Hereford College of Arts

I am currently working on a series of representational drawings – but looking at Katy Oxborrows’ beautiful experiments on perspex I got seriously side-tracked with ‘process’ today!

I have worked on board using blackboard paint and acrylic – there is something simplistic about working in this way and I would like to explore it further.

The Learning Journal –

do we all struggle with getting grips with our learning journals?

Our tutor has endlessly re-inforced the importance of keeping a journal and how it should work for us; and that we must keep asking ‘why?’ (and the journal is a good place to be asking this question as well as in crits etc)

There are times when I havent been able to get to it – physically – but mentally too – when there have been lots of things going on outside college life.

I think this shows that it is a demanding discipline – you have to be focussed and dedicated to keep a journal and make it useful to your practice.

After a fraught first half of the year where the journal struggled to get enough attention I am very happy to say that we have really bonded this summer!

I have had time and space to use it and now enough experience to make it really work for me. I am seeing the benefits in the way I approach my work – asking questions and finding ways through. Eventually it seems to be working for me.

Whats’ your relationship with your journal like?!

I have been studying the imagery in a very old French tailoring exercise book.

I am working in pen, chalk and paint on blackboard, trying to get a sense of the perfection aimed at by the student and the tension that seeking such perfection seems to create in their work.