Basketball

These are 2 pictures of graffiti on basketball courts by artists on www.braveone.co.uk. It was staging a 3 on 3 street basket ball tornament. It had a hiphop DJ there and they were playing live music. They had break dancing there and there was a really good vibe. Was good to see art combined with a popular past time. Would o been good if the art was sprayed there and then, such as a live art. I think this relates to my work and the inspiration I got at the Tate, I will find it really useful for my inspiration.

Graffiti Artist- Temper

This work is by the artist Temper, he used tips of spray cans instead of popcorn. I like this image as I feel it relates to the urban styles I seen at the Tate. I feel this relates to the work I did on Banksy, I want to adapt and find my own technique with graffiti art and I feel this image will help me.

Faith47

This image is from www.faith47.com. It is by an artist who does design/illustration work. I really like this style of work and will take some of these techniques and apply it to my work.

BOMBA

This is an energy drink called BOMBA, I like the shape of a grenade bottle and think is a really good idea. It makes the product different from other products and I feel this is a really good way to market this drink.

Rockwell Clothing

In 2000, Amsterdam based graphic designer Parra, started up Rockwell Clothing to make original t-shirts. It has since grown into a label and sold around the world. Parra dabbles in all sorts of design and illustrations from weird underground stuff to mainstream campaigns for Footlocker and Ben and Jerrys. He has also done work for Nike.

www.rockwellclothing.com

I like this work as its within an area/interest that I do and I will think about using fabrics in my future projects.

Shadows

This is work by Tim Noble and Sue Webster. They create sculptures out of rubbish and use lighting to paint the picture. It is a personal journey of self discovery in which they take a theme of their own lives and create an entirely new form of self portraiture. 'Dirty White Trash' executed in 1998, is a sculpture made up of household rubbish, that the pair accumulated over a six month period. Discarded packages of fish fingers, empty hair dye bottles, and the occasional jar of peanut butter lie piled up one on top of the other, to form no other than a mountain of filth. Yet at the flick of a switch, the mountain of garbage is transformed into a miraculous shadow profile of the artists leaning back to back, gazing at the sky, enjoying a cigarette and a glass of wine. I like the way this work is two completely different things and that light alters its meaning.

SixEart

Sixearts mixture of psychedelic abstraction and comic book inspired figuration has become an essential elements of the urban fabric, Barcelona. His work has a childlike innocence that is combined with an hallucinogenic sense of second sight. Sinister tragic comedy with notes of psychopathology is one definition he has offered of this unique style. Having painted form an early age, he made a name for himself as a graffiti writer, before developing his own highly personal visual language with recurring figures and animals. He explains that his own universe of characters come from his happy childhood and helps him feel younger. The work shows an affinity with Surrealist artists like Joan Miro.

This is all the artists at the street and urban exhibition in the Tate Modern. I found this visit to the gallery really inspiring, and Im glad I went as it will be useful to my dissertation.

SPOK!

Spok is closely associated with the New York tradition of Subway art, and from his teens was travelling around Europe and the united states with a spray can. Already renowned street writer, he developed a remarkable style while studying for a fine arts degree in Madrid. Since then his skills have been in such a demand for decorating shop outlets and for advertising agencies such as Nike and L'Oreal. He says " They say this work is vandalism, but for me, its only true art form" and I agree with this concept. I love this piece of work as I love Nike Airforce One. Even everyday shoes that I wear could be inspiring for my work.

Artist: Blu

Based in Bologna Italy, Blue makes very large scale images of monsters and figures often involved in scenes of barbarity. These have the look of cartoon creatures or characters of Greek mythology. Drawing is an integral to his work. He uses a very limited palette which has the effect of highlighting his fascination with line and form. I use this paint just to fill in the drawing he has said. Blu sees buildings as sheets of paper. I would think my favourite artist Banksy feels the same. Due to their massive scale his works often give the impression that the buildings aren't quite big enough. What is great about his work is the he makes doodling on an epic scale look easy. His influences come from comic book artists such as Robert Crumb, and the inspiration he take from Italy. This is something I wish to take from this and it is to find things around me that inspire me.

Tate Modern- Street Art

By the work of Faile, (post below), There was a tunnel full of street art. I like the way it was an enclosed environment, as the other art work was very public and displayed openingly. It was essentially in its own element. To me, it captured the essence of the artwork at Southbank at Festival hall, and I liked the techniques and colours used here. A definate inspiration to my future projects!

The New York artist collaboration Faile formed in 1998, takes its inspiration from the detritus of city walls. The decay of advertising and fly posting provides provides a platform to present their own take on the world of found imagery. These recognisable pop culture images are visible in their large scale canvas works, representing a rich collage of the urban experience. In the spirit of collage, they've diversified into other areas including sculpture and bookmaking yet their work remains heavily indebted to printmaking and stenciling traditions. A lot of my work involves stenciling and I love this form of art work. I think the pop art fad will never has its day it will always have such a great impact on art. This image above 'A life' (an anagram of Faile) was given this name because of the process of deterioration that an artwork suffered when exposed to the elements.

Tate Exhibition

I couldn't believe my luck, in London for the 10k and looking for inspiration for my dissertation, and there it was a street art exhibition!!!
"In the first major public museum display of street art in London, Tate Modern has invited six internationally acclaimed artists whose work is intricately linked to the urban environment to create new works on the buildings iconic facade overlooking the Thames"
Street art at the Tate Modern brings an important aspect of current art practice and one that has influenced many artists, including Basquiat and Picasso. Although the term street art has been used since the late 1970's, the work by its very nature, is in constant flux and hard to categorize. Broadly speaking the term has come to define the more visual urban art, rather than text based graffiti and tagging.

More Southbank!

The image of the sofa is from Festival Hall at the Southbank festival. I found this really inspiration, as the public really liked the concept of gigantic furniture. I like the idea of playing with scale, and making things bigger or smaller than what they would actually be usually. I also like the use of different materials, as they used astroturf here. I feel that if the furniture was normal size, it wouldn't of had the same impact of people as it did being oversized.
The image of the graffiti, was underneath the festival hall were kids from all ages go to skate on their skateboards and hang out. It is a place for their expression. The walls are covered in graffiti everywhere you look, they repaint over it, add to it, and they all contribute to the walls, as a community this is were they all come together. As I will be looking at street art for my dissertation, I feel this image is a good starting point. I like the way you look at the art and not the people who do it. People judge areas like these as places were 'yobs' go. I see it as talent, expression and art.

Southbank!

Whilst I was in London for the 10k, I went to the Southbank festival. Here artists created various art for the public to view. This image in the sand, called Rio Janira 2008, was specially done for this exhibition. The artist had the sand shipped in, and then moulded it there. It reminded me of the image above which is of an Art festival in Germany. I like the idea of this work as your using your hands to create a piece of art work. Most art work you have to use tools such as a computer, pen or pencil, but this was a vision and his hands that did this. I feel it would be good to use this meths in my wok in the future as I find it would be a different way to interpret my final ideas.

London 10k Imagery

Before completing the London 10k, I received my pack with my number and vital information for the day. This image was printed in the leaflet and I really like the graphics and how it was done. The routed map that I like, uses simple imagery and colours and as I did a project a few months ago on a journey around London I feel this relates to this. I think it would of been good to have this image along with that project as I only focused on the actual landmarks rather than what was going on around the whole of the city. On the whole of that project I now feel I failed to capture the essence of the city, I feel I illustrated the landmarks well but it didn't encapsulate what I felt hen I did the London 10k.

London 10k

I took part in the London 10k this year, after completing my first marathon, running has become a big part of my life and my daily routine, and soon will be a big part in my work as its something Im good at and am passionate about. I like the atmosphere in events such as these, the feeling of community and people coming together, pushing aside everything they do in their day to day lives for these few hours. I like the feeling of being British, the colours, symbols and great landmarks that you pass whilst doing the run. I find a lot of these that inspire me while I run and I want to carry this influence through into my projects next year, as I have only used it very little in previous projects.

MR BINGO

I like this image by Mr Bingo because it carries a political message and relates to news in the current press today. With a rise in teenagers being stabbed in London I feel this relevant to this subject.

E4

This is a project using Flash. I had to do design and produce a title sequence for an E4 music season. It was a 20second title sequence and was designed for screen. I liked the images I produced on Illustrator, as I thought they answered the brief. E4s adverts and title sequences usually use quirky animations and I wanted to create the same feel in my work which is what I think I have done. I like the hand drawn feel and feel it worked really well.

More Typography!

These are more examples of typography, from a book of typography I recorded from different typography that I found from travelling. I like these pages because of the layout and experimenting with different ways of illustrating the letters.

Stencilling!

This is a research page from one of my sketchbooks. With an article that I found, "all graffiti is low level dissent but stencils have extra history. They've been used to start revolutions and stop wars"

"They look political just through the style"

I really like using stencilling in my work and I feel what was wrote about it in this article is true. I like how bold it is and how it stands out.

My travels...

For my Summer project last year I went and travelled around different cities and town and gathered inspiration for my projects for the year from these experiences. I recorded all my journeys in a little notebook and went to various places like above. When I went to Manchester I visited the Big Wheel and went on and overlooked the whole city taking lots of photos. I didnt know that Rolls met Royce under that wheel!

Lucky 7?

This is a piece of my work from a project I did on a book of 100 things. For every number I did something relevant to the number. I produced this as there is so much speculation over the number 7 and if it is lucky?

Why is seven lucky?


We are not entirely certain - but we did find many special sevens : from the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World ... to seven days of the week.

Seven more sevens:
� Pythagoreans called it the perfect number, 3 and 4, the triangle and the square, the perfect figures.

� Seven ancient planets - the sun was the greatest planet of the ancient seven and next to the sun, the moon, changing in all its splendour every seventh day. Seven visible planets and luminaries (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn).

� Books ...The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T E Lawrence, Enid Blyton's Secret Seven series ... Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People ... Reiki and the Seven Chakras ...

� Seven Deadly Sins.

� The Trumpton fire brigade. (Pugh, Pugh, Barney, Magrew, Cuthburt, Dibble and Grub)

� Seven Seas

� In Chinese culture, the seventh day of the first moon of the lunar year is known as Human's Day to be celebrated as the universal birthday of all human beings.


God, the Bible says, created the Universe in 7 days. Thus 6 is the imperfect number, this is why 666 is the number of Satan or the Beast.

On dices, where seven is a winning number, to get a 7 you need one dice on 6 and a 1 on the opposite side on the other dice. All opposite side numbers adds to 7.

Personal Imagery

I have a habit of sticking down photos and imagery that I like in my sketchbooks as I like to record what I do, who I meet and things that I find interesting. This photo combined with the image of the lips is really interesting. I like the reflection of the light on the sunglasses and the glimmer of light on the lips. Another interesting piece to add to my collection!

Tips for Students

This is work from my guide for students. I experimented a lot with typography and imagery in this project. It was for a tongue in cheek guide to student living. It was a skint tip for all students if they had no money. I thought this work was successful and I liked the imagery I produced.

Using light

These images are from I project where I had to explore visual language. I had to manipulate line, frame and format, looking at formations of things behind and beside one another. I needed to catalogue a range of media of how to construct a line, and think about viewpoints. I thought these photographs taken where some of my best imagery produced. I like the way the light has an effect on the objects and details their lines and structures.

Straight out of the horses mouth

This is the final outcome from one of my projects called "My Dogs are Barking" where we had to produce a typographic piece through a saying. I chose straight from the horses mouth and produced a 'tongue in cheek' image. The background is made up racing times of horses. The horse is what I illustrated and then I experimented with different texts and found one that suited the image. I feel this image was successful because it was very strong, and I thought was quite clever. I feel the text chosen suited the words coming out of the horses mouth because of its 'western/cowboy' theme.

Experimenting with Light and Photography

I thought this image was really good when I took a took it a few days ago. My rosary beads were hanging off the handle on my skylight window in my room, and with the sun going down in the background I took a picture in black and white. I thought it was a very strong and graphic image based because of the outlines and shapes involved.

This image by Michael Johnson was a big inspiration to me when I did one of my projects this year. I found this poster in a creative review magazine and thought it was relevant to my final design. I like the way the tree consists of different fonts of text, and how Michael Johnson portrays his feelings and what he is thinking about atthe time. Originally this piece, was really small so as you couldn't see what the writing said and in this article it was actually readable for the first time.

Typography

I like to experiment with typography in my work. I feel that fonts can relate to different subjects, objects and meanings. This work on fonts came from my Visual Thinking- Meaning and Interpretation Module. I had to investigate a range of possible graphic/visual re-interpretations of a piece of text through the manipulation of type, frame, format, colour, form, scale and legibility. I felt these images above were really interesting and eye catching. Although I didn't include my final piece for this project above as I felt it wasn't successful I feel that the experimenting I did with this project was good.

Banksy!

I have always been a fan of Banksy! I own his book "Existencilism" and the imagery in it is amazing! I love his method of working and I feel some of the best work I've done is when I've done it in his style. I recently did a copy of his work and produced the image "Imitation is the greatest form of flattery" as I feel this appeals to me when I use Banksy as my inspiration. The work above is like his series entitled the "rat pack" . He feels that vermon will tear the city (world) apart. Rats are called rats because they'll do anything to survive. He feels this applies to the modern day world. In one of my projects, I had to gather research on things that angered me, and I took inspiration from what angers him.

Day Out

I went to Ilkley one day to go for a walk and loved the pictures I took of the sun going down. Living in Leeds its not often you see sights like these. I thought they were really good, and think photography will be something to do in one of my project next year, as I feel I'd be really good at it.