Another Monday, and a lot of plaster dust. I filed and sanded what seemed like dozens of plaster relics, and I can't help feeling that all that dust can't exactly be health-enhancing. Never mind; it's basically all done now. What with the fumes of white spirit and oil paint as the Lower Sixth beavered away on their metre-square self portraits all around me, by 7.45 pm I was quite ready to get home.
The relics do look better though.
My Year 13 lesson went well, too. I showed the students how to take stills from the video they shot at Cley church last Monday, and they all chose the frames they wanted to work with. Some of the images they've captured are really exciting. Made me want to go back and shoot video at Cley church myself – but there's no time for anything like that!
Later, I made the sad discovery that my etching plates haven't actually etched – there's nothing on them! Start again tomorrow …
A frantically busy day today. This morning's Fourth Year class went OK, but was completely chaotic, with twigs and brown paper bags and ink and paint all over the place. It took me the whole of the first lesson to set things up, then the class happened, and then I spent the whole of the third lesson clearing everything up! Luckily the room wasn't needed before or after the session … I think the students had fun, though.
After a rejuvenating coffee I spent some more time with my increasingly-beloved modrock moulds, cleaning off the vaseline with lighter fluid. Interesting fumes! More casting, more washing – will it ever end? None of the casts are dry enough yet to file down or sand, and I wonder whether they ever will be if I will insist on fussing over them like the proprietor of a dog grooming establishment.
Later on I put soft-ground onto seven plates in order to carry out an idea for a series of etchings, using spirals of candle wick measured to the length of various parts of my body. I explained this to a few of the students, who looked slightly worried. I will have to finish this after the weekend, but so far I'm quite excited about how the plates might look.
Seeing the photograph I posted yesterday made me realise that I really should try washing all those little plaster relics again to try to remove more of the clay that's staining them. So I filled a tray with water, grabbed my toothbrush (it's OK, I've bought a new one!) and set to work this morning.
Then the moment of truth when I opened the "new improved" modrock moulds to reveal the fully-cast relics in all their three dimensional glory, and … what a disappointment! Hardly any of them are much good at all. Still, as usual I'm able to tell myself that I can make them work conceptually, if I think about it hard enough(!)
And the opened-out moulds were an unexpected bonus. They've gone all floppy where I've been picking the plaster off the outside, and I'm sure I could do something with them.
This afternoon I was free, so went into Norwich to pick up various strange items to assist in the mounting of the exhibition. Last night Trevor kindly designed a poster for me, and I was able to distribute a few copies around Norwich. So it really has got to happen. Hanging day is just two weeks away now.
Short day Tuesday, long day Wednesday. I have to be in the department early so I'm ready to teach the first lesson of the day, but it's also Life Drawing for the Lower and Upper Sixth from 6.15 pm to 7.45 pm.
My Fourth Year lesson was ok – poppyheads gauged out of scraperboards by the easiest students you can imagine. I hope they're not sick of poppyheads yet: we have five more sessions together.
Then I had the rest of the day to wash the clay off my first lot of cast relics, open the two-part moulds, discover that six of the ten casts hadn't worked properly, reseal and pour plaster into those six plus a couple of others, and clear up the increasingly chaotic workspace! Which I am ashamed to say has spread onto a table that's officially earmarked for Lower Sixth students… Luckily, they are being very understanding about it. Well, to my face, anyway.
Later in the afternoon I drew 15 relics on an etching plate. That was fun and I tell myself that my wobbly drawing 'style' adds to the effect. But you can't get away with that sort of excuse in a Life Drawing class. This time, the class was being led by a visiting tutor who assumed that I was an expert Life Drawer and started asking my opinion on how to teach the subject. The whole experience was very embarrassing and I threw my two drawings in the bin afterwards. But I'll still have a go next time.
My last post was dated misleadingly, as it was yesterday's but I wrote it after midnight!
So, today. I knew it would be a short day as the department only opens for the morning on Tuesdays, but even so the time whizzed past alarmingly. I spent much of the time preparing scraperboards for the fourth year class I'll be teaching tomorrow, using indian ink on mountboard. They've bowed quite a bit, but hopefully nothing that a pile of books won't sort out.
I spent the rest of the time messily: pouring plaster into yesterday's ten moulds through inplausibly tiny holes (plaster all over Emma's hand – sorry Emma!) and making a very fiddly three-part mould that I don't have an awful lot of confidence in.
Still, Zach in the space behind me was playing Bob Dylan, and it was all good.
