 

Nature induced marks

In this session we have learnt about the nature induced marks, about how nature makes its mark on things, without any human interaction. For this, we had a session in the park, where we have set up a few projects. 

The first one involved hanging some sort of drawing media in a tree, and use the energy of the wind to create art. I have chosen an oil bar and a soft pastel, I have hung them with string from a tree and with a large piece of paper underneath, I have left it at work for around an hour and a half. This is what happened:

This was my set up, with 2 oil bars tied from a tree, with paper underneath,  clipped on my drawing board.

This was the final result. Of course, the sun wasn't created by the wind moving my oil bars, but it seem s that some happy people walking by, felt they had to contribute. So my final piece has got a smiley sun in it as well. :-)

Meanwhile, while this was happening, I have used a sponge dipped in Indian ink and attached to a piece of string to do some more drawing. I have held the sponge in my hand hanging by the piece of string and let it move back and forth on a paper underneath under the force of the wind.

This was my first attempt, of a sponge dipped in Indian ink and attached to string. This device was held in my hand and left to move back and forth with the wind

For the second attempt, I have left the string a little bit longer, so some of the marks were made by the string, while others were made by the sponge.

As the third project that day, I have monitored the movement of the sun through the shadow created by a tree nearby. I have covered the shadow one of the branches was creating on the grass, with twigs and followed it every 5 minutes. The experiment started at 3.15pm and ended at 3.45pm. It was amazing to see how quickly the shadow was moving. Here are some photos of this experiment.

3.20pm.  2 lines created 5 minutes apart from eachother

3.30pm.  I have already got five lines after only 20 minutes (each line represents 5 minutes of sun/shadow moving). 

3.35pm. 5 lines. It was amazing to see how quick the shadow was moving at that time of the day.

3.40pm.   This was the last photo I have taken as after this, the sun went in and the lines were not visible anymore. However, it is very interesting to see that the distance between the last two lines is bigger than the previous ones, meaning the sun was moving faster.

Second session - Life drawing

Second session - Life drawing exercises

During this session with have experimented with various ways of drawing a live model. We have started off with drawing without looking at the paper, in 3 minute sessions, then we have moved on to alternate our right and left hand in 2 minute sessions, followed by trying various ways of drawing (using our mouth, extended arm - attaching a long piece of woof to our pencil or other medium used for drawing). Here are the results of these exercises:

2 minute pose, using right hand - pencil on paper

10 sec poses, alternating hands

left hand 10 sec pose

another 10 sec left hand drawing

10 sec right hand drawing

10 sec right hand drawing

10 sec left hand drawing

 The next exercise, was to draw, without looking at the paper, the model, in 2 minute poses, using our normal hand (right, in my case)

first pose

second pose

third pose

fourth pose

fifth pose

I hope I remember well, but I think the next exercise was to draw using the "windscreen wiper" method, meaning that we had to look at the model for 10 seconds, followed by looking at the paper for 10 seconds, and so on. the results of this are as follows:

This is my favourite drawing out of this session. It might be because it resembles the model, but, I think I have got the proportions more or less correct, and the pose is very obvious in my drawing.

A different pose drawn using the "windscreen wiper" method.

I'm not entirely sure about this pose, but I think it was the very first  one I have drawn using the Windcsreen wiper method.

This drawing was done using my right hand, with a brush dipped in Indian ink, and the method used, was pushing the  brush upwards, rather than letting it flow downwards, as usual.

This drawing was done in pencil, using my mouth instead of my hand. Interesting result.

This is was a 10 sec drawing done while everybody else was getting ready. The medium used was soft pastel on paper.

This was a 3 minute pose, done, using my left hand. Medium used was Indian ink on paper.

These are 6 poses super imposed. 

This was the 3 minute "extended arm" exercise. I have used a long piece of wood, to which, I have attached a large brush dipped in Indian ink.

Ultimately, we have been split in groups and we had to come up with a way of making drawing more difficult, in other words, experiment different ways we, as humans can draw.

I was in a group with Kate and Chris, and for this mini task, we have decided for Kate to look at the model and describe to me and Chris what she sees and give us instructions on where the line should go, while me and Chris had our arms taped together, were not looking at the paper we were drawing on, or  the model.
It was an interesting experiment and the drawings we have achieved through this, were sometimes better than expected, but I wouldn't say they ever looked like the model.

Here's some photos taken during the session to give a better idea of what happened.

me and Chris backing each other and looking away form the paper as well. Quite a funny experiment, as you can see:-)

I have used red marker pen, while Chris has used blue, in order to see  the difference at the end.

this is how we were drawing

preliminary discussion on how we were going to draw

first exercise complete :-)

For the second part of the same exercise we were asked to push ourselves a little bit more.  So me and Chris have laid some paper on the floor and crashed some charcoal onto it, so, at the same time as drawing with the hands, we were using our feet to spread the charcoal in the same direction Kate was indicating.
Here are the masterpieces achieved after the second exercise

2 arms taped together hand drawing

feet drawings

 For the third part of the exercise, we were asked to change the group dynamics,so after flipping the coin, me and Kate did the drawing while Chris did the observing/dishing out instructions. Both me and Kate drew with our feet. I had a ink dipped brush in between my toes and Kate has used charcoal.

on the left, is Kate's foot charcoal drawing, while on the right is my ink foot painting.