PDP and practical HND - site specific guided busway

I have had a group discussion with other students on this course as well as the tutor, discussing the space we have for this new project which is designing artwork that will be displayed on the guided busway, we have discussed ideas and what is needed to do before we start.

26th November 2013 

As a group we have had another discussion about what we need to ask so that we can progress onto creating ideas for the busway scheme. We wrote an email to a woman involved to see if we could get some answers about the budget and how much space we have each, we need to know where we will be going so that we can start thinking of ideas to do which are successful.

27th November 2013 

We have had another discussion as a group about ideas that we could do for this project, we have now got the idea of doing a timeline and each of us had two different times to research,

Mine is 'coal' and 'Saxon' 

We want this to be educational to children and interesting to adults. 

We have been around wigan to see some site specific work that they have around the town. 

I have taken images around town of site specific artwork so that I can see what has been there a long time and had lasted, also to get some ideas of what materials and sculptures to design. 

9th December 2013 

I took a picture of the big wheel that is being moved to a different place infront of the college. This links to the project as we can see how big site specific artwork is moved and put into place.

And this is where it is being moved to.

10th December 2013

I have started to get images of research into my book so that I can get ideas from them to design a sculpture for the busway scheme, I have drawn a couple of objects that I found around the college that I feel is linked to this mining theme such as old machinery.

16th December 2013

I have started to draw out a couple of ideas from looking at different shapes that I think relate to this project. 

We also had a talk with an artist names jane who showed us some work that she has done and what she's working on at the moment, 

I did feel that I learned something from this and she told us that we need to get out there and talk to people in order to get get ourselves and our work known. 

She also said it is very hard work and time consuming which I agreed with. I now feel that I can talk to other artists in confidence and ask them about their work because they are just like me or was just like me once. 

To help me with the basic drawing skills on creating the ideas for this project I had a 3D drawing lesson, which helped me because now I feel that I can draw out ideas more confidently.

17th December 2013 

I have drawn objects that I found in college which I feel links in with this project and then I have used the shapes to create designs for the busway, using 3D drawing techniques. I feel that I am now making progress as I didn't have any ideas before, 

Now I can get more ideas by looking at each of my designs and changing them around to make them look more effective. 

18th December 2013

More of my ideas that I have got from looking at my other ideas and other artists public art work.

6th January 2014

This pose was hard to draw accurately and it took a lot of time and measuring, but I feel that it is quite successful for the first time doing life class in a few weeks. 

Different stanges of my clay maquette.

This took me a while to create but I wanted it to be as successful and accuarate as possible, this design is of a wheel, which would be places into the floor as part of a path way.

I think it is a simple design but could be effective, I now need to make sure it gets fired so I can add colour.

8th January 2014

I have tried out 3 different softwares to try and create an image of one of my design, the first one was 'sketch up' I have used this in school so I had an idea on how to create a 3D image.

I used 'Inkscape' which wasn't successful as I couldn't get the angles correct so I then tried adobe illustrator, on this I could create a flat line drawing of my design. It is now ready to be put through the laser cutter. 

I also used adobe illustrator which turned out to be more successful.

                     Inkscape 

Sketchup 

Adobe illustrator  

  This is the image I'm using to programme into the laser machine.

9th January 2014

The machine that engraved and cuts through materials , such as wood which Is what I used .

I can now take the different cut outs and arrange them in different ways to create now composition, patters and design ideas.

 27th January 2014

At the studios that I visited I did some printmaking from compositions in my book from this project. 

I learned different techiniques in print that I didn't know before and now I want to play more with materials. I want to try and print into book pages and newspapers like kentridge does as I like this effect.

I scratched the compositions into the prospect and then took prints from them, I enjoyed doing this because I could get different prints, I added more to the composition by scratching another image onto the prospect each time I printed.

Each time I engraved more into the prospect so that the prints were slightly different, I also added different techniques, such as adding pages from an od newspaper, cutting different shapes out of tissue paper and also using more pressure  engrave which created different tones depending on how much pressure I used.

 11th March 2014

These design sheets have got my ideas on them for the busway, me and charlotte have joined our original ideas and took the shapes and patterns to create new ideas. I think that some are more successful than others but I feel that every idea counts as it can lead onto a new design.

12th March 2014

This is the second part to my design sheets which needed finishing off, I have used the shapes and patterns to try and design more seating areas as I think that they would be more suitable which people can relax on.

13th March 2014

 I have used photoshop to edit and change one of my designs so that it is ready to be put into a landscape. I found it quite hard at first but I soon got the hang of using it, I used different tools to cut out, resize, and add colour to the design that I scanned in.

17th March 2014

Again I have been using photoshop to edit my designs and put them into a landscape image, I have taken images from the busway plans and other images from tyldesley so that I can see what it would look like realistically.

 27th March 2014

I have attended the presentation to show our designs for the busway to the project manager, and a few other people, this was nerve racking but exciting as it was a good opportunity to have experience of working on public art projects as professional. It went very well as they liked all of our designs and seemed really happy with the work we had done for it.

 Overall this guided busway project has been stressful but a brilliant opportunity as I have got to work with the outside world and be more professional with my work which has opened my eyes to what it is like working with companies and doing public art projects. It was exciting thinking that my designs for this project could be made and put into a public place for people to see on a daily basis. It was nerve racking going to the cotton mill to present our ideas to the bosses but I now realise that it isn't as hard as I thought and it was good for experience in the future. 

18th September 2014- second year HND

This week me and the other pupils visited the cotton mill again for another meeting about the busway and other work they now want us to be involved in, we have now been asked to design posters that will be placed in the terminals, we will also be designing as a group a new sculpture that will be placed in the leigh bus station, we want to incorporate some materials that have been found whilst the old railway has been dug up. we also discussed the materials that will be used for making the sculptures that were picked, I feel that there still hasn't been a definite decision made about materials and size as we have now realised that the material we use is based on which costs the least amount of money and which has less chance of being vandalised.  

But we do have a better idea of the material options that we do a which we didn't know about before.

They have now asked me and the group to design some posters to advertise the new busway system.

Here are some images of the development that I did to get to the finished poster. 

I did drawings of the inside of a bus and other mechanical objects that I thought would be appropriate for this subject. I then used fine liner and water to create this effect that is seen in the image, I also used Indian ink which will not bleed once dry and once water is added to it. The reason I used this as well was to put darker tones in places without the bleeding effect being overpowering on the image. I feel that this is relevant as it is the inside of an old dirty bus which shows that having this new busway system can be positive because they will be brand new and more pleasant to sit on.  

I have created this using the same techniques that I have previously used in a past FMP project, I have realised that it has an interesting effect and I find that it works well for me.