'Record' Project: Sounds

More recorded sounds, but I've been focusing more on conversations. I think these are more interesting, some of them are quite muffled but some are complex and busy. I like how you can make out small areas here and there but not always the whole picture, which is really what I've been looking at both in my journals and during development of work.




I think this is a good example of what I was talking about before, I was quite lucky here because on the bus the background noise is usually too loud to make anything out! There are probably around 10 different conversations happening here.




This is from the library in college. This was just one conversation between lots of people which I liked, because you'd think the sound would be clearer, but they were all talking between themselves and over eachother so it's still quite difficult to make out.




This was a large group of people all talking to eachother, and you can hear the television on in the background, with presenters having a conversation with eachother, and the viewers if you like. I think that adds another dimention to the recording as there are different types of conversation and also communication involved.




This is a good example of what I meant about the buses, it's hard to make anything out past the background noise! You can hear some muffled conversation but nowhere near as clear as my other recordings.

The clear recordings are a great addition to my work and I think now I'm really rounding up the basis or theme if you like. It's good to have something other than drawings and recorded conversations in my journal to go by. To improve I think I'd need to place myself in busy places or situations to get good quality clear recordings of the conversations, because some of these are quite hard to understand! I am happy with them though, I like that you can get a little look into someones day or situation.

'Record' Project: Text.

I've been thinking about using text in my images, to decide I looked through all the type in my journal so far, evaluating and picking my favourites.

I like most of these, I think they could be really interesting drawn up with conversation.

A few of these are very similar to what I like to use normally, I'd like to try quite a few of these though, it won't do any harm to have choice.

I tried out several in my sketchbook, and finally drew up a few I liked to be scanned in.

All the phrases were taken from conversations I've recorded in my sketchbook, I thought they were interesting and can also be used together.

I'm planning to use these in Photoshop, and I think my final decisions were the right ones. There is actually a fair amount of variation and I think I'll be able to work with all of them.

Inspiration

A little bit of photo inspiration for colour and pattern.

'Record' Project: More Sounds.

Over the break I've been trying to collect some more sound pieces. They are quite varied but I think that's important as I want to have lots of very different material.




I like this sound clip because it shows a very normal everyday situation, however you are focusing on it in more detail. I think the conversation and language is interesting!




Something incredibly different. My younger brother ended up joining a choir through what started as a Sheffield music project in primary schools a few years ago. This is from a performance we went to see in the church. I decided to record one of the songs because the material is so different to what I have already. This is a great contrast to the everyday voices and sounds I have already.





This is very muffled and you can barely make out anything at all, it is very loud on planes. Even so I kept it in, I think it's a lesson that very loud background noise isn't always the best time to try and record, and also the quality on my phone is rubbish!




This one is great, there is very mixed conversation going on and in different languages too! Unfortunately you can here my cousin and uncle talking about berets but perhaps that only adds to the strange but great mix of different voices here!

I'll leave it here for now, but I'm really enjoying working with these sounds. I think it's a great alternative way to collect material and adds another dimention to the work. I apologise for the rubbish quality though!

'Record' Project: A Journey.

I went away during the break, and while we were there we did the same bus journey everyday. It was really exciting to be in a place I didn't know and the journey was really interesting, lots of very windy roads and sharp turns and different streets. I decided to film what I could one day. I love the effect it has when you turn the corners and your viewpoint changes, I also thought it was funny how I'd occasionally come face to face with people. My phone didn't last the whole journey unfortunately but I got a fair amount of it. I was originally going to mute this as I talk the whole way through it (hate hearing your own voice.), but I couldn't figure out how so you'll just have to put up with me.




I think it's great to get an different and ever changing viewpoint of an alien area. Every corner you turn the perspective changes and suddenly there's another alleyway or a train track that you weren't expecting. I really enjoyed filming this clip, it was just quite embarrassing having people notice what you were doing!

'Record' Project: Journal So Far.

I decided I'll do a post reflecting on the work in my drawing journal so far. I think it'll help me pick out what I like and what works and think about how I could expand the work I have now, and what techniques I can apply to future drawings. I picked out and scanned in my favourite pages.

I've really enjoyed including text, and also layering up work. I like the how busy some of the pages are. 

I think the pencil texture looks great, I always lean on pen and I need to push myself to work with a much larger range of media in my journal. I've started laying grounds too, to avoid those plain backgrounds.

I was being more careful with colour here which I think kind of works, but also looks a little harsh and boring. I wish I had included some collage in these images. 

I need to keep producing more work, and make sure I'm always drawing on transport when I have nothing else to do. Other than that, focus on experimenting with a wider range of media.

To expand from these I think I'll do some found image style collages, based around my theme as well as what I've produced so far. I'd also like to try the oil on paper/transparent technique as I didn't quite have time today. 

'Record' Project: Working with Sound.

 In a session with my tutor it was suggested that I start looking at all the differnt ways of recording information and imagery, including video and sound. This is a short post with a few sound clips from my morning. It's really enjoyable, and I think I'll keep taking short sound clips when I'm working on location they could even complement drawn pieces.

'Record' Project: Drawing Workshop and Development.

To generate ideas and begin work for out final major project, we had to bring in items to work from that were related to our theme. I chose glasses and toy cars. My project is called 'Record', I thought the glasses represented observation and the toy cars could relate to the everyday things you see around you. We were using them for a drawing workshop. This workshop was really fast paced, and covered a whole range of different experimental drawing techniques. I worked on sizes A4 to A2, and also on grounds we built ourselves.

I'm not sure how I feel about this piece, I think in some areas it really works, like the glasses cut out and where the oil has covered that. It gives it an interesting texture and almost looks like a print. I think I should have placed the large car cut out elsewhere, as the rectangle shape is cutting off the rest of the image. 

This one is tiny, only on A4. It worked initially but I regret cutting out a large section of the image. After that I struggled to find any use for the piece, or make it work with any other images.

This was the largest piece of work I did, A2. You can see that halfway through I managed to spill a whole pot of ink all over the paper. I did my best to half cover the spill with tracing paper and masking tape. It worked and I actually think it creates layers and texture. As a whole though, it definitely doesn't work. There is too much happening.

You can see that this was originally one piece, which I then cut up and developed, adding collage and layering up tissue and tracing paper, also adding a black ink drawing (bottom left). I think these were my favourite outcomes from the day. Cutting the image in half created two separate pieces that were decent. 

At home I wanted to develop another piece of work, using a viewfinder I tried to pick out areas from different pieces of work that I thought could stand on their own. 

The second image is my favourite, really toned down. In the end I actually made a completely different decision, and cut up the A2 piece of work (3rd image on the post). I really wasn't happy with it. I got rid of the car cut out, and places the glasses cut out over the ink spill, and then added some red found materials because it needed some colour. It's still really messy, but I'm glad I took the risk and cut it up because I'm much happier with the outcome now.

Overall, the workshop was perfectly timed for me. I think I was slipping back into being too careful and not taking any risks. Working this way reminded me that I need to start from scratch and really work on generating ideas rather than focusing on outcomes from the beginning. My work was clumsy and messy but it doesn't matter, because developing my work allowed me to really focus on moving forward and improving what I had. I'll definitely keep working this way every now and again, and hopefully come back and work on/from the pieces I produced.