Chesterfield College Art and Design Exhibition

When I went to the Chesterfield College Art exhibition I found these three images which I particularly eyecatching and they just appealed to me. They were three prints which had few colours on: a shade of pale blue mixed in tih black and white. One consisted of a tank which one side was in the shade and the colour of the ground was white with blue sky, another was a man looking up like he was looking at you when looking at the piece like he was waving and the other was a metal fence which looked like it was in the moonlight. All these pieces had letters which were cut out of newspapers and magazines which were stuck onto the piece when printed then taken off after so that it gave a stencil look off which worked exceptionally well. 

V&A

Alan Fletcher

Alan Fletcher is one of the World's best known Graphic designers and typographers and he designed the V&A Logo in 1990. There had been many different symbols and shapes to the V&A logo in the past but trustees commisioned a new logo to be made to replace the others. The letters which were used for the logo were designed by Gianbattista Bodoni around almost 200 years ago. What Fletcher did was take the stem of the A (leg) and removed it and tucked the ampersand into the A and also removed the crossbar of the A. However this did not disrupt the logo, in fact it was so unique and that people can still read it and know what it is that it is still used now for the logo of the Victoria and Albert museum now. This is a very simple design which is very effective and is known World wide. 

Joseph Penell 

Joseph Penell was born on the 4th of July in 1857 and died on the 23rd of April in 1923 and he was well known for being an artist and an author.

He first studied in Pilidelphia but soon went on as many did in those days and moved over to Europe where he made his home in London. He was an Author throughout his days but also a keen etcher and lithographer and also as an illustrator. He also taught at Slade School of Art but what I think is great about his works is the details in which it goes to to create shadows especially in his mono tone prints and drawings as he uses different shading techniques such as cross hatching, hatching and smudging and many more. The industrial scenes are very good as if he's sending a message through the drawing of manual labour and people working with machines. He really expresses feelings and hard work through these drawings and uses shading to complete the image as a whole to bring it all together. 

Roy Lichtenstein 

Roy Lichtenstein’s work was first impacted by comic books and cartoons; this is where his ideas come from. His main artworks were influenced by comic strips.

He turned commercial images and fine art into images which looked like comic books and advertisements and turning them into paintings whilst also adding type too. Lichtenstein used colour as if it was printing ink. He included little tiny dots so that all his paintings and images looked like they were in the style of cartoons. No one at this time created art like Roy Lichtenstein and he was quoted as “The worst Artist in America” by the life magazine. Although he was known as the worst artist at this time it was because he was so beyond the realm of fine art that the art critics were all outraged in his works.

Lichtenstein's best-known work from this period is "Whaam!," which he painted in 1963, using a comic book panel from a 1962 issue of DC Comics' All-American Men of War as his inspiration. Other works of the 1960s featured cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and advertisements for food and household products. He created a large-scale mural of a laughing young woman (adapted from an image in a comic book) for the New York State Pavilion of the 1964 World's Fair in New York City.

BBC Life Story

Commentated by David Attenborough

On the thursday night of last week I was watching a show called Life story on BBC One hosted by David Attenborough. this particular episode was how animals and creatures deal with the mating process which I found that there was fierce competiton for some animals. However there was one little sea creature called the Puffer Fish which astonished me more than any. To persue in his mating process the Little fish was off the shore of Japan in this bay where the sand is much softer and in shallow waters. What the fish does is it flaps its fins along the sea bed to churn the sand up to make it a softr bed for the female to lay her eggs however the male Puffer Fish has this whole art piece planned out in his head of how he is going to create this kind of circle to attract the female Puffer Fish in to lay the eggs. He then creates this art piece on the sea bed which can take weeks planning each little bit out and then a female will approach and inspect the area to see if its up to her standards and then lay the eggs in the centre where the male will bury them under the sand.   Take a look:

Wedgewood Pottery

Josiah Wedgewood and sons who are more commonly known just as Wedgewood is a pottery company which is owned by KPS Capital Partners who are based in New York.

Wedgewood was firstly founded on the 1st of may in 1759 by Josiah Wedgewood. 

Up till 1759 Josiah Wedgewood worked with potter Thomas Whielden when his relatives gave him a lease for the Ivy House so that he could begin his own pottery company. He had great success in this alongside with his marriage who was a cousin of his named Sarah. In 1765 he created new earthware which really impressed the British Queen and was given permission to name it as Queen's Ware which then sold extremely well all across Europe. The most famous ware of Wedgewood's is Jasper ware which was made to look like ancient cameo glass. However he created his simple blue and white decor plates which he is also very known for. My dad the other week was working at the old Wedgewood factory and found in a heep on the floor around 100 of these small moulds which were made out of plaster, he brought them home and we now have a large collection of Wedgewood moulds in our house. They are very detailed small pieces with faces which you can see perfectly and very detailed branches of plants. He looked on the auctioning site 'Ebay' and each of these moulds are selling for at lest £30 and we are now in possession of nearly 100 of them.