thelifeandtimesof Mr B

Photograms

One of the other students did an introduction of how to make photograms, the tutorial was very usefull and i enjoyed it. It is definatley something i could use in the future. Here is my Christmas effort:

Blu and David Ellis pool their talents.

Inspiration #1

In these posts i will show you some of the work of artists that have inspired my own practice and that i have been using to show and enthuse students:

Raiku Pottery

For the year ten unit: Artefact, my students and i learnt how to make Raiku pottery. Here are some examples of both the processes and results.

The last picture is after the firing process and shows how the glaze changes the appearance of the clays surface.

Digital Graffiti

This week me and some of my year 11 students learnt about how digital technology is changing the face and future of graffiti and street art. Here are some links of the videos we looked at and analysed:

Graffiti artist blue has been creating large scale pieces on walls covering his home town since he picked up a can in years gone by, here he uses digital techniques to create a stop motion wall based animation.

Interactive graffiti walls are becoming more common technology gets cheaper, with some versions even available on the Nintendo Wii console now:

Tagged in motion: Graffiti captured virtually in 3d space with world famous artist DAIM.

Graffiti research lab (http://graffitiresearchlab.com/) is a website that is based around research to really push the boundries of digital graffiti. These two videos are just a taste of some of thee incredible projecs they are involved with:

Lazer tagging: An amazing use of digital technologies to invent a whole now way of tagging buildings with no lasting damage.

The Eyewriter: A graffiti artist paralised by a rare condition is giveen a new lease of life with the help of the GRL.

Testing... One two, One Two

For my first trick i shall test my blog and put up a poster i made for my course.

This was for a unit about campaigns of celebration. It is a unit the learners have to do so we decided it was good practice to complete the unit ourselves also to put ourselves in out students shoes.

Backstory...

To cut a long and wildly innapropriate story short...

I was born, and then i decided after some deliberation that i would attend a school, after enjoying the previously mentioned establishment i went to another one where i did very little in the way of work and alot in the way of mucking about, sometimes i got to go to a special club at lunchtime where we would sit in silence and were not allowed to eat. After leaving school with good grades and high levels of optimism i decided to go to another school for older people called a college.

At this "college" i decided to study media and computer programming as media sounded easy and fun and programming is what i wanted to to.

During the first year i fast realised that A: i hated computer programming, B: Media wasnt easy and C: i loved media and wanted to work in that sector.

So i quit computer programming and concentrated solely on making films and animations.

I enjoyed this older persons school so much i decided to go to a school for even OLDER people after achieving good grades and high praise for my film and animation work.

This OLDER persons school (or university) was also a great and enjoyable experience in the most part. I studied animation and film arts and acheived very high grades throughout my first 2 years.

Unfortunatley in my third year my life went a bit sideways and personal issues and vices got the better of me, i dropped grades like hot potatoes and left my degree with a 2.2. However i also left my degree with a job as a professional film editor and cameraman which was great until life caught up with me again and i had to leave that position.

I then went on to work at an aquarium, as a world famous photographers assistant, a video journalist, a barrel monkey in a burlesque bar and in a radio promotions crew.

Despite the changes in work one thing stayed consistant, my love of film and animation.

When the recession hit and i lost my job at the aquarium i remained unemployed (despite my best efforts) for almost six months. During this period i applied to do a teaching degree as the money was good, the subject was even better and the opportunity was not to be missed.

After applying i got a job in a youth hostel in the woods where i lived for 4 months with almost no contact with my friends or the outside world.

I was accepted onto the course, moved to the beautiful town of falmouth and havnt looked back.

The course is hard but the kids are funny and its certainly not as boring as cleaning showers and cooking lasagne for 100.

As part of my post graduate degree i was asked to create a development log in the medium of my choice.

This blog serves as a visual diary to evidence my development both as a teacher and as an artist.