So here it is.  colours are a bit strange but then I ended up working out in the studio rather than in eca.  At college I could not count on one specific work area and so opted, as nearly everyone else did, to work from home. I cut out and installed photos I had taken of the Close in order to add to another dimension in what is really quite a flat plain.  I also wanted to give more of a sense of progression and journey.  I have installed Roman Numeral dates - key points in my life on the road to where I am at now, and resorted to symbols in order to punctuate those events. This is in keeping with the dates and initials over door lintels.  As influences I can cite Braque, Mondrian and Ben Nicholson.

In this piece I started experimenting with the shape of the painting. Rather than three distinct blocks, there is one flowing - hopefully - ascent from the bottom to the top.  I wanted to convey the slick damp steps and the texture of the stone.  Also wanted to be somewhat atmospheric in lighting. 

I got an introduction to N1 workshop - place of amazing tools with which to do very ambitious and potentially hazardous things and printing facilities. It was the latter that I engaged more fully with and really enjoyed playing with bits of paper and netting to create this very abstracted version of the Close.

This was done on card, split into three sections using photos and drawings I had made on site.  I then used a ruler and added lines on top.  Some aspects worked but I felt that it was too flat and cluttered a design.

Excuse the pun.  Can't help myself.  I had a couple of tries at painting, designed to capture the colours, textures and atmosphere of the Close. In the end I decided to actually manufacture the shape of the final piece to mirror the direction of the steps themselves.  I used watercolour paper and layers of acrylic paint, watered down to act as watercolours.  I also used the sewing machine.  The stitch gave texture, knitted the interlocking sections together and also added to the general story of how  lives, as with the Close itself,  are a process of layers that are meshed together.

A few of the photos I took in researching for the project.  They do not convey the smell - damp!

The new challenge - all 170 of us or at least all the First Years have to work collaboratively on resourcing, curating, promoting, documenting and producing a SHOW!  The brief for this exhibition is the story so far ... It is about showing the tutors what we believe our specialist area of study to be .. so I need to paint! It is also communicate my experience, relections and thoughts during the last five weeks at eca. 

I have decided to focus my piece on Advocate's Close in Edinburgh.  I walk up it daily on arriving at Waverly Station.  I climb up all of 119 steps or so to the Royal Mile.  Each time I get a little thrill. Edinburgh is a very beautiful city and this part of it is steeped in history.  Walking up the Close you get the feel of how over hundreds of years, various people/buildings and business ventures have come and gone.  There are doorways that lead to nowhere, dates on top of lintels, old walls in front of more modern walls.  Halfway up there is a sign on a lintel which reads ' He that tholes overcomes'.  Timely advice when drawing breath and feeling wobbly legs.

To me the climb is also metaphorical.  Going back to a teaching analogy - the ladder.  If life's achievements can be likened to a series of rungs on a ladder, eca represents the pinnacle of achievement, the highest rung in a ladder. Along the way are other very important dates, such as those of the birth of my children.  I have notions of creating a painting of the Close, making much of the overlapping nature of the steps and inserting my important dates over lintels of doors and windows.

This is how the 'Book' was exhibited in the Sculpture Court.  Konstantina helped procure me a revolving table.  I covered it in paper so to give it a clean-up and the piece sat on top.

The brilliance of the revolving table was that during my presentation I could turn the table round to reveal the reverse side of the pages!

The whole Sculpture Court was a complete buzz of excitement.  The presentations were not as scary as I was initally convinced they would be, simpley because we kept in our group - Group A and by this time we knew each other quite well.  The only downside to the proceedings was that due to the Court being very busy with lots of groups presenting at the same time, some of the quieter members of the group were very hard to hear.  However it was a rewarding experience.  We also got a very good write up from edinburghguardian guest blogger Emma Parks. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/edinburgh/2010/oct/25/edinburgh-college-art-eca-first-year-showcase

The bar has now been set!

I have just finished the Wiki site on Lynne Hull.  I followed the brief so it is 'brief'.  The link is http://ecagroup4.wikispace.com

I need to get Andrew to help me 'tidy' up the page.  There appears to be random references I think to do with the photos that I uploaded and I do not know how to get rid of them!