Sophie Douglas and The Arts School

Daily Blogging research 5: lunch sketch by Jared

Today I am looking at Jared from lunchsketch.com

The reason I selected this blog:
1) His post from March 17th 2013 is amazing and comes with a quote that is important to me “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”
~ Wordsworth
2) I found his site through his post on 9th January 2014, this is a great activity for teaching students about proportion. The point of blogging for me is learning and sharing.
3) this is the blog that makes me try to draw everyday to develop my skills

Jared’s Q & A
Why are you doing a blog that post daily?
Well, I don’t post daily. I do post weekly (most weeks).
The reason for my blog is twofold. Firstly, it is a great visual diary for me and a way of keeping a record of my thoughts, feelings and experiences. The second reason is as a record for my kids and maybe grand kids one day.
For the first year I did not let anyone comment, because I really just wanted to use the platform for recording my sketches and thoughts. I now allow comments and whilst my twofold objective remains the main reason for blogging, in time I have also found the interaction and support of other bloggers both valuable and enjoyable.

What do you find inspires you for the content of the posts?
Sometimes movies or a piece of music, but mostly life with it’s ups and downs and pains and joys. I go with the picture says a thousand words concept and try to keep my words to a minimum in most posts.

What others blogs or projects have inspired you?
A Canvas of the Minds is a blog I proudly do some writing for (you will see the badge in my sidebar). The other contributors to this blog are truly inspirational people and do a wonderful thing in supporting others and raising mental health awareness.
IARXIV ran a little story last year about the adventures of two little pigs. Sounds odd I know, but following their adventure was strangely addictive. I was already following this blog before the story started as the posts are always quite interesting.
Elenacaravela’s Blog. Elena is unquestionably very talented and I particularly love her water colour work – there is a mysticism to a lot of her work and she seems to enjoy leaving room for individual interpretation. Enjoyable to follow and inspirational.
poppytump@number4: Poppy inspires me in the way she approaches new artistic endeavours. She seems to have no fear of failure or admitting she feels she has failed in demonstrating her work. As someone who really resists change or trying new things, I am fascinated by her tenacity. Of late she has been producing some beautiful photography, but she also has demonstrated a gift with words.

If you look at the following post, you will see me expressing gratitude for the connections and friendships I have found whilst blogging in 2013 (some other blogs are mentioned there):
http://lunchsketch.com/2013/12/06/be-kind-part-2-christmas-gifts/

What do you think you get out of it?
I get a lot out of sketching, it is very therapeutic for me. With a history of depression and anxiety, I find it helps my mind to focus and process whatever it is that I am dealing with at that particular point. But blogging has surprised me with the connections I have made with people around the world. I am introverted by nature, so not really one to seek out new friendships or social networks, yet I have inadvertently found them here.

Thank you for reading!

Images and interview kindly given by Jared from lunchsketch.com
©www.sophiemayer.com
©http://aphotographaday2014.wordpress.com/
©http://littlestoriesbysophie.wordpress.com

Wednesday Addition: Little Pieces of Art 04.14

This work is created by Sophie Mayer
©www.sophiemayer.com

Daily blogging research 4: The Queen stitch aka Louise

Today I am looking at Louise Sutherland from http://thequeenstitch.com

The reason I selected this blog:
1) some great photographs and reminded me of other work by a friend Arnab Ghosh (photographing strangers). This is a subject I am interested in.
2) The openness of her comments
3) I love her textile/stitch work, simple, clear, aesthetic, tactile, lush

Louise’s Q&A
Why are you doing a blog that post daily?

My friend, illustrator Merinda Wilson, completed a 365 Day project in 2013, and following her project really inspired me. I then decided to start my own project on Jan 1, “365 Days or portraits”, as I liked the idea of committing to a daily goal and fits with my ongoing quest to do one creative thing a day.

What do you find inspires you for the content of the posts?

My project is to take a photo of a stranger every day, so it really makes you look at the world in a different way. Every person you pass is a potential subject. I admit that as I am in the early days of the project, a lot of my subjects are people I think look approachable and won’t reject me! But I try to use a variety of subjects in age, gender and location so that it keeps the project varied. So really, everything is my inspiration as you have to be on the lookout all the time.

What others blogs or projects have inspired you?

As I mentioned before, Merinda from Hello Lemon (http://hellolemon.com/blogs/news) completed her own 365 Day Project last year. She was my inspiration for starting my own project. To do an illustration a day is a huge task, and I like to remind myself of that when I start to procrastinate about having to take a simple photo!

What do you think you get out of it?

Originally it was just to give me regular blog content and improve my photography skills. However I’m already seeing that it’s going to help my own personal growth by assisting me overcome anxiety about approaching strangers. Also, from a social point of view, it’s kind of lovely to think that during the year I’m going to meet 365 new people that I never would have even made eye contact with. I get little glimpses into their lives, and it makes me happy! It’s really made me aware of how little we interact with others and how shockingly insular modern society is.

Thanks for reading!

Images and interview kindly given by Louise Sutherland from http://thequeenstitch.com
©www.sophiemayer.com
©http://aphotographaday2014.wordpress.com/
©http://littlestoriesbysophie.wordpress.com

Daily blogging research 3: Carole Fenton

Today I am looking at Carole Fenton from tumbleweedingblog.wordpress.com.

The reason I selected this blog:
1)When I first came across this blog I instantly looked up my birthday to see what had been posted, and felt like I have been given a gift (it is an image of dandelion gone to seed)
2)I love her branding (her name on the images)
3)I love the reasoning for the blog

Welcome to Tumbleweeding, a blog about craft projects, baking, photography, nature and general prettiness and what makes me happy. It’s intended to be a happy space, a little corner of the internet that’s focused on the nicer things in life. I hope that you’ll enjoy it

Why are you doing a blog that posts daily?
I wanted to be responsible for something that’s creative each and every day. It inspires me to get on with things and to create more art. Plus, I’ve been told in previous projects (This is now my third) that it inspires others to get creative so that’s always a bonus!

Carole’s Q & A
What do you find inspires you for the content of the posts?
Everything! I don’t mean that in a “creativity inspired pretentiousness” kind of way. Literally everything inspires me for 365 photography. It forces you to look at the world in a different way. The tiniest details jump out at you and changes your perspective. After the first project and photographing anything and everything, I decided to be rather more selective in what I selected. In the this third project, I’m finding I’m going through “themes” more often. Scenes, insects, I’m at the moment, paying attention to textures that surround me. Even the most seemingly mundane snapshot can attract a huge amount of love. I love the fact that you can never tell which shot is going to be popular, which one strikes a chord with people.

What others blogs or projects have inspired you?
The main reason why I started these 365 projects is one of the people I follow on twitter, an amazing hobbyist photographer, was doing one. I loved seeing his photos daily appearing in my feed and he was the inspiration for the 365 projects.

My boyfriend is a huge inspiration because he’s picked some fantastic subjects for me (he’s unwittingly been trained as my 365 “spotter”!). Some of my cousins are extremely creative both musically and artistically and seeing their creations on facebook have also been a big inspiration.

One of the main blogs I’ve been inspired by is The Dainty Squid. She has the most (seemingly) amazing life, house, cats and projects/collections. She has been a big inspiration for me to get off my backside and do more, creatively speaking.

Instagram is an enormous inspiration for me. I’m fascinated by “everyday” photography. I think there’s a lot of snobbery where photography is concerned to be honest. Yes, the selfie culture is EXTREMELY annoying, egotistical, attention whoring and vainglorious but having said that, I don’t follow anyone on social media that’s like that. But where other photography is concerned, I don’t subscribed to the theory that dictates you must be artistically minded to produce good photographs. I’m following some amazing people on instagram that produce some fascinating shots of their lives that aren’t contrived to be “great shots” but because they’re personal and relate to real life, they become great shots.

All my photography has been done on camera phones (and where the Zeiss optics on Nokias are concerned, that’s no bad thing). Sometimes when I mention this, I get eye rolls and “oh dear god” comments. But I’ve also had lots of praise for some of the shots I’ve done. But this year, I’m hopefully going to get a “proper” camera for a mixed birthday/Christmas present.

What do you think you get out of it?
I get a lot of satisfaction. It helps me calm down, gives me something to focus on, something that’s “mine”. When you have a family, a lot of you can get swallowed up by family life. You not only are “girlfriend and mother” but part of your identity is swallowed up by those roles. My photography and creative projects help to keep a part of me separate from everything else.

I also get a new perspective on what I see. Everything is looked at with the view of “would that make a good 365?” be it a texture in a tree, a brick, some previously unseen graffiti, a sign. I get a new found appreciation for my surroundings.

Thank you Carole for your time and answers!

If you missed why I have written this post then here is a quick summery:
1) research into 365 blogs to inform and inspire my own (L.U.N.C.H.)
2) Virtually meet new people
3) Share blogs I have found and really like both as a record for myself, and for others to find their work.

Thanks for reading!

Images and interview kingly given by Carole Fenton
©www.sophiemayer.com
©http://aphotographaday2014.wordpress.com/
©http://littlestoriesbysophie.wordpress.com

Daily blogging research 2: Alli Lipsher

Today I am looking at Alli Lipsher from All You Keep is the Journey https://alipsher.wordpress.com

The reason I selected this blog:
1) The first post I saw from this blog was from January 15th and reads “Spent evening barefoot in the kitchen” with an image of humous. This is the stuff that is good for your soul, it just made me happy. I identify with idea of simple act of being barefoot combined with an image of a food that is both simple and exotic.
2) I love the diversity of image and text in both style and composition, whilst at the same time being confined by strict rules (only 6 words).
3) I like the premiss of the blog; the idea that all you keep is the journey is something close to my heart, and the rules, an image with 6 words reminds me how much can be said with few words.

Ali’s Q&A
Why are you doing a blog that post daily?
I am taking one picture a day from my life and captioning it with a six word memoir for each day. I think a photo and six words makes you focus on what’s important about that day. I’ve always kept a sporadic journal and enjoyed going back and taking a peek at my own story. It’s so easy to get swept up en route to a destiantion and I think that it’s equally important to be able to read the story along the way. This is my way of doing that. So much is different about me, my life, everything, compared to a year ago, and now I get to see that unfold.

What do you find inspires you for the content of the posts?
Every time I see something that makes me stop, or think, or takes my breath away, I want to remember it. I am the annoying friend who is always taking pictures anyway, so this wasn’t a hard task for me, the hard part most of the time is thinking about how to sum up my day or my feelings in six words.

What others blogs or projects have inspired you?
SMITH Magazine’s Six Word Memoirs, are where I first heard about or read a six word memoir, and they really resonated with me. As Shakespeare said “Brevity is the soul of wit” which is so true (and coincidentally six words). There have been a lot of time-lapse blogs that I’ve come across that I enjoy. Honestly anything that tells a story I want to hear, as simplistic as that sounds. I’m also an avid runner so blogs like Shut Up and Run as well as other running/health/nutrition blogs are interesting to me.

What do you think you get out of it?
I get a little bit of motivation every day to pay attention to what is going on around me, and think about what it means to me, whether it’s important or noteworthy. I like how cognizant of my own life that this project is making me, because it’s also helped keep me in tune with my friends and family’s lives as well. It’s given people I don’t keep in touch with (because I’m terrible at keeping in touch with people) a way to keep tabs on me and provide a conversation starter to catching-up. After a year it will have given me 365 photographs and 2,190 words to remember what happened from the day I embarked on a sporadic trip to New Zealand last May to wherever it is that I end up about four months from now!

Thank you Alli for your time and answers!

Thanks for reading!

Images and interview kindly given by Alli Lipsher from All You Keep is the Journey https://alipsher.wordpress.com
©www.sophiemayer.com
©http://aphotographaday2014.wordpress.com/
©http://littlestoriesbysophie.wordpress.com

Saturday Addition: 18.01.14

The London Art Fair 2014, vast, overwhelming, underwhelming, amazing, exhausting and interesting. Worth a look but give yourself time as there is so much to see! During my visit I went to a talk on
“Eric Ravilious: Modern British Art and Nostalgia – a discussion with Alan Powers and Neil Jennings”. The discussion showed a brief history of publications on the artist, nostalgia within art, they touched upon the reasonings for his popularity, and discussed the cost of his work now, and price prediction.

This discussion left me with the follow thoughts:
They highlighted landscape artists not putting people within their images, and this made me think about house selling programs saying to remove your identity (personal images) so that the buyers can imagine themselves in the spaces. I can imagine myself wandering alone through his landscape. Is this because I do not have a capacity to remove others, or because I can only daydream alone? There is an idea here that I need to think on more.

Nostalgia, and the idea behind the work. I think I sometimes try to find more meaning than there is within my work, but don’t require meaning necessarily in others. I am happy to look at someone else’s painting and just enjoy it, but have a feeling of justifying my own work by giving it a meaning, or maybe I am trying to understand myself better.

What is fashionable, what is it to be in fashion, and how art moves in and out of fashion, and how does subjectivity fit within this. Again an idea I need to think on more.

It was a very interesting talk, and not something I would usually go to, so my advise is go to talks because it will get you thinking, even if it is not completely about the subject of the talk….

(image taken from http://jamesrussellontheweb.blogspot.co.uk)

And now to the contemporary! Here are a few images of some of the work I liked that I will be showing my students to try to inspire them.

http://www.woolffgallery.co.uk

http://www.longandryle.com. http://www.pertweeandersongold.com

http://www.foldgallery.com

http://www.rickcopsey.info. http://www.panterandhall.com

http://www.byardart.co.uk
This blog is written by Sophie Mayer, the photographs are taken with permission for the gallery and not for reproduction.
©www.sophiemayer.com
©http://aphotographaday2014.wordpress.com/
©http://littlestoriesbysophie.wordpress.com

Daily blogging research 1: Daniel Lakatos

Today, and for the next few days, I am sharing my research into “daily blogging”. This started as me trying to do a Saturday addition on daily blogging by asking a few bloggers some questions, but I think there responses are worth a blog each. So firstly thank you to them for their time.

One of my goals for this year was to start and maintain a daily blog (LU.N.C.H.) and this has led me to find other daily blogs, so today is the start of a daily post for the next few days where I share my findings, and a few questions answered by some lovely people I have met in this virtual world.

My research is into the motivation and inspiration to run a daily blog, and I have started with asking a few people questions into their motivation and inspiration.

I start with Daniel Lakatos at Photodiary365.com.
The reason for selecting this blog;
1) I love the images
2) Then I realised that there are images that are I similar to mine (14.01.10)
3) Then I realised the format is similar to mine as well

So I think the overriding attraction is my own narcissism and the feeling that what I am doing has to be interesting to somebody, if I see similarities in others work.

Daniel’s Q&A
Why are you doing a blog that post daily?

I study photography in a contemporary art school in Hungary, so I take photos as often as I can. I think this project could help me to improve my skills (such as visual communication and techniques), and I can express myself in an easy way. It’s not easy to shoot every single day, but I will insistence on it.
So, the blog and the pictures describes me, even so I am really happy, if other people like it.

What do you find inspires you for the content of the posts?

Most of the posts are street photographs, because it’s my favorite genre of photography. I love walking on the street and taking pictures about interesting people and places. I am searching for the decisive moments, but it’s hard to find every day, so I keep searching for it.

What others blogs or projects have inspired you?

Of course there are a lot of 365 days projects, but few of them meet with my style. There is a photoblog, which inspired me most, which is running since 2006 December (http://www.1day1photo.com).

What do you think you get out of it?

I hope I will finish my current project in 365 days and maybe I will launch another (and another and so on J ) projects in the future. I think photographing is a kind of lifestyle, so we can never quit.

Thank you Daniel for your time and answers!

Tomorrow I will be posting the answer to these questions from another blog, and at the end of this process I hope to have a little more clarity, and inspiration to continue. I hope you have found this interesting.

Interview and images kindly given by Daniel Lakatos at www.Photodiary365.com.
This work is created by Sophie Mayer
©www.sophiemayer.com
©http://aphotographaday2014.wordpress.com/
©http://littlestoriesbysophie.wordpress.com

Wednesday Addition: Little Pieces of Art 03.14

Saturday Addition: 11.01.14

So thus far this year I have actually stuck to some of my year plans! But this has meant a lack of time to write a research post. Therefore today I am going to share my other blog and research.

My new year plan was to run a project over a period of time. This is is called L.U.N.C.H.

Live Life Love
Understanding
Nothing and everything
Curiosity
History humanity and humour

A photograph a day
Taken at lunch (hence the blog title of L.U.N.C.H.)
Documenting my life travel through one year.
The Title of each work is the date (01.01.14-31.12.14).

Aim:
To develop my photographic practise
To create a body of work that considers time
To document my year, and allow something unknown and expected to evolve”

Please follow and share!

My other challenge is to make myself draw every day, even if it is a little doodle, again so far so good!

This work is created by Sophie Mayer
©www.sophiemayer.com
©http://aphotographaday2014.wordpress.com/
©http://littlestoriesbysophie.wordpress.com

US polar vortex: the best pictures

Re blogging these amazing images, cold but so beautiful!

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