This week we finished the first 2 briefs for the course. Next week we start the theoretical part of the course (joy -.-).

1st Brief - Sotonia

Unfortunately I lost the brief details by the time I made this. However the idea was for us to explore Southampton and produce 9 pieces of work, based on the instructions of the brief. Those that I followed were (theses descriptions are from memory :S)

- Find an item of your choice and design a t-shirt around it.
- Go to French & Sons shoe shop and draw a pair of shoes.
- Design a weather vane for the Royal Pier.
- Buy a vinyl record from a charity shop and redesign the cover.
- sketch the whale skeleton in the museum of natural history and design a menu around it.
- Sketch 10 faces at the John Lewis cafe in West Quay.
- Draw the Titanic Memorial.
- Draw something interesting in Mayflower Park.
- visit the Bargate Memorial Gallery and draw something of interest.


2nd Brief - Ghost Stories

"you are asked to produce a series of images based on M.R. James stores: The Ash Tree, The Number 13 or Oh Whistle, and I'll Come to you my lad. You are required to produce a minimum of 4 final artworks. The page size for full page illustrations are 230mm x 175mm.

I made mine based on the The Number 13, mainly because it had a setting in Viborg (Denmark). In addition the sparse setting of the story allowed me to change the time from 19th century to early 20th century. The images were produced on varnished paper (something I had discovered in a printmaking workshop). The dull brown and grey tone reminded me of HP Lovecraft's works as well as Deadspace. Therefore I found them perfect for creating a sense of unease As we were encouraged to use new mediums, the best part of this project was done in brush pen.


The assessment was done in groups of 12 (though only 8 showed for mine ) with 2 tutors. The work would be presented and discussed. They have told us to expect the grade in 2 weeks (why it takes 2 weeks to grade something like that I have no idea :S). I did horribly on mine because I was at the bottom of the list, and after sitting in the same place for 6 hours listening to other people talk about their work I was exhausted. It didn't help that everyone wanted to leave at that point (even the tutors!). Basically the last 3 people were unlucky