A Block....

This week I hit a bit of a block. Found it difficult to motivate myself to do much that I was actually excited about. Until the last day or 2 where I've been keeping myself occupied with a lot more sculpture than usual. And more depictions of movement.

Another chat with a tutor lead me to begin looking at the afterimage thing again. But this time slightly differently. To examine the different kinds of way to show movement through space. Which would involve the afterimage but not necessarily be confined to it. So the first bout of inspiration came from the earlier project of people watching. I decided to hide myself away in the balcony and record the paths people walked in the foyer below me. I planned to return at a later stage with some ink and bamboo so I could use a fast medium for a fast subject matter. But unfortunately the door into the balcony was locked. So instead I just copied the original with Indian ink. Not as great an effect as the original  It needs more lines. But I would want to stay true to what I see rather than cheat. Arrows are a simple, yet effective way of depicting direction, and the curve of the line shows the movement and navigation through the space itself.

This is the paths of people walking in the Chapel during the open day. I was in the balcony studio in pretty plain sight.

Today I thoroughly enjoyed myself making 12 small models for a kind of real life stop motion piece. Each piece has a slightly varied gesture and when lined up one can see the exaggerated movements of the piece that I based off myself walking erratically down the hall. The original inspiration came from a cartoon called Avatar: The Last Airbender. In one episode there's a kind of instructional statue sequence that the characters must follow. This:
The point is that the viewer would experience the animation in a tactile object, but of course I can make a video version as well to accompany it.

These are arranged as a crowd instead of in a line

This week I also continued working with conkers. This time it was suggested that I scale up the conker and take a closer look at the shells they come in. It was pretty simple to make a replica of a conker. Some specifically placed bumps and lumps and a few defining characteristics like the bean shaped section and the small hole underneath. Once it dries I'm going to make a shell that fits that large conker. Then once I have both I'll (supposedly) be able to make a full cast of both and be able to make the replicas in anything I like, wax/ plaster/ latex/ others... But the empty space left behind in the shell might be a better subject than the conker itself for this specific project.