Photoshoot

Today I went to make some pictures of a Triumph Herald. A meeting wich was set up thanks to Simone (you can check her blog on http://prairiehound.blogspot.com/). She was even kind enough to drive over there aswell and show me how to get there and introduce me to her friends. After a very nice ride we arrived at the house and I was shown to a hidden away Triumph Herald convertible. It didn't take long for me to get my camera and start shooting pictures. Here are a few of the results:

 

Tutorial

Had another tutorial with Kenny Hunter today. We talked about all sorts of things since I now finaly had alot of new work to show. He also was there when we showed my projectspace and I must say that is input was very helpfull. Today however we talked more about the car parts I have laying around and what to do with them, and the billboard picture I still have in my studio. For the billboard picture he is advising me to do one in colour and see what the difference is. Even though I'm not to sure about it I will go ahead and get a larger print made of of my picture (not too big though because that will unfortunately cost me a fortune). I might also experiment a bit with painting over the black and white one I have and see what that does to it.

Afterwards I saw Andrew Sneddon (he was my tutor in my first semester last year, but I still talk to him quite often). He told me he really liked the big billboard print I did and that I was heading in a good direction. It really feels this way becausse I finaly have the feeling I know what I want.

Tomorrow Simone (she has her studio across from me) is going to introduce me to one of her friends. He has an old Triumph Herald standing in a barn and I'm allowed to come over and take some pictures. I'm really excited about this but a bit nervous aswell. you'll hear about how it went tomorrow.

More Pictures

Today I went back into the projectspace to take some extra pictures. Even though we had to leave the building before 4 pm we came up with some nice shots (thanks to William). I also made some small video's but the quality is a bit bad, as you can see on the one I uploaded to youtube.

Projectspace documentation

I went to the college today for some extra pictures of our projectspace. Unfortunately the college isn't open as late as it is during the week which ment that I hadn't had any time to make pictures and that the college closes before it gets dark enough to see the show at it's best. Luckily I took some pictures during the crit last night so I'm not left without any documentation, but it's still a shame. I am going back earlier tomorrow to try and get some more shots but I'll doubt that they will be much better than these.

It's over

I finaly finished my projectspace and I think I am allowed to say that it was very well recieved. Apart from the expected critisism which I have to add was very helpfull. I have added a couple off sneak preview images which where very badly taken with my phone, since we used projections in a darkened room. I am going in tomorrow (Saturday) to do some real documenting togheter with William, so hepefully I will be able to get some good pictures up in the evening.

Projectspace

Today I mostly spend my time setting up my projectspace togheter with William and Talia. Since I want it to be a bit of a surprice I'm not going to go into the details too much, but I can tell you that I am getting pretty excited about it. At this point I think it is going to work out pretty well and I can't wait to show it to my classmates, and hear what they think about it.

More Coldworking

Besides looking at some sandcasting today I also got to a little more coldworking. This time with the help of Jonathan who cut off the exces glass from my other casts. After this I grinded down the rest a little and hand sanded most of the casts for a finer touch. Although I am still not finished (I didn't find the time to use a dremel today), you can clearly see what the end product is going to be like. I even got to try the gascap on my Harley-Davidson Sportster tank.

Sandcasting

Hen I was coldworking my glass pieces in the glass workshop today, the technician asked me if I had seen sandcasting before. Since I have I wasn't that interested in looking untill she told me that Allan (the guy who usually helps me with my glass casting) was casting 2 of his boddies which he was going to attempt and melt togheter. As you might know or not know, sandcasting always leaves one open flat surface. Since you press your mold down into the sand you cannot make a fully 3d statue. Becausse of this allan wanted to try making a front and a back site and flip one over on top of the other after they got a bit solid. After that he even attempted to sculpt it a bit more so the body could sit upright.
It felt quite nice being part of a hotshop project even though I only opend and closed the door of the furnace a couple of times, it felt like I was back in California for a while.

Sorry the images are a bit crappy but I only had my phone on me
and since sancasting requires a lot of speed people didn't
had the time to stop and pose for me

Coldworking

Since I don't have clearance on all the coldworking tools in the glass department I asked Allan (who has helped me alot with this project already), to help me out once more. Luckily he was willingly as always and cut the biggest chunk of the bottom of my piece. Now I only have to grind the rest down a bit myself and tidy the piece up. But becausse I was impatient as always I tried it out on one of the gastanks I have laying around already.

I think I have a new favourite artist

Even though Jasper Johns will probably always stay my number 1, at this moment I'm not to sure about it. It is both amazing and horrific finding what I'm trying to show in someone else's work. How is it that everything has been done before (I guess this is something most artist have to deal with). This is one of the reasons why I don't like seeing what is already been done since I will simply start to feel like a ripoff of something that has been done before. On the other hand it is just amazing to see what is out there and it might work as an inspiration source aswell. I have used Richard Prince as an example to talk about my work occasionally, maybe it is about time to get deeper into the subject matter that drives him.

Click this link for an article about him and his work:
Richard Prince

Project Space

I just created the Facebook event for our projectspace this friday. We had some trouble with finding a good title though. For now were going with We'll be the Passenger queted out of the song "The Passenger" by Iggy Pop. Since I hate it when I get invites for events I cannot attend I only invited people I think might be in or around Edinburgh. but feel free to check out the facebook link to the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/290454764321404/

Or check this awesome music video with Iggy Pop's song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8filyvBJmeg

The CO2 Projectspace room ate ECA will be opened on friday the 25th of November at 3:30 PM.
The crit (for MFA2 only) will start at 4PM and after that an Official opening will be held at 5PM (All welcome).

More Glass

When I went to the glass department today to ask when they expected my other 2 casts to come out of the kiln I got a nice surprise. Apperantly they where already done and I could already demold them. So now I have 5 casted pieces, I can't wait untill I have the time to coldwork them (I want to concentrate on my projectspace first before I start doing to much other stuff).

Another productive day

Even though I had yet another meeting today I did find the time to work on some studio stuff. My project space is in just over a week so I have to rap things up. I worked on my 2 car panels (door and booth bonnet) that I am using and made some stands for them. as you can see they fill my studio nicely and it is starting to become like a garage more and more. I included another picture featuring the other 2 glass parts (hinges from the booth bonnet) that came out of the kiln yesterday. The blue marks are there to indicate what is going to be cut of when I find the time. I am hoping that the final 2 parts (including a second gascap) come out of the kiln this weekend.

Glass

Today the first 3 pieces of my latest glaswork came out of the kiln. I was surprised about how easily they demolded, and how well they actually look (the shapes are very simple so that helps alot). They still need a little work but not as many as my previous castings. The one in the pictures is a cast of the gascap from a Harley gastank.

Billboard

I finished my first billboard picture today. It took a lot of calculating and measuring since I can't just print it out on one sheet. Since it would take for ages doing this by screenprinting (nevermind the costs), I decided to see if it was possible to print black and white on brown paper (see earlier post). As it worked out quite well I started to set up a big picture. I also had to cut the paper down to A0 size (it doesn't come in a standard size how easy is that), but it all worked out fine in the end. It's made up out of 8 overlaying A0 poster prints and is 320 cm wide and 215 cm high. Quite a difference compared to my earlier screenprints. Some of you might recognize the scene as it is a picture I took at my friends garage in the Netherlands. It's also the same kind of car that I used for my earlier sculpture project during my undergrad.

New parts

I've been going to a classic car garage for a while now (Chic Doig in Cardenden), and he's always been very nice for me. I've taken the MG-C-GT picture at his place for instance. I have been talking to him about some extra scrap side panels but the last time I went over there he just had a guy come by and pick up all the scrap. This time however I got a bit more lucky and was able to get 2 extra rusty panels out of his scrap bin. One is a Triumph Herald rear wing which I think looks great, and they other is the outside piece of a door (not sure which car it's from).

I have my project space comming up where I am working togheter with 2 other students and we are planning to do some projections onto car panels. We have the most of it planned out already but who knows what these extra panels might change. And if not they will still be great collage matterial.

Thank god friday's over

Today I had various meetings and crits about all sorts of stuff. To be honest most of it was quite interesting, it was just a bit unfortunate that it all had to be on the same day (I can only take so much of theory at once and rather had it spread out a bit since next friday there is none of it at all). We also had another projectspace which today was organised by Gregor Morrison and Iain Sutherland. Gregor did his undergrad in Screenprinting and Iain is a photographer. They worked togheter by using Iain's photographs screenprinted on by plaster created slabs (which where quite big and heavy). They also had a small second room where they projected a video of a landscape/sea view (the screenprinted images where also pieces of this view but by the way they where printed they wern't all as clear to recognise). I enjoyed the show quite well but got a bit annyoed when people started to discuss to much about the technical imperfections. I know everything can be done better but it's a project space not a gallery.

The more fun part of today was that I saw the chance of running into the woodshop before class started this morning, and asked Doug about the matterials present (I wanted to make small wooden panels to use for moldmaking). I just didn't expect him to actually make them for me so that was a nice surprise after I came out of class. As you can see on the picture the wooden pieces have an extra piece on the end. This is so you can hold them togheter by using glue clamps. When used properly I can pour plaster or other mold matterial in this box which saves me from having to build up a clay wall around my object all the time (see my mouldmaking tutorials on earlier messages from my blog). Hopefully I get to try them out next week.

Billboard tryouts

So today I did remember to take a picture of the A0 print I made. As you can see in the picture I actually messed up the size of the paper and thus the image didn't fit on the paper. I am cutting out alot more of these A0 sized papers (in the correct format this time), so I can try and print a big size picture soon and see if the image doesn't get too distorted.

Website Update

I finaly managed to get some decent shots of my latest screenprints, and decided to update my website becausse of this. You can now officially see/order them online (not that I have a webshop or anything but if anyone is interested feel free to send me an e-mail).

I also started to test out some stuff for my new project which involves a much larger size print. Since I want it to be on brown paper (same as my screen prints), it means that I have to cut out the paper to the right size myself (I'm planning to build up a big size print out of multiple A0 size prints). I did a first test today and even the guy from the printshop was amazed about how well it printed. I forgot to take a picture of the result so you will have to wait for that but again plenty of pictures on my newly updated website ;).

www.sanderschoonbeek.nl

Tutorials again

Had another tutorial this monday. It seemed kind of pointless to me since I still don't have alot of work to show (casting takes time and thus I still don't have alot of matterials to show exept for the screenprints). Luckily Kenny knows to make it worth it eiher way and we talked about my plans and ideas about how to make more of my screenprints. I talked about the idea of making a really big one (billboard size), but I think we already talked about that before. It just feels like i'm falling back in the stuff I have to do rather then stuff I want to do after an awesome reading week which gave me so much freedom.

New Prints

I finaly took some pictures of the new prints I did whis week. Not sure wheather I like the quality of the pictures good enough to put them on my website aswell. Comments on that are welcome.

Getting there

I just filled my moulds with glass at the college which meant there ready to go. Allan from the glass department is still working on his last mould so I guess they will be fired either tonight or tomorrow. They will be in a 2 week schedule so it will be a while before I will be able to see if it all worked out or not. For now I would just like to thank Allan for taking the extra effort helping me out with this.

Reading week

This week is supposed to be reading week, but for me it is an amazing working week. Since I don't have any classes/crits or other distracting time consuming things it means that I can finaly fully focus on making stuff. Last teusday I went to the glass department to ask them if I could cast something soon and a few students (Allan and Jonathan) decided to help me out and I could start right away. I worked with them untill the college closed and got 5 moulds ready to cast. I was so amazed and happy about this and I really feel like I have been fully accepted by the glass department. If all goes well I can put my moulds in the kiln with Allan today who is going to cast some big sculpts he made, and since my moulds are fairly small there should be enough space to put them in with his stuff.

I have also been working on a new series of screen prints. Since I had a good talk with Kenny a while ago and he told me that it would be a waste to just stop with working on something that works well, and just start something completely new for the graduation show. So instead of just making new sculptural work I decided to do another screen printed series aswell and see how it goes from there (I still feel that I need to do something more with them since now it just feels like more of the same stuff). I am thinking about going billboard size with them and just need to figure out how to to this (and keep it affordable).

Here's a sneak peak on both my glass moulds (being steamed out and placed in the drying cabinet), and 2 of the 4 screenprints I finished yesterday.

It has been a busy week (and it isn't over yet).