All finished 

The project went well, myself and the rest of the group were very pleased with the results and we gave a decent presentation to our tutors. After working with the guys I can say that I would live to work with them again! Although two of the members didn’t turn up, we worked really well together and produced work to be proud of! 

 Cup of tea anyone???…

Getting started 

the brief for the second half was the same as the first but to work in agroup. Although sounding simple enough, we hit a few problems. Those were clashing of ideas, too many ideas, attendance, motivation and communication. As we were all coming from different angles from the first half of the project, it was tricky to connect our of previous outcomes/ideas to form one piece. To overcome this problem we took small aspects of everyone’s work and combined them. This approach worked pretty well. Attendance was also a matter. Because we weren’t a big group we had a lot of work to device between the four of us. Two of the members of the group didn’t attend much of the meet ups and didn’t contribute any productivity till the very end of the project. As a conciqence myself and Dan No.1 produced a large majority of the work. This turned out great! Me and Dan got along very well and were able to produce work within a good pace, we had a good working relationship. 

Moving forward, we made a start on the project. The ideas that we combined were; structure and power, natural waste, movement and distraction. We began brainstorming ideas and came to an agreement to research and investigate the theme ‘a city taken over by nature’. 

To start the trials we first produced some drawings…

 
This was our initial idea and we carried it forward because as a group we all felt strongly that the result would be a success and the concept behind our work was interesting. Following on from the drawing we looked at many materials we could use to build this structure. Out best result was to visit wicks down the road from uni and buy some materials. This didn’t cost us much and saved us lots of time. In the next picture you can see The structure of the tree and us playing with green stuff..

 
To cover the trunk of the tree I used willow sticks of my willow tree to create a twisted and morphed affect…

The canapé on the tree was the most difficult part of the sculpture. I wasn’t sure what material to use and how to attach it to the trunk. But when fetching the sticks of the willow tree I noticed a big mount of moss that was growing in my garden. This was perfect for the canapé as it was the right scale and texture. I attached the moss to the trunk using pieces of wire. I formed small blankets of the moss and used the wire to make lolly  pop so I could build the canapé in layers…

 
Once finished I added a base covered in ter f as well as cardboard buildings. The buildings represented the distraction and power of nature as though nature had taken over the city…

To put the sculpture into context, Dan No.2 created a background that stood being the tree. The background was a collage of many buildings in Cardiff but being a graphic designer he done a very good job of manipulating the image so plant life looked over grown and the city looked deserted. 

Working in a group – The City part 2

Working in a group isn’t my favourite way to work on projects, but as a manditory part of the course I kinda had no choice…on the other hand, I was quite excited as I would be collaborating and making new connections with other students from other courses. In my group there was three other people as well as myself. As they were all guys this was a new experience working as the only girl….I was the boss!! They had all come from different courses such as graphic design, product design and fine art. We had different outlooks of the city project and lots of contrasting ideas. The next few weeks were going to be interesting. 

The team…

Dan No.1…product designer 

 
Dan No.2…graphic designer

And Matt (don’t have a photo so I drew him)…Fine artist