Relief Painting

After messing around with masking tape, and tissue making this picture:

I was advised by my tutors to make a larger one, using wood glue or PVA glue along with tissue to create a relief painting. I got lots of PVA down in the storage room and proceeded:

Almost a gallon of PVA glue, a reem of (clean may I add) toilet paper and tubes of white and blue paint later, I finished my relief painting! 

It's not perfect, but you get the idea!

Stencil prints

Basically, I drew out a simple outline of my famous bridge onto plain card and cut out the black shape, and using this a template printed it rapidly onto plain cotton with acrylic paint and a sponge.

I attempted to dye some of the cotton blue, with well-watered down blue acrylic paint, and printed the same bridge in white paint on it. 

I also tried making a 2nd one with a different picture and ultramarine paint.

Little bit of research

So I'm interested in paper art, and sculptures, I decided to do a bit of research on some other artists along that line. Pamela let me borrow a book and told me about Matt Shlian and Yuko Nishimura, which are amazing sculptors! Their works are out-of-this-world amazing!

(mattshlian.blogspot.com and http://yukonishimura.com/works-en.php)
 by Matt Shlian


I also came across this artist called Chris Burden who makes models of bridges out of meccano! 

In the middle of making a bridge

After a tutorial with Giordana last Monday, I was strongly advised to make more 3D work. So, I found a large sheet of polystyrene in studio 2, and kind of borrowed it.
Using a stanley knife I cut out little bricks out of the polystyrene.

Then I borrowed a glue gun from the storage room and glued the bits together to make the front of the bridge. 

That's how far I've got with that bridge so far

Hope you have your 3D glasses ready 8-)

I tried my hand at making a 3D picture. I looked up a step-to-step guide on http://graphicssoft.about.com/cs/photoshop/ht/3danaglyph.htm and spent all evening messing around with it on photoshop. I will probably get a bit better with more practice though.
Enjoy!

Examples of modern bridge design

I was googling modern architecture and bridges and this page has a lot of information and examples on it. http://www.corusconstruction.com/en/reference/teaching_resources/architectural_studio_reference/design/bridges/examples_of_modern_bridge_design/

For example this bridge in Manchester is really striking and interesting, and I also found has roughly the same metal structure, painted white like the Sylvester O' Halloran bridge I came across in Limerick. 

Print, Print, Print

I quite enjoy making woodcut prints so I tried to make one of the bridge lately. I took this photo -

Then mirror imaged it, and drew that image on a sheet of MDF, and shaded in all the areas I'm going to keep black. Using lino cutting tools, cut out all the white areas on the MDF.
The fun bit comes when inking the board, carefully with a roller and oil based ink, then carefully laying it down on the printing machine. Finally, I had to lay a sheet of paper, carefully on top of the print and lay a soft blanket over it, before compressing it through the print machine. Et voila:

I'm sure I had a better photo of it that that..

3D attempts...

Well, I tried to recreate this bridge...


with thin white card... and got this far...

So then I put it to one side and this week started making the structure with wire

Credit to http://www.limerickslife.com/citybridges.htm for the top photo. I took lots myself but didn't come out as good as it.

Sorry I haven't uploaded anything lately

Well so far I've decided to stick with the fancy bridge that leads into the potato market in Limerick city. I've drawn a few sketches, made half a bridge out of mounting card (It didn't hold) and at the moment I'm chancing my arm at a woodcut print of it!
The pictures won't upload for some unknown reason.. I've tried a few times with no success! I'll upload them in the next post I guess.

New update

So far, I've drawn more sketches of bridges and things that caught my eye around those bridges, in my sketch book. I've made 2 sihouettes of the Milk-Market bridge using black sugar paper and normal white paper, and I've also tried a bit of painting.

Some photographs

At my tutorial on Wednesday I was advised to take more photographs to help with my research of bridges around the city. So, as soon as I came home, I grabbed my camera and set out for the 2nd time since I started college and took over 100 more detailed photos than I had before. I'm not going to post up the whole lot, I'll just give a flavour of the collection I'm going to stick on my wall in the studio. 

First things first!

Hello! Thank you for checking out my college blog.
I think I should describe to you what I'm planning to do on my project here. The theme is Urban Development, which is a very broad theme I feel. But after lots of brainstorming, I've decided to focus more on bridges and rivers through Limerick city. It's only the fourth week onto our course, here in LSAD, and I've already taken lots of photos and drawn quite a few sketches. I will upload some photos of my progress later on, hopefully, to show you.

Evelyn