Emma Howell
26 September, 2013
So yet again.. I’m guilty of being a bad blogger.
On a non art-related note.. Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a lot on my plate; Started a new job at H&M (whilst continuing my job at the Ale House), said goodbye to my beautiful bestfriend who moved to Florida, travelled to Greece for a quick holiday, managed to miss my flight home through sheer disorganization (costing me my whole summer savings) and welcomed a new puppy (Rambo) to the family. Currently, I am running the Howell household, as my parents take a 2 week trip abroad- so I have the joys of picking up mountains of puppy excrement, extracting numerous foreign objects from a certain mouth (rulers, stones, plastic chunks, newspaper, moss- you get the idea..)- as well as having the responsibility to care for,medicate and take wee samples from our 16 year old lab, Barney (who Rambo cannot help but nose dive and launch himself at constantly- leaving Barney not impressed at all.) Anyway, as well as having this huge responsibility, I’m juggling two jobs and conveniently starting my second year of Uni.. So, I’ve been very busy, too busy to be a fantastic blogger- heck, I can’t even think to be witty or correct my grammar/punctuation mistakes.
Anyway, lets talk arty things- I’m now beginning my second year.. It’s finally arrived- despite the fact this feels very much like I’m starting my 4th year of University (due to previous wrong decisions..), I’m actually excited. I’m starting to feel the want to paint things, print things, write things- I even said the other day that ‘I CAN’T WAIT to write an essay!’, it sounds crazy.. but I’m itching to get my brain into gear- because lets face it- I’m fed up with the backache of retail and the beer stench that comes with pub work (yes I will still be working for now, but hours will be reduced..). I want to actually THINK and use my brain, not be in robot mode.
Over the summer, the task was to come up with a proposal of what ideas we have for our projects this year.. My previous blog post stated my initial thoughts and ideas- I still very much want to create a project which is personal to me, something that reflects my personality and what things I’m passionate about.. So, I thought maybe I could create motivational pieces of art which give messages to others about the things I think are important in life, like exercise, well-being, health, happiness, positivity (these are all things that I am working on personally in life right now, so it would be great to show my peers my progression and perhaps even persuade them to step back and think about what’s important to them). Right now, it looks as though I want to develop this idea through the means of photography, painting and screen-printing in an ‘advertising’ style. Andy Warhol has inspired me to use bright colours, text and printing to emphasise the importance of the messages I’m trying to put across. To put my own spin on things, I might take photos of people exercising, paint the scene in an abstract unique style (that I developed from first year), then screen print something on the top… not too sure what yet. Obviously my thoughts and plans are slightly clouded now.. things may change.. it’s early stages! Baby steps.
That’s all for now.
Key things are- to keep motivated and stay positive