Overground Arts Festival. 21st July.

Today I dived straight into life after the D&AD Graduate Academy by taking part in the overground arts festival. It was a mash of artists from across the UK who came together to paint live, share work and connect with other artists. The work I chose to exhibit was "Our British Lives" http://www.ruthjones.org/#!Our British Lives/cuik

 I had my work exhibited on a wall full of messages and flowers, and to top it of I chose to hang it outside (probably not the best idea exposing prints to direct sunlight...). It is my first outdoors exhibition and it was quite strange working in outdoor conditions.. I had to trust that the weather would stay fine, I had to make sure that there was as little glare as possible in the frames and I also had to keep wiping flies and bugs off the glass. I received some great feedback, people suggestions on post-it notes for where I should shoot next for the project, and I had the chance to chat to a few great people about my work and their own work.

Today was great and there was a wide range of people producing art and presenting their own work. I captured a few photos of the day:

 

www.ruthjones.org/

www.facebook.com/RuthJonesPhotography

GradAcad day 18: Spring Project, Party Prep, Wrap Party and Secret Walls. 18th July.

Today started off with a session with Darius from the Spring Project, it was quite a fun but poignant session. We started off by doing a few exercises which would engage our mind and body.. because we were all feeling a little bit sleepy, this helped us wake up and feel more focussed for the session! We then learnt all about "The Unbendable Arm", this is an exercise where you hold your arm out and through focussing on different things your partner can either easily bend your arm or not... It's an amazing way to discover the power of unifying the mind and body.

http://www.bodymindandmodem.com/CoolKi/Unbend.html

Another interesting activity was where we had to pair up and draw together, but one line at a time. The first two turns we drew things which one of us decided that we would draw, the third time we agreed on something to draw and we drew it together, and the fourth, fifth and sixth times we didn't tell each other what we were trying to draw and we drew what we wanted to draw. It was interesting to see the drawings from all the different groups to see how they worked together and the quality of the drawings they produced.

http://www.springproject.co.uk/

This afternoon we all got our party planning hats on and prepared for tonight's Wrap Party/Secret Walls challenge. We had a large gallery to decorate and personalise, so photo collages were created and printed, quotes were copied down, the stairwell was covered in our faces, a massive yellow pencil pinata went up and so many other things! We worked together to create a great party space for a hugely successful party!

GradAcad round 1

GradAcad round 2

The main event of the night was a Secret Walls battle (a bit like a rap battle/dance off but with graffiti style art). Four different teams entered the battle, the battle was the first of the "Pro Series" so all of the teams were from professional backgrounds, the first team was from Jelly, the second team was from LBI, the third team was a mash up of pro illustrators, and the fourth team was GRAD ACAD! The battle is made out of two rounds, the first round all four people draw, but on the final round only two teams get to draw.. so Grad Acad made it through the first round and so did the Mash Up team.. and Grad Acad went on to be runners up of the battle (both teams created amazing pieces of work!)

http://www.thesecretwalls.com/

#GradAcad

www.dandad.org/talent/graduate-academy

GradAcad day 17: Pitches, Party Prep and 90second Portraits. 17th July.

First thing this morning we all had the opportunity to present back our group brief pitch from week 2 to the rest of our the Graduate Academy guys. It was really great to see the work which the other groups produced for their pitches; the briefs ranged from creating an easy way for parents to communicate with their children about packed lunches, to raising money for a kickstarter campaign. Everyone seemed to approach the brief really well and came out with great responses.

We then went to check out the gallery where we were holding tomorrow evenings Wrap Party, it was a very rustic style space and we have to use it as a blank canvas which we can decorate to showcase the work of our Graduate Academy. 

One of our decoration ideas was to fill the space with our portraits; we all drew a portrait of each person on the academy, everyone focussed on drawing one person at a time and had 90 seconds to draw each portrait.  We now have about 600-700 portraits of everyone! Joanna Houghton drew this amazing portrait of me, I think it is amazing for a quick 90second sketch.. she's a great illustrator: http://joannahoughton.tumblr.com/

#GradAcad

www.dandad.org/talent/graduate-academy

The Park Study

I had a really quick visit to the park today, I discovered two photographers/filmmakers in the park, so I couldn't resist taking the typical "photographer photographing a photographer" picture.

The Ukulele. 5th of November.

I painted this Ukulele last year, I never got round to re-stringing it though. I have always wanted to learn ukulele, it is a really cool instrument with a great sound! 

Today has been busy and the rest of my week is pretty busy-looking too! I have a couple more architecture shoots to complete, a hair shoot, and some 5x4 work. But it's photography, so it it fun!