William Morris at II Temple Place :: Unit 6 Visits.

See big here.

William Morris is my favourite. So much depth. I spent all day there and did 15+ A4 drawings/notes.

Museum Of Childhood. :: Unit 6 Visits.

I increased the contrast on these a little bit so you can see my pencil marks better. There are also more house drawings in my Vocab book.
Museum Of Childhood.

Photographs at Standen house :: Bluebeard!

The other day, I wrote about my experience at Standen House, and the drawings I made. While I was there I took a lot of photos to use as reference for a project. The whole place is so beautiful, each corner has something interesting about it. Here are some photos of the house, without much editing, so you can see the real colours and feel of it.I'll let the photos speak for themselves...
Taken October 2011. Standen House.
Kimxo

**Copied from ArtEqualsHappy**

I saw some medieval tapestries and felt better. :: V&A Bluebeard.

So, I went to the V&A to see the Postmodernism show, with my group. I tried really really hard to understand and appreciate it- but generally I feel like the 80's were a mistake. So feeling very uninspired and like the whole world had everything upside down- I wandered around trying to find the Textiles room- to draw some beautiful handmade embroidery or brocades. I desperately needed some craft and wholesomeness and the honesty of workmanship to make everything feel sane again.
Unfortunately. The textiles room is gone. They are putting it into storage and we now have to make appointments to see it, once it's all fixed up again. Bummer.
But, I did stumble upon some magnificent stained and painted glass- with an endless supply of pattern upon pattern. (see above sketches) That lifted my spirits somewhat.
And then I found the Tapestries room. Oh! What a joy. A room with high ceilings and lots of empty space. Air Conditioned, cool and dark with benches all along the middle. I had found my new favourite spot.
The actual tapestries themselves are too big and too wonderful to put into words. They dwarf any sense of power or importance you have and humble you to the core. The amount of work gone into these astounds me. Fair enough, they were commissioned by some ridiculously rich guy who probably hoarded it in his castle of dreams. But I appreciate it. I feel like somehow, the makers of them should get a warm fuzzy feeling of worth when I look at them, even though they are probably just dust by now. To have something live on. oh. marvels of marvels.
I took watercolour paper with me and my handy little waterpen. I got so far (see above) and then was informed that it's dry materials only. gutted. but i understand. these are so old. so I continued with pencil. Kind of a fun surprise.Didn't stay for too long this time, but I'm sure I could lose whole days to that room.
I added some 'colour notes' when I got home.
Just the dose of inspiration I needed.
See you soon, Tapestry room,
Kimxo

image sequence problems.

I've done image squences and movies before, all kinds- and I've always had a bit of a problem with exporting quality. I've read the vimeo guidelines and it works pretty well, but it's still not sharp sharp like my images.

It does this weird blurry pixel thing as soon as I tell it to move. Which it shouldn't.
Frustration!
I've been trying all kinds of different settings, on a simple sequence (editing budapest things!) as seen above.

I want to be able to pop them into final cut and adjust the colours as a movie and still keep the quality. If I can't figure it out, I'm going to book a one-to-one in the digital media place. I just feel like there is a box i'm checking somewhere or... ugh.
literally, how many image sequences have i made in my life- too many. is it that much to ask to get them to be nice and clear?

-rant over-

'Nostalgia' at V&A

A while ago, during our induction period we visited the V&A several times to do library induction and to draw and see the Ballet exhibition. One of these times we were asked to produce images (10) on the theme Nostalgia. I mainly chose things that made me feel whistful or reminded me of olden times. The first two were drawn while looking at ivory statues (less than 1 foot tall). I tried picking out things that I liked and composing them in a nice way, rather than literally translating what I saw.



Textiles drawings, of course. :]



Near the end I was getting a bit tired and we were running out of time (you can see the last drawing I had to stop half way through cause we got kicked out!) but I enjoyed playing with this and finishing it off in a way which communicated the object and also the fact that I wasn't directly looking at it.

Little did I know that 10 images would feel EASY in a weeks time. [:
(actually, i'm pretty used to the 'draw a million images in an afternoon' from foundation, but it's still tough!)

The V&A Textiles room.

During our several trips to the V&A, I found my favourite place- the Textiles room. I love everything about it, from the fact that the room is quiet and peaceful to the shelves to the actual pieces that date back as far as the 4th century to how we take them out and 'study' from them. Such a gem.




I could easily have spent all my time in here. But I restrained myself and looked for variety when we were drawing. Perhaps I'll come back and spend a Saturday just drawing from these. It really tickles my crafty granny side.


And it doesn't hurt when you have such priceless friends to accompany you.