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Visited her exhibition as it related to my IPS idea, turned out to be very closely related in style, medium and ideas to what I was beginning to picture.

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Zoe was inspired by Leomi Sadlers talk to do a project on found objects from around the area and wanted to recreate these using 3D methods.
They brought this idea to me and I was super excited by it as I'd been planning on focussing more on ceramics and have in the past made work that focussed around objects in the home. This felt like a good opportunity to do some positive collaboration with someone who's work I respect and who I felt I could bounce ideas of and work with in an organic way and use as an opportunity to build on some of the things I took away from the previous collaboration project.
I know that this project put people off collaborating again however the bad experience of making work I wasn't at all proud of and struggling throughout the process just made me want to do it again and have a positive experience, especially as I plan on doing as much collaboration outside of uni as possible, to me collaboration is an often essential part of illustration practices, especially within professional environments where you are often responding to others ideas or work.

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I struggle with organization so completing the workshop tasks at the time was a big priority this time. This decision benefitted me later for narrowing down on a really specific topic, which I have historically wasted time debating over, this idea feels simple and intentional.

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Something that I didn't get a chance to photograph properly is how differently all the different underglazes reacted the the glaze.
The blue bunny and glue bottle fella didn't hold the glaze at all so it came out rough and without the glossy shine I was after, while the orange and yellow took it on perfectly which made for a couple of really clean and polished pieces, more suited for selling.
I wanted to understand why this might happen so I watched some youtube videos explaining how glazes work and asked James the ceramics tech to go over some tips so I can improve on my next pieces.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUIGzZhakXo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5CAKKfac7k

Essentially the pores of the clay expand when fired as they have no moisture left in them, and the underglaze or glaze is absorbed into these pores so that it remains in place during firing. Some colours were thicker than others so the thinner the underglaze the better the glaze could hold on to the outside and vise versa.
I had no experience of this and was very focussed on getting as consistent and bright colours through many layers of underglaze so after the first round of firing I adjusted what I was doing a little and tried some different options.

This ranged from leaving the piece in the glaze for longer than recommended which actually worked, double dipping the piece in the glaze which worked best and leaving it in the glaze for only a few seconds more than usual which did basically nothing.
This was useful information but frustrating as I didn't have time to remake these pieces, which I would have liked as I was aware I was presenting pieces at Peckham Levels that weren't very professionally made.
I also decided not to include the chicken piece as I didn't feel the style was cohesive with the others and because it was the first piece I had made using a different clay the colour of the yellow wouldn't match other pieces made with a different clay that I was planning on painting with the same yellow.

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Areas where you can see the glaze hasn't held and the finish is more mat.

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A piece where the glaze experimenting paid of it and it came out clean and evenly shiny.

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I photographed these all in the lightbox in the studio, as I had never photographed my ceramics in a professional way and therefore don't have good records of my progress. I did a poor job though as I had no idea what I was doing and Marius wasn't around for technical support.
I also did this so I could try to design a print which included the ceramics as well as drawings in one place, again thinking about how they would all be presented in one place and how a print of all these mixed media elements could create a clearer link between the theme and all the work for an audience.

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I had intended to include these photos in a portfolio however the camera had a scratch or something I couldn't get off on the lens. This paired with my terrible technical abilities didn't lead to a very professional result, again I tried something knew and next time it will come out better.

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Using the photos I tried some arrangements of the different pieces in photoshop but didn't like all the colours together, it didn't feel thought out enough and I thought with drawings as well as these it would have been way too much.
I left quite a lot of space for drawings because I designed it with the intention of printing A5 so I was conscious of the final result feeling jumbled.

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Tried it in black and white but felt too dark and depressing without any colour at all, as the drawings I wad planning on using were all Zoes black line drawings, so it would be representative off all our work.

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In the end I messed around a bit on photoshop and made these tonal black and white options which I felt worked best for bringing together all the pieces while not loosing all the colour.
I wanted this to really speak to the nature of the project for an audience, making the title text and Zoes "New Product" the central focal point and then seeing all the work together.
Ideally for displaying or selling this at the event I would have riso printed this for a more professional result and truer colours and interesting texture however with the time frame I had I'm content with the digital prints and again I was prioritising trying something over a perfect end result, which this definitely isn't!

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Made with Acrylic Ink, pencil and markers I think this was a good use of the ink, although its not pushing my way of working into as new a territory as I would have like I think I adjusted well to the challenges of working with another person and still managed to find a good use for the material with something a bit more graphicy and clean but still interesting, which I think would work well on social media or as part of a portfolio of work for more commercial work such as poster design.
I think this became a balanced piece with a good mix of negative and positive space and I think it gives just enough away to communicate with an audience that it is made up of elements of found objects. I think including the 2 for £5 was really important as that communication tool.

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I was uncertain as to whether to sell this and my other piece as a print until the night before the event, as I hadn't been able to access riso printing and I was concerned without this printing method the quality of the print wouldn't be appropriate to sell.
I decided to give digital printing on the studio printer a go after speaking to Marius about which kinds of paper I could safely use that would be better quality than printer paper and how the print might come out if I was using paper that wasn't as smooth as printer paper.
This was really helpful as he explained I could push to as far as 300gsm paper and that the rougher the grain the more uneven or speckled the print would be because of the laser which to me sounded like an interesting way of making the print a bit more organic!
I ended up printing on 210gsm on a middle ground cartridge paper and it came out nice enough to sell with just a little texture that made it loose some of that digital cleanliness but I do wish I had had time to do some experimenting with printing again or even to find another dot printer as I really love the affect this has especially when you have a goof variety in shading or ink bleeds on the original.

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Decided not to print a welcome banner as it felt a bit clinical so it was hand painted by a member of the design team.

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A lot of the items we drew and made were found in Khan's bargains, which is also where I found this tiny shopping basket.
In the last couple of days when most of the big work was done we had time to think about the details of how we could display the work. This was helped by Zoe having printed loads of their designs on tissue paper which they sewed into a kind of table cloth and us having thought about wanting labels and price tag type things to further communicate the title name and the fact that all the things we had made were a collection of objects and items from local shops.
I wasn't sure whether I wanted to display these little beans but when I saw the basket I thought it was the perfect tie in with the way we had set up the display/shop with neon price stickers and the idea of us as shop keepers as a reflection of the shops we had visited.

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We found these little shop tags for sale at Khans and appreciated the little details that tied everything together.

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Our instagrams for anyone interested in our work and who we are.
This felt fairly futile for me as I don't really engage with the posting machine and am pretty aposed to the role it now places in being an artist.
I instead wanted to use the event as an opportunity to put myself out there in a tangible and personal way. This was one of the reasons I chose to sell all my work, Zoe was unsure about selling anything and took some convincing I think in part because they already use social media to advertise themselves as an artist and to profit of their work, however I don't so this would have been a missed opportunity for me.
I also spoke to Tilly who works for one of the big art markets in London about getting in touch with organisers there for future events as these markets are really well suited to ceramics. This was therefore good practice and cynically something good for a CV.

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Geoff buying the teddy bear from shopkeeper Zoe

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These are the tags Zoe made the night before with our favourite text from local shops, for pieces we were selling suck as the prints I wrote prices on them.

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Not having any proper crits this year sometimes makes it hard to know how people understand or view your work and its easy to become lost in a spiral of questioning where you fit in or whether work makes sense.
I really enjoyed working with someone I'm fairly close with as we worked organically and didn't have to build a repertoire.  It was so refreshing and freeing because there was always someone to bounce things off and we could question each others intentions and keep reflecting and improving based on each others feedback.
I think having feedback really improved the work I produced, there have been more projects than not in the last two years where I've gotten to the hand in and am absolutely terrified of feedback and that I haven't done enough work because not a single person has actually seen the work or offered a comment.
To me this is the whole point of being at art school otherwise I might as well not be spending thousands of pounds and I could continue working at home and the lack of regular crits has been a huge let down during my UAL experience.
This process therefore pushed me in new ways and also meant I was aware of how much work I was producing.
I think I can continue to improve my communication skills as struggling with this did mean I missed out on doing something that was important to me that would have forwarded my practice, but then again working harmoniously with Zoe felt much more important, especially when working towards an event or deadline where you are expected to present work.
I did also improve on the previous experience by standing my ground in areas I felt were really important such as which space in Peckham Levels we would be in, as I insisted in being in 450 where there was the most footfall and where I would have the option of selling work alongside others.

Overall I think we work well together and we have already discussed plans to expand on Grab Bag with a series of zines around the same topic, which could culminate in an exhibition where we would expand this work with different practices more suited to an exhibition space during the coming months and year.

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By week three I realised I didn't have time to attend all seminars and workshops if I was going to wholey focus my energy on making and new skills. This scheduling difficulty was exacerbated by the amount of bank holidays paired with a method of making that was impossible for me to do at home and transport wet and fragile across central London.

I chose to focus on practice skills and learn this way as I knew from the IPS seminars that the more I could learn at this stage about ceramics the better for next year and my IPS proposal, so I watched a lot of youtube and made the absolute most out of the tutors by asking lots of questions, getting them to show me new techniques and troubleshooting with them when things didn't go to plan.

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I felt it was really important coming to the end of second year to focus on honing a skillset that I could focus on and expand in third year.
In previous projects I have made clay sculptures but always rushed the making stage and used air dry clay and acrylic paints. While these methods can yield fun results especially with the colour intensity of acrylics detail is harder and unstable forms are nearly impossible to make without cracking and crumbling. Knowing next year I wanted to try scaling up my work and experiment with mould making and glazing, especially metallics, I started making earlier than usual, as soon as we had a clear direction and understanding of what we wanted to present at the end of the unit.
This is the first piece I made in ceramics club.

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I made a rough form of the rabbit and then added little balls of clay, adding texture by poking small dents into it, this was a new approach to clay during the making stage as I usually focus on getting smooth surfaces and achieving a more artificial look.
Because this and the chicken were made in ceramics club I had to use Stoneware Buff clay which comes out a darker colour than Stoneware White which is the clay I bought myself in the downstairs studio.
I also hadn't had too much time to reflect on my drawings and what I really wanted all the sculptures to look like as I was just trying to get on with making.
This approach worked quite well in the sense that making these two first pieces that are quite opposing in look made me aware that I would have to be more conscious of creating a cohesive series of pieces if they were to be displayed together.
However it was frustrating to know I didn't have time to try different methods within ceramics with a short project length and limited access to spaces to make something come to fruition.

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First session in the downstairs ceramics studio.
I got carried away and couldn't help throwing something on the wheel as James offered to do a teaching session, which is invaluable experience for future projects.
I warped one side too much pulling so I made it wavy.
I debated using the bowl in the exhibition, thinking if we had time we could screen print or draw badges or stickers but this proved too much work so the bowl didn't feel like it would fit in cohesively.

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All the bank holidays meant the making process was very stilted and rushed so at the end of week three we finalised which pieces I should make to create a clear collection for the event.
Most of the trinket type things I had found where silly toys and plastic things rather than valuable trinkets and I had naturally been drawn to these as they linked to previous work, having made a few animal centred ones already I decided to run with the more cartoony style and focus on character sculptures over remaking actual objects. I also thought this would be a nice contrast to Zoe's work.

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The idea was still to make other objects which connected by fitting in stylistically and being anthropomorphic however by the end of week three I'd realised there was no way this was going to happen with all the bank holidays and the limited time in the ceramics studio so animals remained the focus, with only time for a couple of the other objects to be materialised.
I think having even just two was really important in connecting to our original idea and communicating that to the audience as a collection of objects rather than just characters.

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When Zoe started printing their pillows we hadn't discussed a colour theme and I hadn't started glazing yet so when I visited them in the studio and saw they were using neon green I asked them to change the colours to ones that I could more easily match with the ceramic glazes. Because I hadn't glazed before I was worried about the colour intensity and brightness I could achieve. Specifically the more natural tones of glaze not meshing with Zoe's neon green and pink when we put all the work together in one space. We then quickly settled on this Blue Red and Green as base colours as it left us room to add other highlights.

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We had been talking about tags for the pillows and potentially the ceramics.
I had the idea of using a ribbon and drawing on it with alcohol based markers so it would leak to match what I was interested in with the acrylic ink on fabric technique and when Zoe started cutting up the sheet and removing the edges we realised it made a perfect rough ribbon we could draw on.

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leaving the pieces over the weekend to semi dry so they could be hollowed out, so they wouldnt explode in the kiln.

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Had to miss this day but did the primer task as best I could afterwards on my own.

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I really took my time with this and the bin piece, making them really neat and their shape as uniform as possible without realising thats what I was doing. I think the later pieces that were more rushed came out way better though as I started making less realistic and perfect shapes.

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Again I was working so flat out I didn't have time to photograph.
I made this piece because I'd become so animal focussed and I was worried it didnt connect to our original intention and I had gotten a little carried away so I wanted to create a little balance with another object sculpture which would work alongside the bin.

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Made as two separate pieces and top one hollowed out while completely wet so I could graft it to the bottom piece.

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Spent way too long making this horse butt before realising it was going to be covered by the other piece when I attached them.

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Grafted onto each other successfully.

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Moved upstairs to air dry overnight so the next day I would be able to carve out the bottom part. I couldnt do this wet as the piece would have caved in with the weight of the top part. I also reinforced the legs with blocks of clay that I knocked out later.

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I also made a bear the same afternoon as the Horse and Dog but I was in such a rush I forgot to get a picture of it.
With these last two pieces something really clicked and I felt the results were much more organic and interesting in their forms as I was trying to approach it how I'd started with the drawings, going quickly and capturing the essence rather than a perfect rendition.

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I put all my still damp ceramics on a shelf on top of the kiln so they would dry in my for the next bisque firing as I had worked out a tight schedule of making and knew if I didn't get them in this round I wouldn't have enough kiln firings before the exhibition.

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These are most of the photos I took of objects around the Peckham area, collected in independent shops selling mass consumer household objects as well as from charity shops selling abandoned trinkets.
This contrast stood out to me while collecting, I think its interesting to remove both from their context and recreate them equally.
We didn't draw on site as this felt really inappropriate to do in a shop especially without buying things when we are benefitting of their service.
We were also followed around in many of the shops we visited as people were understandable sceptical of two people wondering around in circles taking pictures of everything.
For this reason we decided to focus on collecting primary images and drawing from them at a later date and also bought small things from as many shops as possible to alieviate some of the context of us profitting off their stock without giving anything back, especially as I was debating selling ceramics from this project, profitting ten fold of a version of the same objects being sold in these shops.