Negociated Project

Its the final week of negotiated projects and if I knuckle down and do a few late nights I think i'll make the deadline. Im still not feeling 100% well which is annoying as i've been ill for almost a month now! I feel so lethargic which doesn't help when I have so much painting, blogging and essay work and sketching to do!

I started my portrait painting when I was in London. I decided to do it in the style of Gustav Klimt. The Opera House gave me a second project and i asked if i could make it a painting, planning on killing two birds with one stone! I didn't get that much done in London as I ended up having to re-do a lot of it.
Today I made....ok so today I didn't make too much progress because of being ill and having a bad nights sleep. I did make a bit of progress and looking at my portrait again a week later and talking with Gary I can see what changes I need to make to improve it.

For my figure painting I decided to do a Degas which I got finished in time for Christmas  I was quite happy with it as it was a style that I hadn't done before and I enjoyed the way it was so smooth. I think If I didn't have to go to that paint-call that day before Christmas I could have got it finished in 2-3 days which would have been a record for me! I didn't really stick to my deadlines for the negotiated project, I'm sticking to the final deadline date but I think when I don't know exactly how much time i'm going to have to work on them and making myself work on days that I don't have the concentration or the motivation I don't get much done so that why I didn't really stick to the dates. I was supposed to have my Degas finished by the 7 Dec, I think I finished it on the 15 Dec as I had to come in one Saturday to do some last minute adjustments! I am happy with it but I don't think I can pass it off as a replica as it doesn't really look anything like the original. I really need to improve my drawing skills and spend more time being more thorough in my drawing and getting things exact before I start applying the paint.

The first painting I did was my landscape. I did a Van Gough sea scape. Although it took me ages to make a start on this painting as I was so scared about the style he painted in. It was very rough and full of feeling which was very different from what i'd done on my previous paintings. Once I made a start to it though and actually learnt to feel the painting rather than concentrate on getting every exact line the same I did have fun painting it and really love the finished product. If it hadn't procrastinated so much to start this painting I think I may have been able to keep to the deadline dates.

I have really enjoyed this negotiated project module and have realised that I should definitely use the facilities at uni to work on personal projects and expand my portfolio before I no longer have that opportunity. It has made me realise that I need to improve my drawing skills and concentrate more on the drawing before just slapping on the paint. If the drawing is wrong then the painting will be wrong. I'm planning a couple more paintings to make a start on during my bridge week that I will definitely put a lot more effort into to make my portfolio look better!

Royal Opera House....Part 2.

I managed to get some sleep at the weekend and went in with a positive attitude on Monday morning. It was much the same as the previous week, I spent the morning cleaning buckets. I think it was just that I had come at a time that there wasn't really much to do, well there was, but they didn't need any extra hands, especially a pair of hands that they didn't know, they didn't know my skills or experience.
I went along with it, keeping positive, trying not to get too down about the whole experience. In the afternoon I helped Lizzy do some washes, shadowing and a bit of spatter with the spray gun on some of the doors for Onegin.

One of the workshops...

On Tuesday Mark asked if I wanted to do another drawing as there wasn't much more production work that required an extra pair of hands. I asked if I could do a painting instead as I hoped to kill two birds with one stone and make a start on my negotiated project and hoped that i would get some good guidance and help from all the talented people that worked at the Opera House. Mark agreed and I spent a couple of hours researching what image I wanted to do. I ended up choosing a Klimt and was given a huge piece of beautiful new canvas to work on!
I stared drawing up my image and again was pretty much left to my own devices. On Wednesday I started painting and made quite a bit of progress....I thought. Emma came down and we had a look through my portfolio. It was really good to get a professional in the industry's input....even if it did make me feel a little down. I know i haven't done much outside work, although to be fair i've done as much as I can with the time i've had! It was good to have her tell me what she would be looking for from a portfolio and gave me some ideas of how I can improve mine over time. I know my drawing is probably one of my weakest points, and Emma did point this out to me and recommended that I start taking night classes....I do need to improve and I am definitely going to work on my drawing skills and try and do a lot more sketches, just set aside times during the week to do them.
On Thursday I set about doing my painting again until Mike (who used to be the head scenic artist for the opera house and who is now retired but helps out freelance from time to time) came and told me that Emma had asked him to come and give me some advice/guidance on my painting. I was quite happy about this but also a little annoyed that I was only getting this help on my second last day...

Mike was an interesting character...I was ill and hadn't been sleeping so I was probably a bit more emotional than usual but his words were pretty harsh and a few of the things he said did almost bring me to tears especially as he didn't know anything about me. But, after listening to him and realising that he was right and that I should really use this opportunity to work with someone like him and take something out of it, I let him paint away the work id spent the last 2 days doing...

Mike wanted me to do my painting in an impressionist style which I was more than happy to do as I hadn't done anything like that before. The style was very different and it was definitely out my comfort zone but I got into it and actually quite enjoyed doing it and loved the colours I was creating. Mike came and went giving me advice and criticism, I decided to take all the negative things he said with a pinch of salt. I left on Thursday night feeling a little down. I decided to take a trip to the national portrait gallery to get some inspiration. I just had a quick browse as I was supposed to be going to a show with one of the guys I was living with. When I met him I was still not in the best of moods so we skipped the theatre and he took me out for dinner instead so I could rant to him about my horrible day and he could cheer me up.

 

On Friday I was quite glad it was my last day...Although I was also enjoying getting some guidance and advice and help with my painting. Friday was also the day of the snow...the snow that poor little London cannot handle. It always makes me laugh that this weather that we get every year always causes such a fuss in London and transport just shuts down. Everyone had one eye on the window waiting for the snow to start. To be fair we were in the middle of nowhere and I did not want to spend my last weekend in London stuck in the middle of Essex. I made some more progress on the portrait and Mike even gave me a backhanded compliment saying that "it looks better than i expected it to look" so that was...nice?... Come 3 o'clock I was told that the trains back to London were getting funny and that i should probably think about heading home. It was a bit of a rush in the end as I was offered a lift to the station so had to quickly grab all my stuff, get changed and run away. I didnt even really get a proper chance to say bye to everyone which was a shame.

The paint shop!

Although my work placement wasn't what I expected it to be I am looking at the positives. It was an amazing experience to be able to spend two weeks there and see the amazingly detailed work they produce. It made me realise that If I ever want to work somewhere as big as the Opera House I have a lot of work to do. I need to improve my drawing skills and take more time to be precise rather than wanting to churn out more and more projects. I need to choose more detailed paintings to do so that my portfolio has a wow factor rather than it just being another one to add to the pile.
I really enjoyed my time in London and I think that I learnt that somewhere like the Opera House isn't for me. It had a very obvious hierarchy which I didn't like. I think I would much prefer to work somewhere smaller where maybe the work isn't quite as tight and perfect as somewhere as renowned as the Opera house. I think i work better in a smaller team, like the lyceum, I think there was too much competition with the 15 or so scenic artists they had in London. I did learn a lot about my time in London and I know what I need to work on to improve myself :)

Welcome to 2013!

End of term snuck us on up pretty quickly and it was the Christmas break before we knew it! I managed to get my Degas finished just in time for my mums Christmas!

The week after we broke up from uni I was at the Lyceum helping them work on 'A taste of honey' It was a really good week, the people there all made me feel so welcome and on my second day i felt like id known them all for months. I was actually quite sad when it came to the end of the week. I did some stenciling on bits of metal grate, the design was quite an interesting one, im not sure the designer really knew what she wanted, but hey, I got a chance to do stuff I hadn't done before! Oh and I did some wallpapering, always a good skill to learn!

Christmas and all its dramas came and went as did new year and suddenly January here! I came down to London for my work placement on the 2nd with my brother. Spent the first few days getting to know my way around and get the hang of the tubes! It's actually not as scary as i was making out, downloading a tube app on my phone has definitely been a lifesaver though!

On the 7th I made my way to Covent Garden for my induction at the Royal Opera house, it only lasted an hour, watching a couple of videos on the history of the Opera House and how it works, very interesting. I then managed to persuade my friend to come on a little trip to Purfleet in Essex so that I could find my way to the workshop where id be working. It seems a very random place to have a workshop, not very much around, a few new houses an industrial estate. But the workshop itself looked huge from the outside, huge and modern!

 Woke up on Tuesday not feeling great, I was full of the cold and had a sore throat but I tried to ignore it and got to it. When I arrived Emma introduced me to her first intern Lizzy who was lovely and gave me a little tour of the building....which is massive! I spent Tuesday working on a cloth for the next show 'Eugene Onegin' and priming some flats. I was chatting to mark who is the assistant head scenic artist to Emma. He was telling me about the 5 cloths they were working on at that point (all of which were on the paint shop floor, just to give an example of the size of the place!) It was a bit daunting on my first day but I did enjoy it and was working on a few different bits and bobs.

When I woke up on Wednesday I felt absolutely awful! I'd hardly slept as I had been up half the night in pain from my throat and woke up with swollen glands and feeling like I was swallowing razor blades. I found Wednesday pretty difficult. There are about 15 scenic artist working there at the moment, some full time and some freelance. The ones i've talked to have all been lovely but as a whole i felt a little out of place, i didn't feel very welcome. There were times where I had nothing to do and i ended up just taking it upon myself to go and wash buckets. They kept saying they had so much to do and that they were running behind yet there seemed to be nothing to do. I did feel a little like they weren't prepared for me coming.
On Thursday i was still feeling pretty ill and had hardly slept. Mark and Emma gave me a little project to do, a large charcoal drawing using charcoal on a stick. I did quite enjoy just being left on my own as at least I had something to do but i did end up getting a bit bored and went to see if i could help anyone with anything. Unfortunately i felt isolated and pushed in the corner for the rest of the week and as much as i tried to not let feeling ill get to me and affect my work I did not enjoy my first week and each day could not wait for 4.15 to come quick enough.

I know how much of an amazing experience this is that i'm getting but it is not at all what i expected. Last week I tried so hard to fit in and feel part of the team despite feeling like absolute shit and taking paracetamol and lemsip at every opportunity. The more I tried though the more I realised that it didn't actually have anything to do with the fact I was ill. It felt as though they get so many work placement/ interns that maybe they just don't care anymore. They are also treating me a little like I don't know anything which I feel is a little patronising. Like they asked if i had used a spray gun before, and if i had ever done lining or used charcoal on a stick....
I've spent the weekend with my brother relaxing, seeing London and art galleries and trying to get better, I'm still not feeling 100% but i'm feeling better and i'm going to go back into this week with a positive attitude (not that i didn't have one last week) and hopefully try and get all I can get out of it!
So that's week one done! I'm loving the London life though, even the commute and having to get up at 5.30am to get to work for 8am isn't too bad, its tiring but luckily i'm a morning person and i guess my experience from working at the fringe and being able to work on only a few hours sleep helps!