Longing……For……For……For……

What is the latest with making my website as part of my assessment?

I have been successfully making my website to look the way I want but with some obstacles along the way. This Website that I have to make is part of my Professional practice 2 module where we can either make a website or a catalogue but I have chosen to do both for my assessment.

I basically have to make a website that is clear enough for the viewers to see, treating like a kind of white wall gallery with some information about myself as well. The catalogue is pretty much the same thing but not as technical as the website and I wanted to do the catalogue just for my printing and nothing else.

Good points about making this website?

The best thing about making a website mean that you can display all your work on their for people all over the world to see. I also like the designing and custom setups of making pages and putting in buttons and widgets. I never thought I would have to create a website for this course but in the end I had to make one as I have already done a catalogue in my previous year.

This website has also allowed me to link my website to my blog just by putting in my A-N blog URL address into the main menu button settings and I felt quite happy about this that it worked very well. This module has certainly tested my capabilities out of using technical computing software and had taught me a lot.

Bad Points about making a website?

I would say that the worst thing about making a website is trying to look for the best website company that would give all the essentials you need to customise everything the way you want it to look. In the end I did choose Godaddy.com where it does actually supply everything you could possibly need to customise pages, writing, buttons and videos, anything you can think of is there.

Another bad thing that did take up most of my time was making my menu page in the Gallery of work page. The part that took a lot of time was the menu where you have printing, Lens based media, sculpture, drawings and collaborations. Everytime you click on printing page you then have to make another menu to go on that page so that when you click on the different menu buttons you can see its the same.

Next plan of action?

I will just keep on trying to perfect my website now until the degree show is finished and if I am not sure, I will ask some of my teachers what they think of it and they can tell me if I need to add anything more. For now I will just try my best to make the layouts look spot on and work more on my about me and my artwork page to try make that story better.

My website address – http://www.alexanderwoolcock.com/

Why look into Ancient monument re-makes in foreign countries?

I wanted to explore the Ancient monument lookalikes because I am interested in the concept of bringing back ancient monument replicas to look like almost the real thing. Its like someone goes abroad and like the very nice monuments, some people wish they could take them back to england for their own garden or tourist place.

In the old days when people visited ancient places like Greece or Rome, the rich people wanted to make their own replicas of ancient looking stone pillars and statues for their gardens. Some statues would be deliberately broken to make them look more real and having foreign monuments on English land would be like reliving a moment in time in which they have experienced.

How does this research relate to my Chinese roof?

Looking at this research has given me a better insight to what my work is really about because I also wanted to take back apart of China by attempting to make a skeletal construction of a Chinese roof. By leaving my Chinese roof in a skeletal structure form would make it a memory trace of the place that I visited and would become a roof that is not fully completed as in not fully fragmented.

Memory traces fragment together in someone’s mind but cannot always see the complete picture and I basically wanted to make the Chinese roof in this kind of form. Its a trace of what I have seen in china and I wanted to take that memory trace back with me to England and display it on one side of a dark room with the English roof displayed on the otherside .

This will be part of my degree show and using the Chinese roof will hopefully show the connection with English culture and this will be mostly to what my degree show is about. Will keep you updated of my degree show process.

Is all the wood prepared for making my dark space room?

Mmm I believe that most of the majority of the wood that I need is cut to the right measurements but later on, I may need to buy a little extra wood to be cut and use for extra support of my room. All the wood you can see right now is basically organised in a fashion that I can see what planks are for the main support and what planks are for the side beams. Instead of getting them all muddled together Its better to have them seperate so I can make my room without any confusions and mistakes.

Could this resemble a kit form like the Chinese use for their products?

I have looked at a lot of Chinese goods and special manuals in which parts of machinery are labelled in numbers so people know what is what and what it does. I have basically labelled my planks of wood in words rather than numbers so that I know what planks I will use for the sides, top and bottom areas of my room. Also this reminds me also of my kit form English roof where you have an instruction manual that tells you how to put it together and again relates to the Chinese or japanese methods in products

Now that the wood is all cut up, what is the next plan of action?

For now, I will think about trying to move all my stuff out of the room where my degree show will take place and keep reminding everyone to take their belongings out in good time by the end of the week.

As a person I hate to touch anyones things without their permission and it would be really helpful if they can move all their things out so that I can prepare myself to make my mammoth construction of a room. Then next week I will hopefully start making my construction ceedings there is only two weeks to get it finished ready for the degree show.

What is the latest with my degree show?

Well… Hannah Maynard is my classmate and she has helped me a very great deal into buying the right kind of wood for a nice cheap price :D. we both got daniel ‘the technician’ to cut up the wood for us once we have finished marking out the right measurements. Hanna decided to start building her construction frame work now that her room is empty with no people working there so is a great opportunity for her to start building sooner.

Why use another student’s construction as relevant constructing research?

I basically wanted to watch Hannah and Glen ‘the technician’ to see how they were fixing together the beams of wood to make the frame work secure enough. By taking some pictures and closely observing how they fix together the beams does give me a better outlook into how I can construct my dark space installation room.

Soon I will be able to construct my own room once everyone moves out of their studio space so that there will be enough room to make my installation. Once everyone clears out their studio belongings I will then have enough room to make the framework sides for my room. Hopefully in a days time I can get started with it and with any luck it will become successful.

My hardest vase prints yet?

Mmm I would say they are my hardest vase prints that I ever had to do in the history of my vase designs. My new vase design reaches my maximum design and  concentration compared to making my other vase prints because only this time it is not just pattern on the vase but it is also a picture as well. Also the border line around the vase is very narrow which would make it a lot harder to line this vase stencil accurately over the background colour. There were a lot of missed alignments that took place within the printing process.

What has this difficult vase design enable me to achieve?

I deeply feel that it has pushed me to that one step further in making complicated art works. As an artist no matter how repetitive some works can look there is always that chance of making bigger and better stuff within the same objects such as my vases. I always know that out there is this amazing discovery waiting for me to trigger it off and make it happen but in order to get there, I must keep producing different variations of my vase prints.

Painting is one off, sculpture is one off and continuous but printing is a continuous process even just by using the same design. In a lot of cases with me, I like to keep printing the same vase design until its perfected and once perfected I may print out about twenty of them in different colours.

This is what I like doing because not only I get the chance to perfect it by printing a lot of the same vase design but also I can play around with the colour to see what colours suit the vase design best. This will show me the best suitable colours that will go best with the vase design that I print.

Next plan of action?

Well… I think I will stop here for now until I can think of some better designs and also better ways of making texture and patterns for my future vase prints. I will work on trying to develope ultimate vase design concepts that have never been done before in the history of vase prints. I am very sure in myself that I can achieve this printing challenge and I am sure if what I am thinking about actually works, then it might change the printing world completely. We will see what happens after my degree show.