University And Portfolios

Soooooo, this is awkward...
I don`t know if anyone has noticed but I`ve been kind of busy lately.

At the beginning of November I sent off my UCAS form for University. Luckily for me I picked five options and I got all five interviews for my chosen courses!
So I`ve been very busy trying to get my essay work finished, my portfolio still needs a few more bits going in to it and I need to finish my current sketchbook for the project I`ve only just finished as they said that they want to see my written work... So I`ve been very, very busy recently and i`m hoping to hopefully take a break after my first three interviews; just so I can relax a little but more and produce more of my own work rather then working my ass off again.
i`m also hoping to do a full length live diary blog update as I`ve just been away for a few days with my boyfriend. 

i`ve been so busy, and I feel like I need a break; but unfortunately work needs to be done and I need to get everything done for the 6th of January... help!

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Merry Christmas!

I do realize that I`ve uploaded nothing for so, so long! But I`ve been busy arranging my University interviews and I`m hoping that after Christmas everything will be back to normal once more.
So for now... 

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Textured and Wire Work!

More experimentation!
As a basic must have, I`m creating more work that involves making new textures as some more preparation work for my final piece (which i`ve already started).
So here`s some quick examples of what I`ve been doing so far!

It`s been another long case of messing around with different materials and seeing as to what I can do with them next. This one is actually the only pieces of textured work that I`ve done so far, I`ve had to start producing my final piece earlier since the deadline is a lot earlier than usual.

The size of this little piece is only A3, the background was done with a dabs of black paint, PVA glue and different inks that I let drip down. Then I stumbled across a bowl of dried wallpaper paste that I just ripped into pieces and used as chunky fleshy looking bits, then black ink over the top to create the solid looking eyes and mouth.
It didn`t even take to long to make, it was just waiting for the different bits to dry that took me so long. 

I managed to scan the image in too, I`ve got three different versions of it that I scanned in; you can find the three of them on Deviantart. 

http://amywatkinson.deviantart.co.uk

I made three smaller samples to mess with some background ideas, my final piece is huge, one of the biggest pieces I`ve ever done and I needed different ideas for base layers before applying anything 3D on to the board...
So far there are about 15 different layers, all with different techniques and color schemes. It`s taken me about two weeks just to get those background layers on there, so I`m glad that i quickly made myself some samples to give me some ideas as to what i should do. I did do a few more than just these three here, but they are also only on Deviantart if you wanna take a quick looksie.

The first one is just a mish-mash of paint lettering, printing and text; It was to help practice with the lettering but it kind of didn`t work.
The second one is a plain wooden frame painted black with a dry brush layer over the top. The background is wet on wet, water with ink over the top so it bleeds out and looks a bit eerie. Then random natural materials over the top and some string woven in-between the wire.
I was going to use a lot of wire work, on my final piece (which I ended up not doing).

This last one is just the same as the second one really, I still need to do some more practices and try to weave more things around the wires and see what I can do with adding things underneath. It`s all experimentation and luckily for me I`ve got enough time to keep on messing around with this kind of stuff.

The Industrial Materials
have been out recently,
really need to stop breathing
these thing in...

I apologize for such a quick, sort update; I have done an update on why I haven`t updated over on my Live Diary blog. But at the moment I`m very behind on updating my blogs and Deviantart, I`ll catch up soon (hopefully). 

Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk

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DeviantArt:   http://amywatkinson.deviantart.co.uk

Photoshop work, Thresholding!

We all know my hate for photoshop...

And technology...

And photo editing...

But i wanted to try something a bit more new to me, which unfortunately involved all of the above, and may my best friend Laura be my witness to this; I was extremely close to screaming because the instructions and videos I was watching where on a different version of photoshop that I had... so I missed out giant chunks of information that I seriously needed. 

(For a full explanation on what to do, I do suggest reading a step by step guide or watch a few videos on what to do. I won`t be giving a step by step guide, I`m only uploading the images of what I ended up making, I still don`t understand it fully).

This one was one of the first ones that I tried to make, At first I thought it looked like poop when I just had it thresholded. I thresholded the image first, and when you threshold an image (in case you haven`t seen it), it practically turns all of the image black, everything is shaded in with just tiny bits of black; you can change the amount of black that you want with this little scale that appears when you select thresholding.
So when when i had finally thresholded all of my images, I then went and made the remaining areas of white transparent so I could add colour in the background of them. 

However it was my first time doing all of this, so i tried to get a few done as some good examples. But I had to rush a little bit since the laptop I was using at the time only had 10% battery left so i had to get them done quickly and then uploaded to Deviantart... It did end up dying and I then had to upload the rest of them when i got back from sixth form. 

One of the best things I`ve done so far has to be the popart looking pattern repeats that are ridiculously easy to make. But because I`ve done the repeats out of the same image but just various colours, I now just have a folder full of loads of these thresholded images and the different coloured backdrops to go along with them.

Unfortunately, I`m not doing anything with pattern repeats (apart from the pill stuff) So these are just going to be another side thing that I can do. Hopefully I can start doing work like this in Bulk for Deviantart and for blogging.
Once again, I have been falling behind a bit with all of my blogging, It`s getting hard to stay on top of it all at the moment, as much as I wish I could keep up to date with everything on here and upload all of the work I do as I do it, it`s proving slightly difficult again.

everything should be busy again soon, Luckily enough I did this today and I`ve managed to upload them practically straight away; so that`s a plus side, but the down side to all of this is that I end up getting home super late cause I want to get more work done to show to you guys who read my bogs and for those on Deviantart.
I hope you enjoy these little Thresholded edits, they did take me a while to do... I must of been sat for well over an hour watching videos and reading step by step guides on how to make these and get the colouring in almost perfect place.

Thank for the messages and more favourites and Notes on Deviantart! Like always, It does mean a lot! 

Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk

Live Diary:   http://melonheadamy-livediaryblogging.blogspot.co.uk

Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/melonheadamy
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Photoshopping Lino Prints!

I thought that I had finally learnt how to use the scanner at my sixth form, and I was soooo bloody wrong about that. I completely forgot how to scan an image in, in colour. So i spent about an hour scanning in so much work for it then to not even come out in colour... Smart move. 

So instead of letting everything go to waste, I tried to do some random odd bits with the Lino prints that I had scanned in.
First off, I tried to work over them with some little doodles, then I tried to collage them altogether and create a mish mash from all of the shades of greys that came in when I scanned them.
The weirdest thing that I tried was trying to do small random doodles over the top of them on Photoshop, now photoshop doesn`t agree with me at all and it didn`t even let me draw over my original picture in a colour. I`m not sure if i was pressing something wrong or if i didn`t select something before I tried to draw over the top.

The best thing I`ve managed to do involved great difficulty. I had to find the best looking Lino print, but it had to have less colour in the background; then I decided not to use bloody photoshop at all and I just began to use online photo editors to get everything done, It`s photogramio that I use normally; but to get the transparency I used Lunapic instead.
You basically just select the colour and Lunapic makes that colour transparent, which is quite simple and straight forward.
All I had to do then was make backgrounds that where the same size as my original image, wasn`t too difficult really. To be honest with you, it was all quite simple to do and none of it took to long, if anything it seemed so much easier from when I first started to do stuff like this in year 12.
If you want to see all of the Lino images that I out together then check them out on my Deviantart account: http://amywatkinson.deviantart.co.uk

Thank for all of the support so far, all of the messages that I`m getting really does mean a lot ^.^ I hope to hear more from you guys soon!



Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk

Live Diary:   http://melonheadamy-livediaryblogging.blogspot.co.uk

Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/melonheadamy
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Instagram:   amy_marshy_melons
DeviantArt:   http://amywatkinson.deviantart.co.uk

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!

Anime Reviews:   http://melonheadamy-animereviews.blogspot.co.uk

Live Diary:   http://melonheadamy-livediaryblogging.blogspot.co.uk

Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/melonheadamy
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Instagram:   amy_marshy_melons
DeviantArt:   http://amywatkinson.deviantart.co.uk

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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