This week...

With this week being a Holliday from college I have been spending a lot of time researching, photographing and visiting some locations for my degree show brief. My first thoughts for this project was to look into small rural communities and find out what main industry, if any, drives them now. I also wanted to look at some of the perceptions we have of the countryside and how lots of the stereotypical views we hold of the quaint little country village/hamlet are based in the past. Some new paintings I have seen of such locations don't even seem to have street signs in them let alone a car! I have some photographs from a few of the locations I visited but will upload them in a separate post. 

reflective blogging...

So...

This week I have concerned myself with coming up with a plan of action.  Something that can help me organise the tasks I have to do leading up to the degree show we all have coming up.

 I am a little daunted by the prospect of having a real life degree show, but with all the time plans and reflective writing that goes along with it I'm sure I can manage to not forget anything important! Which is a comfort.

I can also still add things at any given time along the way, as i remember them or as other problems arise that I may have to correct.  So far the plan I have seems to be working but I'll know by the end of my degree show I'll know if I should do anything different or not!

Hello there...

After my brief holiday obsession with old signage I am back at college again.  For some this may seem like the start of lots of work, and it is, but it is work that I enjoy so much it feels like fun!

So...

This year we have a much quieter studio space as it is only us 3rd years coming and going from the  studio we have.  I much prefer it quiet like this, with the exception of radio 6 playing away behind us, I think it makes for a more productive place, for me anyway.

The first week of work started right away, not like any '2 weeks to get back in the college mindset' we had previously been afforded.  I thought this was great because I absolutely don't want to waste any time on projects this year.  I am trying to become a more organised and professional person, especially when it comes to my art practice.  

Our first project that I am working on is a live brief...which is quite exciting really!

It has come from the MacRobert Arts Centre in Stirling and they would like us to design a christmas themed piece of art to take the place of the massive christmas tree they normally have just outside the theatre entrance...the only thing is they have asked for it not to be a christmas tree.  Hmmm...

Some initial ideas were to look into the panto they have on in the theatre and take some inspiration from that, as well as looking into other areas of the MacRobert Centre that could be utilised by me for the purposes of this project.

I have been really enjoying creating stop motion films...I quite like that they seem to be a cross between mixed media and painting, only they move which I am still fascinated by.  The filmmaker Norman McLaren created many stop motion films in his lifetime and I am massively influenced by the work he has done.  At the MacRobert Centre they also have a cinema which is appropriately named The Norman McLaren Film House.

I liked this connection and have decided to look into stop motion with cut paper for this piece.  Here is one of Norman McLaren's cut paper stop motion films La Merle 1958...

http://vimeo.com/19545301

Still on my holidays...

So...I've decided to start a new couple of projects for my own amusement during my time off between college terms.

After having been through to Edinburgh for a previous project I had a fair collection of images from various parts of the city. Views of streets and closes, old buildings and really old buildings, unusual little markings on the pavements or partially worn away posters on telephone boxes.  That sort of thing, city stuff.  The one thing that did grab my attention was the very old graffiti at the top of the Scott Monument, fascinating stuff.  Not just scrawled writings like 'baz waz ere' and stuff like that but beautifully etched perfect lettering depicting initials and usually a date too.  I also began to take photos of old and fading hand painted signage for businesses around the city, usually found at the entrance to a tenement which housed several businesses.

With that in mind, I have taken myself into my home city of Glasgow, to do the same.  Its amazing how many there are and how many look like they may disappear from sight very quickly.  Some are already worn away without much trace but there always is a little left over, maybe even just a slight discolouration of the sandstone they were painted onto.

Well, I thought...and so I'm on a one woman mission to try and preserve as many of these lovingly hand painted signs that may not remain for much longer in our cities or towns and even villages.

I'm not entirely sure yet exactly how I will preserve these masters of signage but I'll just see where my research takes me, either way its entertaining just trying to find them!

Some world famous hand painted signage up The Barras in Glasgow

Integrated Project...final resolution and projection of film...block 2

And finally...here we have the product of research into community, magnets and murmurations.  I decided on filming various sequences of birds together then overlaying them and creating a paper murmuration.  I then cropped, detached the unwanted audio and blended in the video of magnetic iron filings.

I also created my own sounds to accompany the video. A bit of an assault on the senses, i mixed the noise of a group of people chatting and a group of starlings taking off and chattering too.  I felt they worked well together because I wanted to give the impression of something being overwhelming like very large groups of people or murmurations of starlings.

Stills from my video before adding the iron filings ...

A still frame from the final film I produced and uploaded to YouTube as Magnetic Murmurations...

A photo of the final projection of Magnetic Murmurations produced by myself M.Muir copyright 2014.  The videos of the rooftop projection and final video have been uploaded to YouTube for your viewing pleasure...

just follow this link to YouTube or copy it into your search engine...

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJoTq9dMVgd7vw23Q5A2zlA/videos

Enjoy

Integrated Project...paper bird animation...block 2

My initial idea was to animate some birds that i would cut from paper, so i decided to continue with this idea too, to help create my paper murmuration and to try another effect...

This is a rough draught of the cut paper animation i had in mind...its amazing how quickly the brain joins things up and even though there is a full second between between frames we still see moving objects.

After the success of this video too I decided to incorporate both elements of handmade paper birds and iron filings together.

Integrated Project...block 2...development

Well, after finding out about all the magnetic properties of starlings I decided, on advice of a lecturer, to try out some iron filings...the last time I had seen any iron filings was in this old game...

I experimented with moving the filings around from underneath some paper with various sizes of magnets...

I was very pleased with the results I got. The filings looked like the shapes murmurations make in the sky, the only problem I had was that I needed to find a more secure surface as the paper had a tendency to buckle and warp as the magnets moved the filings around...

I tied to secure it with books and candle holders and all sorts but the paper wasn't strong enough, so I opted to use a streched canvas instead.