Saturday 12 April 2014

John Howard's Studio Week 3

I went back to John's studio again as I want to get to know the different artists that go in there and also to get to know John himself more as well. I hopefully after this will have an archive of artists working on their pieces and a few medium format portraits of them as well. I wanted to print these on fiber based paper and this will create an artistic, romantic look that shows myself doing an art technique just like they're doing with print making.


This week I met Michael Donnelly who has been a painter in Cornwall for many years and has done a range of series of paintings on still life, landscape and culture. For the last 5 years he's been doing a series on landscapes around Cornwall and wanted to experiment, Michael chose the subject of landscapes as he feels it neglected in the contemporary art space. As well as painting he has now been doing Etches and Print Making and has been coming to John's studio for guidance on the subject. His etches of landscapes are copies of his sketches that he does everyday and thinks it's important to draw all the time to gain skill. He will also use aqua tinting on his etches after he has printed them as this brings out shadows and makes the piece have more depth. I will be photographing John print making and aqua tinting next week.





I also met Duncan who has been an artist in Cornwall for several years, also doing landscapes at the moment, although his are more experimental and he's just practicing the technique. He unfortunately has Parkinson's so it is getting harder for him to concentrate and do art as he needs steady hands but he was an interesting man who told me about previous projects he did around his dad's garden shed and how he enjoys his practice but it's hard to say no because of his illness.











Sarah an Art Foundation student who is friends with John was also doing some print making around the subject of 'figures' and has been print making for years, she enjoys it a lot.

Tuesday 1 April 2014

Allotments, Bread & Circuses


For one of my multimedia projects I am looking into Allotments and especially those that are now at the University. They have had them before but now are re-creating them and making all the public and students aware of growing vegetables and general sustainable, green living. I went to an event at The Compass which was hosted by Anne from Grand Challenges and they were working with the Homegrown Society and The Green Living Project. 




The event was all about sustainable living and all students were welcome to come join, they had a Yurt which had a game where you had to choose which products were Fair share, People care or Earth care this was very interesting and a good way for students to interact. Rob is doing an MA at Falmouth but is helping out with The Green Living Project along with Stephen who organises the Homegrown Society events. They also had hula-hooping, fish racing and throwing games, you could win t-shirts, free bread and vegetables. I came home with all three!











This shoot was mainly for research into what goes on with the Green Living Project and the Allotments which at the moment they are started to collect compost bags from students and are hoping to make it more permanent with a barn and area to have picnics and such. I got an interview from Rob who explains the development of the allotments and about sustainable living and why he loves gardening.

Artists: John Howard's Studio Week 2


I went back again to John's studio where he does the art technique of Print Making and offers tuition as well as freelancers coming in to use the studio for personal works. John is having an exhibition in St Ives this August which is going to show his work as well as anybody that does work in the studio, I will go and photograph that as well to show the final product to my work and to theirs. 




Today there was Lesley Harry who most works in pencil but often likes doing screen prints of her drawings and photographs which are often abstract. She has been in Falmouth since 2010 and specializes in drawing the coastline which she sometimes does on a boat she shares with friends. She told me Lesley also recently took a trip to Norway and did a series of the coastline there and has photographs and etchings which she has re-created into screen prints with help from John, her work is at 'Gallery 49' in Falmouth and 'The Square Gallery' in St Mawes. 

                         
                      


                         




There was also an artist called Nina Packer who is from Liskaerd and specializes in linear drawings. Today she just signed up for a one to one tuition with John and brought some of her old line drawings that she wanted to try and re-create with print making. 






Oliver's



A few weeks ago I had a six hour assignment where we had a topic to photograph for a couple of hours then had to come back edit, caption and upload to a 'news blog'.  I had the subject of 'Restaurants & Street Food Review', I first thought of all the restaurants in Falmouth and there are quite a few, I rang some places up firstly trying all the vegetarian places as I thought that could be my story angle. As of the short notice a lot of people unfortunately said no but I rang a place called 'Oliver's' who are a local fresh produce restaurant on the high street and Wendy Symon's the owner said she'd be happy for me to come along.

It was a lovely restaurant which has been around for 5 years, owned by Wendy Symon's and her husband is the chef called Ken. They only cook fresh produce from Cornwall and have a variety of dishes that they change all the time to create new cuisine for their guests and to keep up with season. One of Ken's recipes has even made it into a cookery book which they are both very proud of. Wendy  mainly hosts and waits the guests on her own during the day, she is very warm and welcoming to them. She has a waitress help her in the evenings and an extra cook in the kitchen for Ken as it gets  quite busy for them otherwise. 

Jean, 70, eats at Oliver's every day for lunch
"You get made to feel special and the food is out of this world"




















I also photographed the food market as I had to wait for a while for Oliver's to open for lunch and thought I'd get the street food part of my assignment done. I went to the market and met a lady Lucy Trinder who works for The Little Cornish Deli in Penryn she was selling spices, olives and mixes. They are getting a new shop in Falmouth this year.  I also met Dave Busker who has a stall for the food his wife and son makes on his farm Cornish Mill Bakehouse. So together I have collated some images that show all the day.


Street Artists


For my artist themed work I have been also looking at street art. If I've seen any artists doing work whilst on my travels I have asked to take a photo of them with their practice, this is to document an archive of research into different types of art. I met a Graffiti Artist, Steve in St.Ives who was painting the outside of his gallery to attract visitors. I also met a couple of girls (names unknown) at Camden Market, they had a stall where they painted shoes, t-shirts and accessories, I thought this was quite interesting.

                                      


I have also a few snaps that I took, nothing to do with the project just photos!