London

8 hour round trip to London on a lovely packed coach at unimaginable hours in the morning = ULTIMATE WASTE OF TIME. Fantastic.

The Camp America recruitment fair was such an epic fail. Despite leaving at 6:30am I didn't actually get to Kensington Hall until 12:45. The doors opened at 12 and by the time I arrived I still had to queue in the bastard cold for an hour and a half at least. When I eventually did get in there it was manic, like nothing I've ever seen. All the preppiness of Disneyland but with this horrible acid hype that everyone knew was there but were denying all knowledge of; if it wouldn't have reflected badly on their applications I reckon every girl in there with an ounce of competitive energy would have slipped a blade between the ribs of the unfortunate rival in front of them who managed to let themselves get distracted for one second whilst flashing an overly white smile to a camp rep. God the whole thing made me sick.

As the London fair was the last one in the UK it started to become apparent as I was shuffling round that any hope I had of securing a place was seriously deluded. Everything had filled up. Unless I was a 21+ equestrian connoisseur with the uncanny ability to juggle fire whilst belting out a pitch perfect selection of west-end classics I didn't have a cat in hells chance. Lovely.

It was a pretty horrible realisation, I've invested a lot of time and money into this and it appears I have hit a brick wall. I haven't withdrawn my application yet but I've definitely given up hope, hmmmm time to explore other options..

Final Book

Narrative:-

I thought it was going to be incredibly difficult to decide on the page order for my book because in my mind there really was no outstanding narrative. But once I had finished all my drawings and began to lay them out in various ways it started to become clear which bits worked and which did not.

I realised that I had to start with a strong drawing and end with a strong drawing to ensure that the whole thing wasn't a sort of anticlimax. I had initially planned on having both the cover drawing and the drawing of the spine as the first two pages but when laid out in order it really didn't work. The rest of the book had no closure and seemed to finish quite abruptly after such a detailed introduction. From this I deduced that one of them had to serve as the last page in the book - but which one? I eventually decided that the cover image would be the best way to round the illustrations off - it will feel as though you've just read a magazine and then closed it and sat it down on the table, the cover image is not only the first thing you see on a magazine, it is also the last. The spine image will therefore work in the sense that it reflects the reader pulling the magazine from a shelf. I am aware that magazines are very rarely stored in the same way as books are on shelves because of their flimsiness, and it is mainly only in archives that they are sat this way but that in itself works in my favour - an archive is a colection, and my collection of illustrations have been my way of archiving the main points of that particular magazine.

The inbetween pages just seemed to fall into place after that. With the inclusion of typography on the last page (another lovely end to the book with the message 'wonderful' spread across the page, reveals the tone of the whole thing) I didn't want to have the other typography page right next to it as the content needed to be balanced throughout, and with the small amount of type on the spine image I realised that the 'DASH' page belonged somewhere in the middle.

My least favourite drawing is the one of the male model, so I was eager to put it near the front to put less emphasis on it but I knew it couldn't be the first image the audience saw and so I placed it behind my drawing of the flowery eyed musician hoping that people would be spellbound enough by her to not realise how bad the following drawing is.

Once I had made my first few decisions I let the others fall into place. I noticed that the sections of additional pages that I had drawn on to create perspective seemed to be gradually increasing - like you really were reading through the magazine, creating the illusion of a journey and progress. I ensured that the model in the hat, which has the most additional pages, was placed at the back and BOOM we have ourselves a narrative.

After all the problems I had with the leather it felt so good to finally have a finished book box, even if it was bound with buckram. Instead of the glossy black buckram I opted for the matte finish - definitely the right choice as it gives a much more professional look and it really isn't as bad as I had first anticipated. I think I just have horrible memories of appallingly bound, wonkily cut books from reportage last year and this may have tainted my decision a little. The embossing worked like a treat on the buckram as well, thank god - pretty hard to capture in a photo though. I'm really pleased with my little graphics on the cover, makes me feel like an actual designer!

The filigree paper used on the bed of the tray and the inside of the lid compliment the whole thing incredibly well. It was definitely worth forking out for the whole roll of wrapping paper despite needing only those two sheets. It was difficult to glue down because of the thinness of the paper and it isn't as flawless as I'd like it to be but even still I wouldn't swap it.

Insane Typography Skills

A celebratory post-exhibition trip to Wagamamas took a nose dive when I began to fashion Helvetica with left over sticky rice. Sorry guys.

Safe to say this picture message had very few typographical connotations in the eyes of my mother, if only she knew.

Illustration

Here are the final illustrations for my collections book. I definitely feel I have let myself down by setting my expectations too high for such a short period of time. I would have loved to have 10 drawings completed but I physically just can't draw fast enough! The most I could manage was 5, plus the illustration depicting the spine of the magazine. Up until now this was something I had never considered including however I think that by using this as a page of my book it will definitely help apply some context to it. I had previously toyed with the idea of including a short text narrative as an introduction on the first page but I really didn't want to have to explain my work - it should be able to stand it's own ground! I feel that this spine image does that in a way that does not detract away from the drawings.

Another thing that I've added to the drawings is the idea of the previous pages. By simply adding a small section of sporadic linear marks down one side of the page I have helped to strengthen the idea that my drawings are of magazine pages as objects, not as photographs. Even though it is only a relatively minor adjustment I think it definitely helps to cement the right idea in the mind of the reader.

Wall Pieces

Here are some images of my work from the exhibition. Over all I think the work looks pretty good, I'm particularly proud of my 3D frame piece, all the effort I put in definitely paid off. I can't decide how well I think it goes with the work hung beside it, I don't think it's been done any favours having been surrounded by graphic design but maybe that makes it stand out more? Like I said, I'm on the fence and it wasn't my wall to curate! I'm just being picky.

My Vogue illustration was complimented so nicely on a wall full of photography. It brought variety to the wall and helped break the work up in a manner that was easy on the eyes, and the fact that it was a pencil drawing did this in a very subtle way. I think I made the right choice with framing it as well. The expansive black mount board really draws the eye to the centre of the frame and the softness of the drawing.

Exhibition Day

I feel numb; completely and utterly drained.

Curation:-

I really enjoyed being part of the curation team, me and Claire joined forces to tackle wall #3 - the biggest wall in the far corner of the main studio - and I reckon we earned our keep there. I never expected it to be that difficult! But trying to select 11 pieces objectively that compliment each other and work well as a collection is surprisingly tricky, especially when there's a room full of people trying to do the same - it takes really quick thinking and nimble footwork to nab the best pieces for the job.

Because we were dealing with the first wall that you see when you walk in the room the pieces had to be bold enough and good enough to warrant the audiences attention. We opted for mostly colourful pieces revolving around the large bear illustration which really brought out the warm colours in the other work. We decided on a tapered layout on the wall to direct attention to Steph's photograph, which we thought was the strongest piece on our wall.

Hanging:-

Having a plan is all well and good but erm, where do you start?? Most of our hanging time was spent gawping at the dirty white wall. Then we painted it. Then we gawped again. After some eye glazing and head scratching I made an executive decision to hammer a nail and BOOM we're on fire. Once you have the first piece up it's just a case of constructing the whole thing around it but the fear of getting right to the end and realising that you should have positioned the first piece about 20cm to the left is frankly, at the time, horrifying. Luckily we seemed to have cracked it first time and I think our wall looks pretty amazing! Team Bellia/Gauntley is go.

The weird thing is that whenever any of my friends were looking round I was quicker to point out the wall that we'd curated than my own work in the exhibition. Hmmm need to sort that one out.

Completion:-

The final thing worked so well. The salon style made it work as a whole so much better than individual workspaces ever could. There is the issue of the sporadic composition removing context from a lot of people's work and making it much harder for those 3rd years involved in things like community practice to show off their work but I think the main point to remember is that this wasn't a graduate show - it was simply to exhibit Viscom as a whole, each student had set guidelines to meet for this show and will have the opportunity to exhibit anything outside of those in their graduate exhibition that they will curate themselves. In short, we compromised the minority for the sake of the greater good I suppose. And we made the right decision.

There was so much positive feedback; it felt so good! I physically can't talk about this anymore. Everything hurts and my pillow has never screamed my name louder.

One Day To Go...

Wow, what a lovely and not at all stressful day. Oh wait I'm thinking of a day that wasn't today.

Laser Cutter:-

Got there just before 8:30 to make the most of my 9-10am slot thinking that I'd be lucky if I even got one of my larger frames cut out. I'd noticed yesturday that the cutter was going round each line more times than it needed to so I checked the settings of the 'mount board' preset and it was actually having 7 passes on each line... Errrrrm, hello unnecessary. I dropped that down to 3 passes and the difference was incredible. Not only did I manage to get my two remaining frames cut out but I also had time to redo the one I had to compromise due to lack of time. WHY DIDN'T I DO THIS EARLIER?!

So, in short, I got my frames cut out.

Business Lecture:-

I'm going to hold my tongue here.

Prep For Exhibition:-

• painted all my frames white to make them an identical match to the box frame.
• bought and attached mirror plates - I definitely think string would have been the choice of a fool.
• bought a plain black frame large enough to house one of my Vogue drawings without me having to cut them down since I haven't decided the exact dimensions of the pages, and cut some black mount board down to size.
• cut my post cards down to size - somebody please appreciate how difficult it is to perfectly centre an image that you CANNOT EVEN SEE. Bloody embossing and it's lack of bloody lines.
• ate lots of food. Pretty sure Paul had a hallucinogenic level of sugar.
• spent quite a while modifying the layout of my 3D frames, it's really hard to stick to my initial plan because you can't visualise it properly when you're working in 2 dimensions. My original layout plan just didn't work when I had the physical frames there in front of me, so I've adapted the fluid diagonal motion of the layout into a movement that starts at the very back and actually works its way out of the box frame.
• constructed the whole thing. Took so long. I had to check and double check everything because I'd spent so much time getting everything ready I really didn't want to go hammering a fucking massive nail in the wrong place and screwing it all up. It was also ridiculously time consuming to try and match the height levels of each layer of screws - since I only had 3 variations of screw height some initiative came into play on my part and I had to build up layers with tiny blocks of foam board glued to screw heads
• try and choose which drawing to put in my collections frame. The 'dash' drawing is so much better in my eyes but I really don't think it has the ability to stand as a single piece - there is no context and it just looks completely random. The 'wonderful' drawing, however, I like comparatively less but because of the hint at the word 'vogue' it will hopefully be much less confusing. I'm still on the fence with this one.. I don't think I'll have a decision until I'm forced to choose at 9:30 tomorrow..
• helped Paul mount some signage for the exhibition tomorrow.

Complete Failure:-

So... yeah the whole embossing of the leather saga.. I visited Vernon St to see if it would actually be possible to leave my cover in the pneumatic press for a prolonged period of time. Turns out it is not. They've never tried it but they can't guarantee the effect the incredible amounts of pressure will have on the press over such a long time and they aren't willing to risk it. Fair enough. But that does leave me in quite a pickle. I can do one of two things:

• stick with the leather covering and leave the current, vaguely embossed image to fully relax out so that the box cover is plain - then emboss a loose sheet of black card to act as a cover sheet inside.
• completely make the whole thing again, scrapping the leather idea and opting for black buckram which we know will hold the embossed image perfectly.

God I hate it when things fail. I got really attached to the idea of a leather bound box, it looks so professional. But with such a large surface area on the cover I literally can't not have anything on there or it will just look amateur as fuck. It really pains me to say this, but buckram it is :(

When I type it out it doesn't sound like a lot but DAMNIT IT WAS GRIM!