Happy New Year!

It's been a busy few weeks as we limped to the end of the first term.

I can't quite believe the first term is over, with a flurry of activity I've not known since well... I don't know. "Slow burner' this term - that's what Jamie said...

Thanks to Marian for getting us GD3 through Historic Conservation - and public apologies to Jim for laughing through much of his presentation. As my old man says, if people are laughing - you have their attention...
I've offered to present my Greenwich Project to my family this Christmas, you know as an alternative to the usual Queen's speech and charades - but they declined the opportunity....

I'm recovering from man-flu at the moment, which I caught from my other half, so all good intentions for study have gone slightly awry...but got some great books from Santa (from our reading lists of course), so have been reading and looking at pictures.

As Julia suggested, I managed to do a sketch on Boxing day to escape the washing-up - get me back in the mood to do some drawing. Hope you all had lovely festivities, and enjoy the New Year...should be good year for us all...don't waste it....really, really, really go for it...

View from my balcony which I sketched in the summer

Same view sketched in Boxing Day, washing-up dodging.

Some Interesting Pavilions

Calverley Grounds is in need of a Pavilion....

The Seed Pavillion, China Design Expo 2010

Pavilion - Serpentine Gallery 2010

Architect Peter Zumthor is to design next year’s annual Serpentine Pavilion in London’s Hyde Park

Simpson Park Hammock- Miami

The Red House - visit 18.11.10

Last week we visited the Red House, in Bexleyheath - home of William Morris centre of the Arts and Crafts movement, as part of our continuing learning into Historic Conservation. It was a really interesting finale to the visits we'd made so far on this particular course.

From the large scale thinking we are having to consider for our conservation plan for Greenwich Park - it was good to look at the Red House in terms of conservation - on a smaller - more domestic scale.

I liked the house, with the curator in residence, and the lovely lady that showed us around - who opened up cupboards and little doors to reveal faded wall paintings by Morris or Elizabeth Siddal - which gave us tantalising glimpses of a colourful history.

It's a pity they don't know what the garden was like when Morris was living there - but it would've been a productive one - the vegetable garden certainly dominated, so probably not much has changed there.

I'd like to go back in the summer.

Here are a few photos I took inside the house and a sketch from the garden.

Sketch of the house being consumed by the garden

I love all these little Arts and Crafts details. This was a hole in the wooden staircase panels - peeping through to see who was at the door!

The House from the orchard

Round window detail - with panels painted by Morris

Rather splendid reflection onto the  very expensive Philip Webb dining room table

secret panels

..and more round things that caught my eye

This week came and went

Monday came and the day of the Tunbridge Wells presentation arrived. The PM (Adele) not Cameron - (although I reckon that girl could possibly make PM one day) - thought her team had done well. I prefer her glass half-full approach to life, so I'm happy. Although, the gift of hindsight is something I might ask Santa for this year.

Talking of Santa, Christmas came early this year for me as I have recently taken delivery of a new iMac. Hours wizz by as I sit consumed by its wonder. There are seven wonders of the world and then there is my screen. Mind you the big screen was useful this week, because in the excitement of the presentations on Monday I left my reading glasses in the loo. I was finally re-united in a Cinderella moment with my lost specs yesterday. I say Cinderella, because I had to somehow verify to the security chap at the front desk that they belonged to me - well I had to put them on to read my student number on my student card....

I digress, yes its been a busy week - Tunbridge Wells forever etched into my consciousness.
Our new words are Connective...Educational...Alternative... now I can see again...vision on....

A lesson in concept drawing - Monday 15 November

It was good to do some drawing again today - we had some fun with concept drawing.
These drawings led us into the final group activity for the day - see Adele's blog for "Sagaland".

Fun stuff but serious preparation for masterplanning, learnt a lot today.

Concept drawing

Homework - Concept drawing (loosely) based on Chiswick House Gardens

Waving not drowning...

There has been a lot of activity lately, on a new innovation introduced to us by Alick, called Google Wave.
This has been the preferred method of communicating with each other on our collaborative project on Calverley Park.

It's been really useful because collaborate work is difficult when you cannot meet colleagues face-to-face when working on a project. The "wave" seems more informal than an email - where words and feelings can often be misinterpreted.

All this technology....it can't beat face-to-face communication though, can it?.........

The use of filters in photoshop

Original image - acrylic ink, and white gouache on watercolour paper

I thought colours were a bit sweet and sickly - chocolate box.

The following - with filters added in Photoshop Elements

Dark

Darker

Renaissance man

Time travel makes my queasy

Well, it's been a week of time travel.

It started OK last weekend, feet firmly in the 21st Century looking at Greenwich park - a short trip back to the 20th Century to look at the recent layers of the park... come Monday it's back to Medieval times in T.Turner's lesson....

Tuesday... fast forward to court of King Louis XVI and Charles II, (Historical Conservation)Wednesday...back to 21st Century for society and culture of Tunbridge Wells
Thursday....A trip up the tower... where we learn't about the whole History of Greenwich Park - all wrapped up in 10 A1 sheets,
Friday...no sooner had I hung up my toga...I'm back in the Early Renaissance reading saucy tales of The Dream of Poliphilus for this Monday's presentation...

Warp factor

Historic Garden Conservation, Greenwich Park Layers - Views

Here is my A3 presentation for the layers assignment for Greenwich Park. Complete with old school styley, Hockney-esque photo montage.

Greenwich Park - Le Notre and the French Garden Tradition

Here is my A1 exhibition panel for Historic Garden Conservation. Hope I got the right thread?

Sketch Perspective with texture

This is my attempt to add render and texture to my sequence sketch from last Monday's lesson in Photoshop Elements. . I used various techniques - including scanning newspaper print to get a texture of the ground and using squares cut from a photo to get the planting. The rest I colour filled from the photoshop colour palette.

A lesson in composition

Homework from week two.
Very interesting tutorial today. Of course, I was too busy worring about the brief and perfecting my limited photoshop skills - that I didn't give much consideration to the overall compostition. The result was rather dull.

I was using Powerpoint to lay out my photos - so perhaps I should think about using photoshop for the complete picture? Grant was right in his blog - this is a bit like talking to yourself.

I'll have another go and post the new improved version at a later date...

Sequence Sketches - 11.10.10

Paula was right, they do look better reduced...

Week 3 - anything for an extra 10 per cent

This morning I presented my illustrated talk to the class on Greek and Roman civilisations - dressed in an old duvet cover - cleverley fashioned by my mum into a toga. Slightly worried because everyone comented on how well it suited me!
Anything for an extra 10 per cent marks....

My first week at University...

or Uni... as it seems to be referred to these days.

Welcome indeed...and...welcome external examiners from the future - as I believe you will be looking at this page in May 2011 to assess my journey through the final year.

The first day back was a momentous event - because in a way it feels like the last 2 years of work have be building up to this very day. The leap from Hadlow to Greenwich seems a large stride. We've looked wide-eyed in wonderment at the work from the final shows by the 3rd year students before us - so here we go...

Good luck all my fellow students.

S

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