Llandudno, 23rd August 2009

Me, mum and dad went to Llandudno just for the day. We originally went to go for a walk and to this craft shop that mum is OBSESSED with! (Something to do with boxes being 10 for a £1 or something... god knows!). Anyhoo, by the time we'd got there and by the looks of the rain clouds it wasn't worth going for a walk so we just had an explore of Llandudno. I forgot how pretty it was. I forgot my camera, because I'm stupid so annoyingly I couldn't take any photos, but I took some rubbish ones on my phone. I may upload them at a later date, I dunno.

But yes, we went to this craft shop for mum which was actually quite amazing... got loads of papers, and craft knives and double sided tape, all paid for by the parents which is even better! Then afterwards we went for a walk round town.

We also went down to the waterfront. I forgot that Llandudno had a pebble beach instead of sand. Brought back so many memories from my childhood. When I was little, me and dad would go onto these kinds of pebble beaches and find nice stones and rocks and bring them home. Not that anything would ever happen to them but you know, we brought them home anyway. That's possibly where my passion for geology came about... hey ho. Anyway, we had a dig around and found some lovely stones which me and mum are thinking of polishing up. Granted, I only have like 5 days to do that in so doubtful I'll do it at home. I'll do it at uni if anywhere!!

But it was a really lovely day. We had lunch/early tea in this lovely restaurant/bar and as we left we saw a little art gallery on in the building opposite. so we went across to have a bit of a gander. It wasn't much but there was some lovely work in there. There was some amazing drawings and paintings that looked almost like photos, and then there were some watercolour/acrylic paintings that had been sewed over the top of using a sewing machine and they were really nice. I wanted to take a photo but lack of camera didn't really help me in that situation. But they were being sold for like £100!!

Anyway, a lovely day on the whole!

Liverpool, Tuesday 19th August

During Rich's stay at mine, we had a trip into Liverpool and my Dad had recommended going into the Bluecoat and the Tate. I wasn't really that bothered at first but thought it would come in quite handy and, you never know, there might be some interesting stuff there!

So, as I was walking Rich down through town and towards the dock we nipped into the Bluecoat. It' such an amazing building and doesn't look like its open to the public; a little intimidating really. But hey, I belted up and went in. The building itself is really beautiful, with a courtyard in the middle, with a little garden and benches. Very pretty, as was the front of the building with another little courtyard with a few little shops on either side as you walk up to the entrance.

Anyway, I found my way into the gallery section of the building as there was an exhibition on called 'Slow Magic'. It wasn't really my kind of thing, and a lot of it was contemporary and didn't seem to have taken much effort, although I am sure that there was a lot of thought and meaning behind it. But I did like one piece of work in particular, Andrew Bick, and I have put an image below of a similar piece of work to the one that I liked. Even thought it is still all simple lines and a bit contemporary, I liked the distinction between the images and colours behind the perspex and the images on top and the frosty kind of distinctio

n between the two.

In my journal, I will document this with the leaflet I got given at the entrance and another leaflet I picked up about the history of the building, as it is a truly remarkable building! I will also talk more about the work in that!!We left the Bluecoat and headed down to the docks, passing the old Quiggins building on the way... sad times. Anyway, we got down to the docks to see what was on at the Tate and it didn't look TOO contemporary, so we went in and had a look around. I wrote down some names of artists and the name of that particular piece of work because some things in there were totally inspirational! We didn't bother looking on the top floor, which was the paid exhibition, which was named "Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to today". I wasn't quite sure what that would entail and whether it would be worth paying for, so we passed the chance on that one. It's on until the 13th of September, so if I change my mind, I can always go back! But anyway, I found some AMAZING artists there!!!

Like this:

This is Eva Rothshcild, and the piece of work is called "knock knock". It is amazing! Took me a while to figure out how it was standing because it blatantly wasn't hanging from anything! The leather work surrounding the steel frame was also very well done and done to such a high standard.

This was another brilliant example;

This is "The Passing Winter" by Yayoi Kusama. It's brilliant. In the Tate where we saw it, the walls of the room where painted bright pink, so all of the holes shown here where bright pink and it looked brilliant. So impressive, and so simple!

I just looked up some of her other work whilst looking for the above picture and found another piece of work she's done that I love;

I'm unsure as to what this is made of, but it is beautiful. I love the depth of field/depth perception here and the correlation and the way the light hits it. It's lovely. Definitely an artist worth looking into!!

There were a few other artists, but I will mention them in further detail in my journal along with the leaflet from the gallery. But in general, I was impressed with the work and found some of it really inspirational!

Well worth the visit!

Manchester, 11th August '09

As I've now got photos from Dubai, Birmingham and Liverpool, I decided that Manchester was the last place I needed to finish it off.

So I took the hour long train ride to Manchester to have a wander around the city and take some photos. I wanted to try to get some of the more famous buildings in Manchester, including the Urbis, Printworks, Arndale, etc...

I also wanted to go a bit further afield and get photos of the G-Mex and the library but when I got there the sun was shining and it was far too hot to go walking around Manchester. So I decided to stick to the city centre and get photos there.

The street next to Selfridges.

Next, The Arndale Centre.

The walkway between the Arndale and M&S/Selfridges.

The front view of the Urbis.

Victoria Station.

Harvey Nichols.

Another photo of Harvey Nichols.

Liverpool, Monday 27th July

Okay, so these are my photos from Liverpool. I put several on, as I think that there is a fairly good mix of the old, modern and the famous. I think Liverpool has some truly fascinating and so unique, both old and new. I tried to get photos from a wide area of Liverpool, from the "Wig-wam" Church all the way down to the Docks and the Liver Building.

Part of Liverpool One.

Liverpool One again.

Limestreet under construction but looks fascinating next to LJMU Halls.

The view along the River front.

I love this picture with the contrast of new and old buildings. Almost looks photoshopped.

Can't remember what put this is, but such an amazing building.

Again, this building looks like 2 in 1. With the old and new aspects of this building.

The famous "Wig-Wam" Catholic Church. A very unique building.

Summer Project

So, we've been given a summer project, or at least the start of our project for 1st term. Another Identity project... as if we haven't had enough of those! Anyway, I figured I need to have an idea that will go somewhere. These projects are always about something personal or something you find interesting, and I can always think of things that inspire me and that I love, but when it comes to the practicality of making it into a project that I can lead into a final piece, that's when I struggle.

I've always been a big fan of architecture and I've done several projects on it in the past, so I thought I'd give it another shot, and there's plenty of towns and cities in my local area with brilliant architecture. I mean I've got Manchester, Liverpool, Southport, Blackpool etc...

I went to dubai again in June, 23rd - 28th to visit my sister, and it is quite unlike anything we have here. It is so urban, and the high rise buildings are quite impressive. Modern high rise buildings are the only kind of architecture in Dubai, and you wouldn't find so many high rise buildings clustered together anywhere in the UK so thought I could include some of these photos as its a very foreign kind of architecture.

The building on the right is my sister's block of apartments, I think it's a remarkable building.

This is a brilliant photo of the skyline of Dubai. With the Burg Dubai on the far left.

When I went to visit Rich on the 18th - 22nd July, we took a day trip into Birmingham, and I got some really lovely photos of the Bullring, and the Cathedral, and just the general architecture in the streets. I can use some of these for my project, even though I wasn't expecting to have photos from Birmingham.

This is the main street in between the two halves of the Bullring. I liked the skyline created here.

These are 2 photos of the Bullring that are my favourite. I got loads of photos, but I love these two!

I think this is my favourite picture, even though it isn't strictly architectural.

I have been to Liverpool to take some more photos, but I will upload some examples of these in my next blog. As for now, I should really get on with some drawings and what not!