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.

The Conservation Volunteers

For my final first year University project I had a self directed brief where I can choose the subject I document over 5 weeks. I am very interesting in conservation photography and documenting the change of the environment for the better. I looked at local volunteer projects in Cornwall like Surfers against Sewage and Wildlife Trust. I decided I wanted to volunteer myself and show my journey and the environments journey through the project. I came across TCV a group that work all across the country, helping to make the environment better with various conservation projects. They mainly go around nature reserves and public country paths creating paths, bridges, gates and trimming away dead trees/bramble. This helps nature by making habitats better for wildlife and plants grow. It also brings public in and makes them more aware of the environment.

The project I was working on is called 'Linking the Lakes', it's a project not far from campus in Penryn, they created a path linking College reservoir and Argal Lake as they are only joined by a very busy road at the moment and to get to Argal Lake you have to walk up the side of that road. It's not safe for the public and their children/dogs. This group of volunteers, including myself  cleared away brambles, rubbish and dead trees and created a gravel path. This took around three full days to complete and I not only help out but documented the work and volunteers.
This project worked well and when I arrived first I was nervous but helped out straight away the main guy Ben set this group up and has worked all over the world doing conservation projects. The other volunteers had special needs and they feel it helps to get outside and help which was really heartwarming. I started clearing brambles and sawing dead trees to clear a path. We had a lunch break where we spoke about tattoos and news and it was nice to get to know them. By the end of the day i felt more comfortable and got to know the volunteers better. We had cleared a whole path of brambles and started to make a soil path for gravel to go on. It felt great to see the progress and it didn't seem possible in the morning that these brambles would go but they did and the transformation was remarkable for a days work