Shed2Studios, Glass Work Experience!

I did wash this art shirt,

But as you can see nothing has

come out... oops!

This update was originally uploaded onto the live diary blog, but I thought it would also suit the art blog and It`s available for readers who aren`t up to date with the Live Diary blog.

So I`ve been in contact with a designer and artist from Shed2Studios called Dawn Turner, I`ve wanted to go in and see her for a while or try and get some kind of work done with her. But because of my sixth form and work at the weekends, so for the past two days I`ve been in at the studio doing a bit of work with her and I`ve literally learnt so much from her about the business and about producing some of her work.

(I know i just updated about ink Kings, I was supposed to do that on Friday but haven`t had time).

So on Tuesday I was seriously nervous, I`ve been exchanging E-mails with her for a while now and talking about when i could possibly go in and see her work... So it`s a bit strange going and seeing someone face to face when you`ve actually been speaking for a while.

So she was quite busy when I first went in and I felt quite bad because I kind of stood and watched for a while until she could explain what was happening. It was quite confusing and I can`t remember as to what it was that she was using exactly, but you can use it to create a negative space for glass to melt into; so basically a mold and you can use the bits that you cut out too which imprints in the glass and pushes the shape through.
It`s really interesting, and the designs she was using are cute little snowflakes that she`s turning into glass Christmas decorations. Two different sets are going to two different galleries and they`ll keep around about 50% of the money earned from selling Dawn`s work.
(I can`t remember the names of them, but one is rather fancy and last year they ran out of Dawn`s work in two days!)

Dawn gave me a small tour around the studio, it was a lot larger than i thought and the ceiling itself was quite high meaning that Travis` huge wooden boards could fit in there easily. Travis is an artist who basis his work around wood and is currently working for the boss of Superdry, but he thought that it didn`t sound to impressive when it bloody is.
Ewan is the photography and takes some amazing images but I`ve only met him once and it was only briefly as he was photographing another artists work so she can sell them on, her work alone was amazing aswell.
Tom, now he`s practically a hoarder... His small area is stacked with old random things that people where just going to throw away and he then makes recycled objects out of them or recycled equipment; so it is very interesting but he`s a complete and utter hoarder!
Jeff designs guitars, and is currently off to Berlin (i think), for an exhibition or to sell a few of his guitars over there (if I`ve remembered that correctly). his work is amazing and some of the patterns he can make for the guitars are absolutely stunningly beautiful!

Seeing dawn`s work and a lot of her university work has been a real eye opener for me, I`m now even thinking about choosing a Decorative Art course instead of Art Therapy. Just seeing all of the roots you can go down with Decorative arts has made me think about my future just a little bit more and now I`m even considering asking Dawn for some sort of lesson on glass sculpting or creating these stunning pieces of work.

The candle made it look super
cute, It`s on the shelf in the
living room now!

So today, (Wednesday) dawn showed me some more hands on stuff because on the Tuesday there was a lot of organizing of glass and trying to get some molds ready for the decorations she needs for these galleries.
She`s been trying out these candle holders by using molds for the glass to slouch on, she`s tried doing the frosting on them before putting them in the kiln and she has one that she hadn`t tested out yet... Soooo, lucky Amy got the chance to make her own little christmasy styled candle holder!
I also got to use the sand blaster which was terrifying as the compressor kept on making me jump as it was right behind me, but I`m stupidly proud of myself for making this little glass holder! It`s the first time I`ve ever done anything with glass and probably the only time before I go off to University, I might be slightly cheeky and ask If I could possibly do any extra work with her... Hehe.

I`ll leave the link down here (somewhere), All of their work is really amazing and I`ve loved being there for the past two days, I may also go in on Friday depending on what Dawn is doing and I might ask if their are any other days that I could possibly go in and help out with; It`s worth to at least have a look at their work... it`s strange thinking that there`s all of these different styles under one roof and they all chip in and help each other out quite a bit, very interesting.
So here`s the link to their website: http://www.shed2.co.uk
Here`s the link to their faceboook page: https://www.facebook.com/shed2studios/?fref=ts

I got these amazing high waisted
jeans from ebay cause H&M`s
website wasn`t working... I prefer these! 

Like always, go and take a look at all of the other blogs and ways to get in touch with me and my deviantart account is being updated very regularly at the moment aswell!

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Marbled Paper effects!

 So recently I`ve just figured out how to use the schools bloody scanner system, It`s annoying and confusing and doesn`t like working for my e-mail account. You scan in work, it sends it into your e-mail, then you exit the scanning mode and then you have to set it all back up to do it again. 

I`m happy because I figured out how to finally use it, but then I`m annoyed because I cannot scan everything in at once like other people can... Cause everything electronic just doesn`t like me. 

So these are some of the marbled examples that I`ve done so far, It`s my first time doing it and I`ve been trying to experiment with the colour palettes a bit more.
Enjoy!

You may also notice that each and every one of my pieces that are being scanned in (from now on), will have my name at the bottom just so you know that it`s been done by me! The art technician at my school (Katrina), had a quick conversation with me about people taking my work and passing it off as their own... But I don`t want to ruin the work I scan in by adding a huge watermark plastered across the piece, so for now there will just be a likkle name at the bottom just so you know it`s me.
Also, the font of my name will change depending on what kind of work I`m uploading. For instance, soon I`ll be scanning in my Lino prints as I`ve done some more of the pill prints and you`ll notice that the font on that will change.

Enough about that, I`m sure you`ll get over that tiny likkle name at the bottom.


Paper marbling and making my own paper is something I`ve been wanting to do for a while now but I can either never do it right and it looks like a screwed up piece of paper, or the technique is wrong so I don`t even get the chance to make whatever it is I want to make.
I haven`t had the chance to make my own paper yet, I wish I had the time to do it but it`s taking me a while to sort everything out for my art project... I`ve even gone out and bought myself an A1 portfolio for my University interviews! So I`m extremely excited now and the next couple of months should be very interesting.


So the main way (That I`ve heard of), is to use a mixture of Wallpaper paste and water, pour it into a tray and then use either inks or paints on top to then marble the paper and to create swirly designs.
I know that using the wallpaper and water mixture can actually create more accurate designs as the mixture is thicker and the paints or inks that you use stay on top perfectly still, so when you place the paper on top for the marble print the paint stays in place and prints the way that you exactly want it to print.


The different technique that I`ve been using for these samples was a lot smellier.
For my marbling I used the turpentine method. So you have a tray of water, some oil paints and the the turpentine; you mix some turpentine with the oil paints so it thins out and the splashes some on top of the water. depending on how much turps you added it will create different kind of effects.

 The more turps you add, the more swirls, ripples and scales you get when it hits the water. If the mixture of Turps and paint is thicker then you`ll be more likely to get dots of the paints on the sheet... But if you dab into the water with the paints then you get small condensed swirls, if you quickly mix the water before putting the sheet on top of the tray then the swirls look a bit more blended and interesting.

I prefer the Turpentine method to the wallpaper and water method, I`ve tried the wallpaper paste and water method before but the mixture wasn`t the same and the paint on the top wouldn`t shift no matter how many more times I had printed.
The turps method is soooo much more interesting as all of the prints I`ve done with have come out completely different instead of perfectly accurate which I think makes them more interesting to look at visually.

 Messing around with the colour palettes is also really fun, because you always have some of the previous colours floating around in the water; so every now and then you`ll try and do something really dark, but have blobs of orange and yellow in there. It just makes your prints a lot more visually interesting to look at.

Whatever you do though, just be careful with the turps as the smell of all of the turps gave me such a headache, Just make sure there is enough ventilation in the room, otherwise you`re gonna be in for a migraine. Then make sure that when you splash the oil paints in you don`t get it on your face, I had a green eyebrow for two days cause I couldn`t scrub it off without hurting my eye...

(You can also see the images more clearly on Deviantart).



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This morning we received devastating news about my sixth form being closed down at the end of this year; this place has offered so much to me and It`s disastrous to see it go. But we aren`t going down without a fight.

This morning we had an emergency assembly with the whole of sixth form attending; then we where informed of the closure of our AMAZING sixth form in July 2016. Luckily I`ll be able to finish year 13 and go on to university but those in year 12 who have settled in and are loving their course will now have to leave and find somewhere new that will take them on as an emergency placements. I`m seriously devastated at the news and I`m so disappointed at the fact that they are seriously going through with this now...

Future generations won`t be able to gain the life skills, employability skills and just the general skills that they`ll need to get through life. So many students are now left without a clue as where to go and most parents are furious and have been storming into the school today so they can speak to the head of the school.

Even if this petition doesn`t work, it shows that people out there still care about the students and the community that we create. Because of all of this, we can no longer raise anymore money for students in Gambia and no more money for the charity called Ben`s Den...

Here`s the link to the online petition, even if you`ve never read any of my blogs and if you`ve never even heard of this sixth form... Just remember the students that will miss out on this amazing opportunity for work experience, community work and for higher education.
https://www.change.org/p/mr-smith-stop-ilkeston-academies-sixth-form-from-closing

Also, feel free to speak to me on Facebook about what has happened, I need some ideas for some sort of fund-raising and some sort of protest that students can do.
https://www.facebook.com/amy.watkinson.104

This is what people will be missing
out on, amazing friendships and
amazing lessons! 

A HUGE thank you to anyone who chooses to sign or contact me, even if you don`t know what this about; just think about the students who are missing out and the staff who will now be loosing their jobs.
Thank you!

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Mono Prints and Lino Print Work!

 I`ve been trying to make a start on some sort of print work, since the screens still aren`t ready to print yet (silk screen printing). So I`ve started working on some small Lino prints and Mono prints.

I`m looking forward to having my brain designs put on screen since it`ll be the first time that I won`t be using something that`s been rushed and hand drawn. But since we`ve moved into the new building that the sixth form has, and we`ve lost sooo much art equipment in the move... we`re only just trying to get back to normal and It`s been a month now.
So as a compensation I`ve been trying to continue with some form of print work, as a basic i`ve been working on some small linos and A4 Mono prints. 

For m mental health project I`ve been trying to do some prints of pills, the lines came out slightly un-even and odd and I`ve been told that they look like bacteria. The colored pill print was a mis-print, I have no idea as to how I accidentally mis-printed it, but I`m simple like that so i`m not too surprised. The other two are done on brown packaging paper and normal A4 white paper. They are slightly smaller than A4 though whilst the Mono Prints are A4 size and are based off of the photography I`ve done. 

The Mono prints are all taken from the photography that I did earlier on in the project, which I think I uploaded on the blog... Probably somewhere on here. I`ve used the plain black printing ink on all of them, I was going to try and use the colored Mono printing ink but the consistency was too thick and gloopy to use. I might try and use it again, but perhaps when the sixth form order some new printing inks because those ones are just ewww at the moment. 

So the images that I used where suggested by the teachers, they recognized them as the best photos that i took; so they knew that these would be the best to do, even though I did say that i agreed with them and i wanted to use them anyways... Impatient.
the first Mono Print is of the chain that holds the gates shut at the train tracks, the second is of a Landscape near the tracks, the third is the side of the track that you can walk down freely and the last image is of the track behind the gates that you aren`t supposed to walk down... Despite all of the man sized holes in the fence right next to the gate... 

So the first image is very plain and is just done with black ink. The second and third was a little bit more difficult and then took longer to print on. I had to soak the paper, without ripping it, and then I dripped some ink over the top so it would bleed out and take different shades in different places. It turned out even better because the ink came out very, very blotchy and un-even; The ink I used on the paper takes the attention away from the blotchy and thick ink.
Then this very last image, it`s the same normal Mono printing ink; but I added some seriously strong bleach and it added a nice looking earthy tone to the image. It`s something that I`ve only tried once and it looks rather weird... I guess. The ink wasn`t too blotchy when I did it, so the bleach worked nicely and made a pale peachy/orange color.

I`ll update again when I`ve got a bit more work done, a and hopefully some screen prints!

The cute Ambassador couple!!

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Dotted Drawings.

 I`ve been trying to get a bit of my own work done, in my own little style of art. kind of like a break from all of the repetitive stuff I have to do at sixth form and all of the print making that I`m starting to give up with.

I`m slowly getting there at the moment, out of everyone in the class Laura and me are most probably the furthest ahead, which is making me feel a lot less motivated when it comes to producing my project work. So now I`m working on these tiny, tiny little dotted drawings that take hours and hours to finish. 

The first three images are ones that I did whilst in Northumberland on holiday; when it was too cold or just a bit muggy outside I would sit and dot away at these little flower drawings, which annoyed everyone if we where sat in the camper before bed and it`s quite... all you could here was me dotting away in my book. 

I`m starting to work on adding more layers to the drawings so it looks more shaded. The first image only consists of two layers, the pink flower and the red flower underneath have one layer each and the very last images had to be the hardest one to pull together.
There are three layers, two shades of purple and then black, Grey and black and then two shades of green and a layer of black over the top. Then I had to marble and varnish the frame which has taken me about 3 or 4 days to finish off. Unfortunately you cannot see all of the detail in the frame which is frustrating since I worked on it for a while, It`s been done as a present for my step mum who loves my art work. 

It is my first time marbling a frame though and then having to use varnish all over it, was annoying cause every little thing was taking so bloody long to dry out. I`m hoping the others can also go in some small frames too, but then I don`t know what I would do with them. I could always try to sell them but then again postage could cost quite a bit and then I would have to charge for the frames and the pens I use for the drawings... The pens I use for the drawings actually cost me £25 a pack. So when I run out of one color I have to go and buy another pack straight away. Which is quite frustrating, so if it does come to selling some kind of my work in frames, I don`t want to be charging to much for it all because then no one would buy them. It`s going to be hard if I decide to get rid of a few pieces because of budgeting and then pricing them. 

But if anyone is actually interested in work like this and in this dotted style; then let me know! If people say that they like the dotted style then i`ll carry on with it and try out some more different pictures (rather than just flowers all of the time). 

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