I have been getting on with the Birchover self-directed brief and some competition briefs. Yesterday I submitted the Penguin design award (non-fiction and fiction) and the Bolivian political poster competition. Both briefs have been filling gaps during periods when I have been less productive with the self-directed project. It has been useful but at times I think I've laboured over the two briefs a bit. Generally, I have been working fairly well, mostly in sketchbooks, working quickly. I think now I need to start getting out of my sketchbook and producing bigger work. I've done 2 prints for the project so far - but they have felt a bit too experimental - they don't seem finished once i've printed them; also, they have been A2, which makes the printing a little harder (more complicated.). I'm beginning to think that working quicker and more instinctively making the print and working at A3 might make the process easier and less laborious - and redoing the A2 prints at A3 will allow them to be more final.
Last weekend I went to Weston Museum in Sheffield - where they hold the archeological finds from Stanton Moor (just out of Birchover). Lots of very old stuff - Bronze age pots and arrowheads etc. I think taking places and stories from the project and making work responding to the specific places is the way forward. The two further bit of research I need to fit in are Buxton Museum (quite a long way away - may need to fit it in next time I'm home - supposed to have more artefacts from Stanton moor than in Sheffield) and Some books I found online Leeds uni library - which I got access for - and haven't quite got round to actually going there.
I'd like the work to be more focused and maybe a bit more clear about what it is. I'm still aiming toward a large format book, and I'd quite like to make quite a simple 1 or 2 colour screenprinted zine. (probably soon). My biggest challenge in the next few weeks will be not losing momentum and finding a way to push the project and ideas further.
