The past month has been as refreshing as it ever is. The work i’ve done hasn’t had the impact on my research as I would like… but I must forgive myself… as it was Christmas!…. (seems to get longer every year… oh well)

I needed to make some money to buy christmas presents, and luckily found the chance to do a few Christmas Portraits. All of them are simply pencil on paper, and have been done from photographs rather than sittings, though I do aim to start a weekly life drawing class early this year to work on my confidence with sitters.

   

All year I’ve intended to do something to remember the centenary of the First World War, and in my usual style…. i left it to the final 3 days of December to cram it in. With a stroke of luck, and a few potentially rushed decisions, I completed an A3 lino-cut to honour both the soldiers, and our remembrance of them 100 years on. It depicts a line of soldiers marching through the mud on their way to war, and below them the poppies that stem from their sacrifice.

The beginning of the month, however, was a little more productive. I created a sketchbook to bring together the work done in the first term. It simply acts as a reflective journal of my initial ideas when approaching the project proposal, including the original mind maps / notes / readings / images for inspiration / as well as my artworks. Here’s a few pages below:

Below are a few till receipt sketches done whilst bored at work….. and a few other random bits and bobs from the month, both hand-drawn and digital.

This month, I will continue working on a commission. The work is looking into digitised society, and the spectacles many of us miss as are faces are buried in our phones.. Its a large canvas, in fact, the largest I’ve done for a little while. The original blueprint design is a photoshopped image from different photographs taken throughout 2014. Many of the figures within the final piece, are figures I have used in separate, smaller works. The current condition of the canvas is still only an under-painting, but I will log its progress over the next few weeks, and be sure to keep this updated.

The other thing I’ve been working on, however, I aim to do a much more detailed post on this… includes an arduino and LEDs.. I have purchased the components needed to fulfil my concept…. however I am wading in waters I have no place in swimming… and haven’t yet figured out the coding necessary to fulfil my hopes…. though I did manage to get the LED working! Which is a small step…. but one thing at a time!