After leaving graphics

I'm in ceramics now and have a look at what I've been up to since transfer.

Paper clay. These are Elaine's samples of how to create an image on a slab of clay with paper stencils and different colour slips.

and then I tried some myself... 

unfortunately the orange never turned out as bright after glazing with transparent crackle glaze and firing, it changed to white.

we also did printing

it is supposed to look like a turtle, but yeah...

When everybody else were working on their ranking project pieces, I was developing my ceramics elective week vessel further. Elaine showed me how to use an extruder.

 i added a little bottomless teacup just to keep them happy ;)

after naked raku firing some of them came out very interesting, but because I had so many pieces each with different designs and plans, not all of them turned out successful.

A cool flipbook video

Book cover examples

I snook into a bookshop in Limerick city and took a couple of shots of how books are laid out. To see what makes a good cover stand out.

There is no point asking the girls in the shop why the layout of the books is the way it is, because they get every shelf mapped out by the head office.

The book "Freedom" has good layout, because you can see the text from wherever you are standing in relation to it.



The book "Ghost" also caught my eye, because it's large title and contrast - yellow on black.




Where to go when in search of good book covers:
http://nytimesbooks.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=36101228455

They are worth visiting...

a draft for the book

I chose to keep the background plain white with no images of Venice or anything you normally expect to see on a book cover. Because the word "Venice" is already on the cover, we don't need a picture of gondolas or architecture. I wanted to keep it very simple in order to catch a customers eye on a bookshelf full of covers that are trying to tell a whole story on a page (front cover). The synopsis is on the back of the book, so the front has to work as a lighthouse in the wide ocean of book covers (sounds tacky, but you know what I mean...).

It is a story about transformation, so the blue square starts to fall apart and slowly, bit-by-bit, transform into a circle.

A website where I find help with Photoshop: eHow.com

some sketches for the book cover

Sheet no. 1
First one on the left should carry the idea that the main character - Gustave von Aschenbach was a writer. The story happened in early 1900, when the typewriter had already been invented.

Second in the top row - blue box starts to come apart and slowly transform into the big red circle. Aschenbach's discipline and dignity starts to give way to stronger emotions like love and passion.

Third - wanted to use a symbol, like the Crown of Thorns for sacrifice and passion. Used blue and red intertwining arrows that move in the opposite directions.

Fourth and fifth - used a boat that is trying to move away from chasing conscience.
Sixth - arrows again moving in opposite directions.

Sheet no. 2
same sketches, larger.

My Prezi presentation

Following a week long research on the book we chose, we all had to create a slide-show presentation. The book I chose was titled "Death in Venice", by Thomas Mann.

there's the link:
http://prezi.com/nox_vrzv15-k/death-in-venice-2/

What I managed to come up with last year. (I'm NOT a reporter...)

So.. it started with mindless littering. And I didn't catch anybody in action (I wouldn't make a good reporter/photographer with my luck). I tried hard to gain access to recycling centres with a camera to take pictures of people putting random rubbish into wrong collecting units - like electric leads and flowerpots in containers for old TVs or recyclable glass/cardboard. I thought I was doing the right thing, and they treated me as if I was a sneaky reporter. The Recycling Centre in Shannon told me I couldn't take pictures because they had not the "proper signs" up around the facility. When I tried to make a deal with them promising not to take any photos of the signs and noticeboards, they showed me where the exit was. Weird.
I also contacted "Mr. Binman" company to see would they be willing to let me in with a camera. Guess.... NO - for "health and safety reasons". It didn't help mentioning that I was their customer... They are all mad.
I was driving around Clare hopelessly, looking for rubbish dumped into ditches at the side of the road (by You-know-whos and others alike), but nah... Where I DID end up was Sixmilebridge Wastewater Treatment Works. And those people were the nicest I've met so far. They showed me every machine/container/pipe they had plus all the schemes and apparatuses needed to keep that place running. here are some pictures... I cannot find the originals, so here I scanned some from my sketchbook...

I was attracted to the beauty of reflection in the water and bubbles that distorted the clean flat reflective surface. From there on, I decided - enough of rubbish, I'm going into the city of Limerick to look for more pleasing sights, anything got to do with reflection/distortion on surfaces.

There's what I saw:

The CARLSBERG CAR

Anyway, I played around with the images - made some larger, printed on acetate and glued tinfoil under some parts of the image to enhance the reflective qualities.

I have tons more of images, but uploading them all would mean - I'm back where I started - MINDLESS LITTERING. Plus You might find me climbing up the "Angry Birds" highscore list, because this uploading can be painfully slow...

Au revoir...

New year's resolution

I made a simple promise to myself to start being more active on Blogger for the year 2011. And here I am - in March - trying to make up for all those Fridays when I went home and forgot about it (sometimes honestly, sometimes out of laziness). So here goes...