We're reaching the end of the semester. And I must say, my pieces are progressing. Very slowly, but they are progressing. I have spent some time creating a piece in Illustrator, as well as a collage in Photoshop which has come along nicely.

The collage consists of a few drawings of mine, and some photography from the beginning of the semester. It is the same portrait, where the subject appears to be weeping. This was chosen to add to the sadness of the topic chosen.

The Illustrator piece is also a portrait that I have started, but am still unsure as to how it will turn out. The thing with me, is that I work as I go. My ideas progress as I go and my pieces sort of just come out of nowhere. I experiment with buttons and make mistakes, that sometimes work in my favour. So this piece may seem like nothing for now, but I am hoping the narrative becomes clearer in the piece when it is finished.

Another week of Final Cut Pro. Another week of trying to find enough storage on my USB. Another week of trying to understand the piles of folders that the program requires. And another week of figuring out all the ridiculous buttons all over the screen.

I love video art. I love how you can sit with your eyes glaring at the screen, forgetting about your tangible surroundings, as the shapes and colours on the screen tell you a story; a story you may not have ever seen before. It was interesting to see big names like Andy Warhol create such simple videos like 'Empire' (1964). It is so simple, yet has your attention for such a long time.

Another video that really stood out from the slides in recent weeks was 'The Clock' by Christian Marclay. This video was so carefully constructed, and the attention to detail is immense. Looking at these videos is interesting, trying to create them on the other hand, is beyond difficult.

I have decided, I don't think video art is for me.

Final Cut Pro makes me crazy! It is such a difficult program. I don't think I will ever get the hang of it. It's almost like you're trying to create something, and you try and you try but it doesn't work. And you want it to look a certain way, but with all the little buttons on the screen, it never looks how you anticipate. But Michael showed us some interesting materials as inspiration for the video.

I gained the most inspiration from 'First and Final Frames' by Jacob Swinney. I would like to create a similar video, where refugees are compared from when they first arrived, to when they have spent an extended period of time in detention, and see both the deterioration and the improvement. As I do not have access to these people directly, I will use actors and other people to recreate these images and scenes.

I think after seeing a few other ideas, it has reminded me that the video, no matter how it turns out, and whether it turns out how you initially planned, it doesn't necessarily have to make sense; your audience is able to form their own narrative based on what they see.

Since last week, I've been experimenting with other features in Photoshop and I must say, I am loving it! The more I use Photoshop, the easier and more fun it gets. My photography is now constantly being edited and manipulated in the program, especially with things like contrast, blur, saturation and brightness.

As well as manipulating my photography, I have also been playing around with how to change my drawings, and text. With the theme being on refugees, I wanted my final pieces to have an emotive factor, allowing audiences to feel some sort of emotion on the topic. The text added over the top of the drawing allows this to happen.

I chose this particular drawing as it symbolises pain, and the subject almost appears to be crying/weeping. This adds to the emotion, and allows the words to have a stronger message. 

By using skills previously learnt in Photoshop, I was able to create the image below; merging three images, with a combination of tools to cut, copy and blur, creating coherency and making one image. As I have already done this in previous years, I did not find this exercise to be challenging. Although, some parts were challenging to perfect, particularly around Obama's neck, as I tried to perfectly place the shirt to his floating head with ease. Once this was done, he was rightfully returned back to the American flag where he belongs.

In terms of progress for my Photoshop piece, I am considering creating a collage of portraits drawn in pencil. As silly as it may sound, I would like the piece to almost resemble Mount Rushman, but the portraits would be of refugees, or people who are not recognised to emphasise the concept.

Photoshop will also play a major role in my project when it comes to blurring images, and 'hiding identities' within images, to illustrate how refugees lose their face when making a big move, or fleeing a war-torn country. I have experimented with blurring images in Photoshop previously; with an example below, showing just how I would like the final images to be (where the image has almost lost its meaning or identity because it is so unclear).

SIMILAR TO: Bill Armstrong

Following last week's experimentation with photography, I would like to work with exposure and different types of lighting to distort shapes of objects and bring out features of faces, that wouldn't usually be emphasised without a light source. Brightness on faces, curves around the faces, and shadows of the eyelashes hitting the top of the cheek. These are the things to be emphasised in my final pieces, demonstrating sadness in the individuals' faces.

Snaps. Snaps all around.

The cracking of the eggshell hits your ears and it is hit against the tiles. The rainbows almost look fake as they reflect off the delicate eggshell, covered in ink reading an Arabic quote, 'The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.'