Another week closer to the show and still falling behind schedule.
We had an Exhibition meeting today to discuss the timetable and important stuff concerning the show. Funny, only half of us turned up.
We got the dates that we are given our spaces – May 6th – They are all ours and we can start putting up the show ready for the 30th which is preview night.
We have helpers from the first year Fine Art course who are assigned to help us with putting up the show, painting walls, floors e.t.c – It all seems too close for comfort. I stiill have loads to do yet.
I finished stretching canvas over my new frames then I bolted them together to make a large panel, ready for sizing tomorrow.
My problem at the moment is finding the time to work into my journals, hopefully once this large painting is finished I will be in a better position to work on the journals. I have lots of information, drawings, ideas etc to put into them but it just needs to be collated and inserted.
I ache all over today and I really need a good nights sleep to get some energy back. It's all the result of yesterday. A group of us from Derby Fine Art 3rd year (along with a few other supporters) did a sponsored walk to raise more funds for our Degree show catalogue. We walked about 7 miles down Dovedale until we cut across into Biggin dale. The weather was quite kind to us really, apart from a few hail showers we got off quite lightly.
An interesting thing I have discovered at University is that it is the same people who are involved in every event and fundraiser. The same people who work so hard and put so much in whilst the same people just can't be bothered or are not in the slightest bit interested. These people will reap the benefit of the small hardworking group's efforts without even having to raise a finger. Is this right? is it fair? probably not. It's just the way it is.
It would be interesting to find out if this scenario is common to other universities or wether it is a curse affecting my year at my university only.
Anyway the walkers did brilliantly and many thanks to James who put on a wonderful spread at his hotel. Biggin Hall afterwards. As always I am astounded by his genorosity.
After the elation of painting on a large scale the last 2 days have seemed rather mundane. I have been making 4 new stretcher frames, each one 1.75m x 90cm. I find the whole process of making these very tedious and only hope that in the future I can afford for someone else to make them for me.
All the exhibition tutorials seemed to go well this week and the work that is going to be displayed is so diverse and interesting. I can hardly wait until the opening night on 30th May. It will be a fantastic event with some really strong work.
We get to know what space we have been given next week.
Had a really good day today!
I didn't start until around midday. I had a few things to do early on and had to buy some bolts to bolt the large painting panels together.
Got into uni and bolted the panels together and then got down to some serious painting. I had a fantastic session and came out of it feeling really good about my painting. I'm extremely pleased at the moment but will probably start picking faults with it straight away and by the time we reach Friday I will probably want to destroy it. (that's the way it usually goes anyway)
I enjoyed the physical act of painting today. This was by far the largest painting I have ever done and I really had a good time putting the paint on with large brushes and even with sweeping brushes.
The painting is 3.6m long and 1.75m tall.
I am really looking forward to doing the next large painting
Nothing went right today
I t all started this morning when Jewson decided to charge me £62 for some wood for my stretcher frames. I was half asleep and didn't realise until a bit later that this was daylight robbery. I had to go back and get a refund. The real price was £26.
When I got into uni 1 and a half hours later than planned I was informed that I couldn't use the woodwork workshop as the Art level zero group were having workshops all day.
I decided to fall back onto plan B which was bolting the panels together on my larger painting. But I had bought the wrong sized brackets.
I then discovered that the work on the wall of my studio space was still wet. I have nowhere else to put it and need to put the larger paintings up so I can paint onto them.
I then spent about 2 hours trying to find the woman who can sign over the stepladders to me so I could make the walls more stable. Ridiculous, surely the stepladders should always be available. Anyway I couldn't find her in the end and used chairs, tables and window sills instead.
Hopefully I should be able to get some new bolts and brackets tomorrow and join the panels together. I am hoping to do a long day and get the painting up on the wall so that I can paint it tomorrow night.
So it wasn't that great a day but it was all forgotten when Liverpool beat Arsenal in the Champions League making everything seem good.
