The Word Becomes Art

 I had my tutorial for this assignment on Tuesday and received my first feedback. It was good overall, with a few things that needed some attention. I was really pleased with the words like ‘exciting’ and ‘promising’ and that my tutor likes me using mixed media and that she also likes making books   The things that need attention are: Firstly, referencing. I was anticipating this as I knew I hadn’t referenced everything I should have. When I did my research I just jumped around the internet and didn’t keep proper track of where I had been. I did a certain amount of trawling back through tabs and pages but I didn’t capture every reference I needed. To remedy this in future assignments I’m going to keep a running bibliography as I go, keeping note of everything I look at as I look at it, rather than have to waste time and effort trying to re-find the references and not doing a thorough job of it.  Another issue was this blog. For some reason the posts were not feeding down ...

 In my previous post I started to describe the making process of my little book, My Inner Circle . In this post I will continue that process and then show a gallery of photographs of the finished book.  I began by printing and cropping all the things I needed: title pages, collage images and titled writing pages. I then drew on and inked them as described previously. Then I started sticking everything together. I use Yes! glue because it stops, and even removes, wrinkling that often occurs when sticking paper. The glue has to go over the entire surface, not just the edges, to have the anti-wrinkling effect. I’ve never been one for glue brushes, my fingers go straight in the pot! So I keep a damp cloth nearby to try to avoid gluing that which should not be glued - mostly myself!  I decided to sew the binding before sticking in the collages and writing papers. It’s a bit more fiddly that way, but easier to get things properly aligned. It’s a very simple pamphlet bindi...

  Today I’ve got on and made my self portrait book, called My Inner Circle . However, it’s been a dark and gloomy day so I’m hoping for better light tomorrow so that I can photograph it and document the making of it here.  In the meantime I’ll say a bit about what I hope to gain from the course.  My reason for returning to study is that I feel that I’ve been stuck in a bit of a rut with my drawing. In the last several months I’ve done lots of art for my own use through illustrating the Bible. This is just for myself and doesn’t have to be “good” or meet anyone else’s standards or expectations. Meanwhile I’ve done next to no artwork in recent months for other people and purposes. It’s now 11 years since I completed my HND in Fine Art and I feel that I need to shake things up a bit with some fresh ideas and trying new things.  I decided to study with the Open College of the Arts as I’ve known about their courses for a long time, and they’re more affordable than other h...

  For this assignment we are asked to create a self portrait as a way of introducing ourselves to our tutor. We can choose our format and medium/s. It can be figurative but may not be. It introduces the way we work as artists as well as other aspects of our lives.  I decided to make my self portrait as a small book. This is partly because I like making books, and partly because I have an existing body of collages on this theme, created and reinterpreted over a number of years, and I want to work with them in a new way. Creating a series of self portraits over time has been an interesting process of reflecting on both my inner life and my more public life. The opportunity to make and bind them into a book marks a new point in my self understanding as well as being an introduction to others.  As part of this project we’re asked to look at artist self portraits as a starting point. It’s so interesting to see these self portraits alongside the artists’ style of work, from Fri...