Casting Workshop

The casting process

In the cast workshop we had to choice a piece of fruit to create a wax cast of. As I have been looking at fear, anxiety and religion I decided to cast an apple. The Apple is symbolic of man's temptation and defiance against God, through the biblical story of the Devil tempting Eve into eating the fruit of The tree of knowledge of good and evil when God forbid her from doing so, which is often depicted to be an apple. 

Completed cast

Wax Apple

Summer Task: Found Objects (Drawing)

In my summer project I was focusing on found objects that had been left or lost in public spaces. All of these objects were found along a few streets in Walthamstow, London where I spent most of my summer. A lot of items are left dumped out on the streets in this area, rather than being taken to a tip. After a few days the council usually come along and collect them, or other people take them.

Broken chair

Unwanted furniture left on the street

Cleaning product

A single shoe

Folding table

Assorted items left on the street

Push chair on a pile of rubble

Children's bike and police car (unfinished)

Loughborough in Mist

The boulevard, the morning after a holi paint party during freshers

The aftermath

Etching Workshop

Metal etching

I had another print workshop, this time on etching into a metal plate. By this point my independent study work was focused around personal anxiety and fears,

1. File down the edges of the metal plate to removed any sharp areas that might damage material during the printing process
2. Polish the surface of the plate. We used a thin, creamy liquid for this I'm unsure of the name of..
3. Mix together chalk and ammonia (?) rub all over the plate with a sponge to remove the greasy layer left over by the polish. Rinse off with water.
4. Heat the plate and rub an even coating of varnish/wax all over to create a ground.
5. Using a candle, gently allow the tip of a flame to flow over the plate, forming a layer of soot. This is easiest when the plate is being held upside down by a clamp.
6. The soot and wax layer dries almost instant and can be drawn into with any sharp tool, revealing the untouched metal below.
7. Attach tape to the back of the plate, to protect it from the acid bath.
8. Drop the plate into an acid bath (need to check what the actual mixture we used was). The acid bites away at the exposed metal, created an indented etching where you drew.
9. After around 15 mins you can remove the plate and continue drawing into it if desired, to create another tone and depth to the etching. Then return it to the acid for another 15 mins.
10. Remove from the acid after around half an hour (?), rinse the acid off with water and then clean off the remaining wax/soot to reveal the plate.

Monochrome print

I absolutely love the texture in the prints from the fine scratches on the surface of the metal plate. I also experimented with coloured inks and tissue paper, one of which I've shown below. The use of red and light brown inks give the appearance of a raw, red eyeball as if it has been greatly agitated. It looks slightly demonic, which works well with my project theme of fear and anxiety.

Black, brown & red print

Photography Workshop

Hair Self-portrait

During a photography workshop, we were asked to take a self portrait. This could be in any setting, but did not have to be a typical portrait shot of our face. I instantly knew I wanted to work outside rather than in the studio, as I much prefer natural lighting and working with found backdrops. I began thinking about what visually represents me and I came to a conclusion pretty quickly - my hair. My hair has always been pretty long and for me it's a representation of my femininity.

I was 16 when I came out and the main reaction I got from people was shock and "omg you don't look gay". I was rather feminine, not an undercut or rugby ball in sight. I distinctly remember one drunk girl telling me that if she were gay, I would be the perfect lesbian because I didn't look gay at all. As if that were some kind of compliment. At first, I tended to just laugh it off, but the daily disbelief and need to constantly reassure people that yes I am in fact a raging homo got to me after a while. I don't know what people expected to happen when I told them I was a lesbian. Did they expect me to suddenly chop off all my hair and carry a box set of The L Word with me everywhere I went, a mating call to all other potential lesbians out there? After some particularly nasty anonymous tumblr messages claiming I was an attention seeker and not gay at all, I'd had enough. So I rebelled against what I felt everyone expected a lesbian to be, by dressing in the girliest and most feminine way I have done in my whole life. I wore a lot of pink and a lot of floaty clothing.

Selfie circa 2012

In retrospect, I had it a lot easier than many people when they come out and should probably be relieved all I had to worry about was whether people believed I was gay or not, and the fact I dated a boy again pretty soon after coming out probably didn't help these rumours and disbelief. For me, dressing like this was a big "fuck you" to everyone else. But it did lead to a lot of unpleasant interactions with men on nights out, one in particular when my best friends very drunk ex picked me up in the middle of a dance floor and start to dry hump me and aggressively tell me he was going to fuck me against the wall. Apparently the fact I had a girlfriend, whom he had met several times, was not a valid reason for him to stop and he instead began asking what she could give me that he couldn't (in much more vulgar terms). Situations like these are unfortunately probably all too familiar to women, regardless of their sexuality, however I felt like my femininity was somehow an unspoken allowance for men to treat me like that regardless of the fact I liked women rather than them.

So yes, in this self portrait my hair represents my femininity. But it is covering my face, as even now when I dress pretty averagely balanced on the scale of masculine to feminine, my long hair seems to immediately make me more "girly" and I often feel like this femininity and the way that I choose to present myself is all people see about me, and other aspects of my identity are overlooked.

Canvas Stretching

Canvas after the first layer of glue

Although I'd had the opportunity during my Foundation course, I'd never stretched a canvas before, so I was pretty excited to learn. I'll share the process we used, mainly for my own personal use to look back on.

1. Cut the wood to your desired length, with each separating cut at an angle to allow each piece to easily slot together to make a square. We used a wood cutter that I've not forgotten the name of, helpful I know.. but you pressed down on a lever with your foot to cut through the wood, involving a lot of jiggling and jumping at some points (which was not pleasant first thing in the morning when you're severely hungover!)
2. Cut thinner strips of dowel to the same lengths. The dowel we used had two flat edges and one curved. These will be attached to the frame to keep the canvas slightly lifted above the framework.
3. Line up your frame pieces into the desired shape, apply glue to each of the newly cut edges and keep in place with a metal corner clip. Staple the wood together using an air staple gun.
4. Line up the dowel strips on top of the frame, in line with the outer edges. Glue these to the frame and use an air nail gun to secure.
5. Cut the canvas to an area larger than your canvas, to allow for some to be folded behind and attached.
6. Lay the frame on top of the canvas, dowel side down. Fold the canvas around the frame, making sure the edges are tight and have no bulges. Air staple into place.
7. Paint on a layer of rabbit glue or acrylic primer to finish and tighten the canvas. Allow to dry and repeat the process.

I opted to use the rabbit glue and although it smelt somewhat questionable, it felt nice to be using traditional methods on my frame that have been used for years. Unfortunately I went a little wrong with the folding of my canvas and ended up with a lump on one corner which I had to staple down, but as long as it's hung with that side at the bottom or top it's not noticeable.

Underneath of the canvas