The magic of photoshop!

I have re-discovered the magic of photoshop and how it can completely transform a photo. Even if you think your starting image isn't much to look at, a bit of tweaking here and there and it can be transformed into a beauty! Evidence follows..

Original..

Edited..

Hessle Foreshore

I had the idea for a quick a photo-spree yesterday, and decided on a short trip to Hessle Foreshore. It only takes around 15 mins in the car and I've not been for a good few years, so it was nice re-visit a a place and compare how it is now to how it seemed all those years ago. The weather provided lovely colours and shadows, and here is a selection of the images I took digitally:

Practice Drawings and Amy

I've taken a break from drawing for the past few weeks but decided to dig out my ink and pens tonight to have a practice. My mum challenged me to draw Amy Winehouse so I thought I'd have go even though likenesses are not my strong point. I had ink spills a plenty as my pen has a mind of it's own!

This week I've been preparing my work for assessments which start on Monday and have created new new works based on the larger composition in the last post of my work. I invested in a couple of primed boards to make sure that my work lasts and won't degrade over time and here are photo's of my two newest work:

Art works for sale!

Just a quick post to say that I'm looking to sell some of my sculptures! I've uploaded images of them onto Flickr to make it easier to view them:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicolaspencer/

Paint/Print/Collage

This is my latest piece that I've been working on, and it's a combination of all the different side projects that my work has comprised of so far. I'm trying to find a conclusion within my work, and putting everything together into one piece is my first way of doing so! I think I've been a bit over-enthusiastic with all the detail and mark-making, but i'm pleased in a way that it encompasses everything that I've been working on.

I've taken photographs of close-up sections of the piece and feel that these are more successful compositionally. I think my next step could be to try more simpler works, maybe on a large scale but which have one focus point?

We have our final hand ins next week for assessment so I'm aiming to try out as many different things as possible. I want to start that summer/ 4th year to be a fresh start and not thinking about how I'd wished I'd done this or that to the project.

Artist Book!

I've been working on a lot of ink drawings for the past couple of weeks and my desk has been overflowing with scraps of paper!

To try and reach some kind of conclusion for one set of the drawings, I made them into an artist's book (or a booklet to be more exact. It was surprisingly easier than I expected, as all I needed to do was scan the images in order to order to convert them in jpegs and then resize them according to what size I wanted my book.I decided on 20 x 20cm as I wasn't sure of what the final thing would look like, and also how much it was cost (a concern that governs the majority of my work!).

Altogether the books cost under £4 each to make (with a student discount), they are stapled and i'm really pleased with the overall result. I'm going to experiment more with sizes and materials etc, and want to try making a hand-made book so see the comparison.