05-06-03 My work is finished, and I am very pleased with the results. Here are some pictures of the canvases in their completed form.

All that is left to do now is to make this diary webpage into something to be viewed by all at the show.

04-03-06 The last canvas was nearly completed today. The pictures again show the process which was used and the problem of cracking ocurred again with the light cream coloured paint. This was a problem which I had on the GMajor chord piece too. I shall have to sand it down and paint it again tomorrow or later in the week.The paint seeped a lot this time and I don't know what make of masking tape it was - there is a dearth of masking tape in the dept. at the moment, I may have used it all! The piece is looking rather stunning and this is the first piece I have chosen to use black in to represent musical rests. I don't know if that is a good solution to rests really because the programme I was listening to on Radio 4 about the origin of blacks was telling me that black used to be made by mixing all the colours together and I want it to stand for no sound so maybe I used really use bare canvas. I am not too sure about that one but I should like to experiment if I get opportunity over the summer months.

A sad thing happened. One of the earlier string quartet pieces has been pulled off the wall. Scott found it proped up in the corridor on the second floor and had brought it down to sculpture recognising it was mine. The piece has been rather nastily damaged and I had to spend this afternoon trying to touch it up. The wall mounting bracket had been completely bent so whoever did it had used a fair amount of force to rip it off the wall. Ah well another example of the minds of some of the DGs that come to this place. It has left me wondering if I could protect my works more by using a thin layer of matt varnish like on the wall painting. I shall have to think about that one.

24-05-03 Friday was spent working on the canvas for what is probably going to be my last piece for the FMP. The canvas was really quite bobbly so I spent a while sanding it down. The two 'pause' areas were masked up and then I tried to paint them. As a personal economy measure I used sculpture's black vynal matt paint. It was hard going because the paint was very thick and hard to roller on, especially with the added lumps which seemed to be in it. My endeavours to get a smooth finish to the colour felt as if it was failing. Jack and I discussed the difficulty and he suggested I seive it. I watered the paint down and then it because a little easier to manipulate. The two squares were completed about 230pm and I came home to work on the light piece. As usual the pictures below show the progress.

18-05-03 Came in late today because it was bad at the w/k. Spent the day sorting out book project stuff and finding timber for a frame. I also managed to get a digital projector sorted for my presentation tomorrow to Rob's PGCE session - I'm tired.

16-05-03 It is finished - alleluia! After a tricky start to the day the piece was finished at 2:54pm. The initial start was trickey because there was some issue over the safeness of the scaffolding which Estates dept had erected. The person incharge came down to see me and said that there was a board missing I later had a conversation with the person who erected it and he said he'd put extra bars in and he'd told the department it was safe. Comewhatmay I was glad to get it finsished for fear of more 'fannying' around aided this week because of the college inspection which seems to have sent the managers into a panic. The pictures below show some of the day's progress and the rueslt is really quite stunning. You want to cut a piece out of the protrusion to see if it is orange or green all the way through. it is approx 98" by 99" by 18" a sort of mixture between a wall painting and a piece of sculpture stuck on a wall. Andy and I discussed this aspect at length and I shall write about it when the work of the FMP is over.

15-05-03 The New Site specific piece has been started. When I arrived at college this morning the promised scaffolding was being erected in the studio. The man from estates was very helpful. Here is the starting point .

Going up and down the scaffold took some getting used to as did finding my balance on the top work area because of the wobble. I also found that getting materials and equipment to the top was very hard because I needed both hands to climb with, a carrier bag came in very handy here and most of the time I was climbing with my carrier bag over my arm. The work was quite slow and hard because of the wobble and fear factor but by the late afternoon I had managed to overcome my fears and was merrily climbing up and down. People were kind enough to offer to take pictures for me and they are below and the big ones at the bottom of the page as before. The days work conclusded when I had done the two green squares. My sketchbook notes explain the piece and it is a beat from the Allegro of the fourth movement of Beethoven's second String quartet. I chose this because the room is a SEN studio and full of life excitement and vigour as is this movement. They have always shown a great interest in my colour work so I though it'd be good to do a piece full of vibrant colour as well as screaming out SYSTEM at you when you look at it. Here are the pics from todays work.

The main decision of today was to paint the sides of the protruding wall as well. I had planned on just painting the surface but then I thought as I was up the scaffolding that to paint the sides as well would trun it into a sort of piece of sculptureish type piece, well as if it were a sculpture on the wall. It made me think about the idea of cutting into the wall as if to gouge out a hunk and leave the innards the same green, sort of as if it were moulded from plastic or the like. Andy and I discussed this developmental idea further and I did it. We shall have to see what the outcome is like.

12-05-03 The last day. This was a long hard day and felt very much as if I was running the last furlong of a steeple chase. I decided to go for an early start again so I was underway by 8am. The work was some final bits of touching up and painting the white matt wall area where the gioudelines had been and then applying a layer of matt varnish to help bring the piece into one, rather like a bringing together of the various sections that had been worked on. The varnish eventually used after some considererable discussion was Wilkos quick drying satin crystal clear. It took about 3/5ltr tin to apply one coat. We were all a little suprised what an effect the layer of varnish had on bringing the work together and making it stand out within its environment. I finidhed work at about 3pm and then many photos were taken and here are the last set for this section.

It really is quite a stunning piece and I am proud of my work. I have been trying to work out how long the piece has taken in total and I think it must be approx 90hours work in all. I find it very exciting to now see how a system I invented can generate art. I would very much like to hear the comments of others.

PS. We are having a Fine Art evaluation session next week and focussin on my work so I am looking forward to some critical feedback from my peers. Rob the PGCE student is organizing it. I'll write up in the evaluation what goes on.

09-0503 Deeply frustrating day at the wall face! I went into college early because then I can concentrate better without the continuous interruptions of well meaning people asking about the progress etc. I managed to start work by 8am so I was well pleased. It was a very long day of touching up and painting out the guide lines. I found that Alan's idea of rubbing the lines out worked quite well but it did leave a shiny surface on the white matt walls so that will have to be painted out in due course. The dya of grovveling on the floor and reaching to the ceiling was a successful one though and people are stopping a lot more fequently than initially to offer their opinions, mainly people seem to appreciate the piece for 'having cheered up the corridor'. I have some reservations over the process which I shall discuss in my write up after the show.. And before I foprget to say it was also a day of correcting the few squares that I had painted wronly at the start.The day was pretty damned tedious and here are a few shots of the day's work - as usual they are in larger format at the foot of the page.

08-05-03 Here are the pictures taken of today's work first.

Today's work was finishing off the removal of the masking tape from the last colour and tidying up the peeling edges. This was very long-winded and tedious work, although the results are quite stunning visially. I spent a long time talking to Andy this afternoon and he offered to take some pictures for me of me at work, as you can see above. I shall be spending tomorrow finishing off the tidying up and also correcting the few squares which I have got wrong. Then all there is to do is varnish it and white our around the edges where the pencil guides are. This last stage will be quite hard i guess, especially keeping the edges straight.

NEWS I have arranged when I shall be doing my next wall piece in T0015 - next Thursday and Friday, so I shall have to arrange to have the scaffolding put up in thon the Wednesday afternoon. Andy has arranged for the classes on those days to be mved so that I do not disturb them... I shall be working on the final design for that piece at the weekend so that the paints can be bought on Monday or Tuesday..

03-05-03 A very long and tiring day. Today I came into college early to make sure that I had my new security and safety things delivered. I met a caretaker in the corridor and got chatting to him and he said that he would make sure that the yellow fencing was delivered to me. I also had to find a box to stand on that was the same height as the chair and also talked to Alan about the H&S incidents. As luck would have it, when I was feeling a bit peeved, a powwerfully dressed woman was walking towards the area where I am working and she smiled so I asked her if she happened by chance to be anything to do with the Estates Department. SHE WAS! I sent a fair bit of time telling her my situation and she was eager top hel[p me. I also asked if she knew how I could get some tower scaffolding sdet up. She said that she would send a man down to help me. Within 20mins a man came to find out where I wanted the scaffolding and when - it was amazing, I just happened to talk to o the right person to get things done - fantastic. Everything was sorted out and now I am ablwe to do the large piece in T0015 that Andy Holmes and I have been talking about for weeks. By 9am everything and all the sillines of the day before had been sorted out, I couldn't believe it.

I put on the masking tape and the final colour. By 3pm I was very very tired and decided to go home because my eyes were hurting. I haven't finished off taking off the masking tape yet that will have to wait till Thursday now.

Here are some little pics of the day's activities.

01-05-03 What a day! Well it was a moderately successful day because I finished peeling the masking tape off from yesterday and also touched up all the bits that needed attention. The masking tape is still proving to be a problem and I am now going to try a new method tomorrow. Natalie kindly took some pictures of me at work which you can see below.

The headache of the day was a visit from Health and Safet. She was a pleasant woman but hadn't grasped that I was a student. She said that I wasn't working safely and that there should besome sort of signs warning people that I was workin in the corridor. She then said that I shouldn't stand on my chair, this I disagreed with because I feel safer on my chair with both feet flat and secure rather than on the step of a ladder. Nonetheless, I have to stop using my chair because I then had a man from Estates round to tell me not to stand on my chair. When I challeneged both of these people I have to admit that they did give me some help as to how I could work but initially it was the Walcat way of "the answer is no you cant - now what's the question". I do feel that the college really isn't geared up for getting things done. Audio visual is a good example too. I suppose that John Revell will come to talk to me tomorrow and tell me that I can't stand on my chair either but as I said one gets not a lot of help to get things done. I have been to the Caretaking department who say they will bring me some sort of signs to indicate I am working in the corridor at 9am - we shall see. I don't want to sound too peeved but It is tiresome when people don't help you to do what you are doing but start by saying you can't.... I am making some signs to put on my chairs to warn people that I am working and also I shall prop the doors open tomorrow so that people coming up the corridor can see me working - I guess then I shall be providing a fire hazard! Who knows? Much as I feel peeeved about the visitits today I guess it has made me think about Health and Saety in the work place which may be useful if ever I paint for a living.. Heaven knows what they will say when they find out about the little project Andy and I have planned!.

Many people are commenting more on the work as it progresses, some like it others don't. Some stop to talk sensibly about it whilst hairdressing students just seem to giggle and ask if I would paint their flats! I have decided that I really do not like working in this public setting the noise of chattering students is endless and tiresome to say the least. It would actually be good to work during half term when noone is around much less hassle from the passers buy - or maybe I am just getting old. Anyway here are the pictures of today's work and activities.

30-04-02 Spent all day working on the fourth colour. The day started with a trip to the shops to find new masking tape, the college had run out completely and the stuff I bought at the college shop for the third colour was far too sticky. On examining all the versions of masking tape in Wilkinsons I ended up choosing one which claimed to leave a clean line when removed - true it does by removing the pain underneath. Todays difficult colour was the turquiose (as ever) and the indigo of last time. I am now going to have to give the most exspensive tape a try. It seems to take about 40m of taspe to do each colour - thank goodness there is only one colour to go. I don't have any pictures to add today because I forgot to take my camera in with me. However the comments come flooding in as passers by have now taken me and my work on as part of the furniture of the college corridor. I really do dislike working in such a exposed arena, today one person spent 40 mins just watching me, very off putting. Others make a variety of comments from the banal to the more interesting - although they all think that they are the first person ask whatever it is. I think I am now beginning to grasp what it must be like to work as a public artist. The fact that my work is on the wall causes a lot of confusion for many people because they don't know whether it is 'decorating' or 'art'. One more interesting conversation I had today was with a guy who said that there should be a plaque on the wall with the piece's title on it. I have yet to come up with a title for it, and I have a tendancy to call it 'Wall Painting #1' in a Sol LeWittesque sort of a way. One of the lads off the AVCE course came to talk to me about the work, which was good, because he had been watching me work for the last week and now felt able to talk about what I might be doing, he was most encouraging in a Walsall sort of a way.

The work that remains to be done is the last colour, the touching up, whiting our the pencil grid around the piece, and applying a layer of matt varnish to try and provide a protective surface. I have also decided to try and find out where Bob Geldolf lives and write to him explaining the piece he may even drop in to take a look! (That would be exciting).

28-04-03 Today was spent working on the third colour. It was a very long hard day becuase I really haven't got over this flu and my temper was fraying with all the 'witty' comments and the noise of trying to work in a corridor. The turquiose paint was as much a problem today as it was before - it just loves masking tape. I tried a different type(make) of tape but still it doesn't help. After painting the G# colours today I spent an hour and a half touching up where the green paint had come off. Oh what a palava. The day was saved by a long conversation with ROB (PGCE student) about the progress of the work so far. It was good to have someone to talk to about the work and I have written about this in the evaluation coloumn to the right.

Here are some snaps of the wall during and at the end of today.

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9-04-03 Stage two of the wall has been completed. Here is the picture of the work so far.

The process today was a little long-winded and problematical to say the least. I started early because I had to get off at 3pm. The morning's work of marking up went well and lots of people passing by decided to have their say today having silently watched yesterda, so my interruptions were maximised! However, the levels of interest in my endeavours was quite encouraging, although the constant stream of advice became a little wearing on the nerves. Here are some pictures of the day's progress from taping to painting etc.

The final picture above is where I go to buy the paints. Dixons decorating shop. The range I am using is the Dulux vynal matt from their colour charts. You have the colour mixed from the list they have by an assistant in 1lt, 2.5lt or 5lt cans. I buy 1lt cans at £8.80 each approx. The details of the colours I am using for this piece are in my sketchbook, and they correspond to the colours for the notes in the 'main' octave of the opening three bar introduction on the piano to the Boomtown Rat's song 'Tell me why I hate Mondays'. A fuller explanation is again in my sketchbooks.

The part of today's work which was problematical was the removal of the masking tape because it seemed to want to bring with it some of the turquiose paint from yesterday. This was a problem I noticed with this colour from last term's work too. The turquioise obviously has something in it which means it likes masking tape The little pics below show the difficuly which was encountered.

The difficulties were overcome by remasking and touching up the bad bits - very time consuming and fiddly work - especially with an audience.

As usual the larger versions of the pictures are at the bottom of this page.

8-04-03 What a day I though I would go mad today. I have spent all day from 9-430 working in the corridor on the wall piece. It was a bit of a nightmare marking it out, and after lots of peoples' opinions on how best to do it, how vertical my verticals were ..... I got there with a helping hand from Jack on the horizontals. See the little pic here or the big ones at the bottom of the page.

The process of marking the squares out was a little problematical and I decided eventually that the best approach was to do all the squares of one colour first, soa I started with the F#s i.e. terquise sort of colour ones. The masking tape took to the walls well enough and the squares were given two coats of paint. Everyone in the college seemed to have an opinion about the work and interestingly it was different sections of the college who talked about different aspects to the work. Some were concerned about the colour, others the structure and others the fact that I was working on the wall when OFSTED were coming - as if that had anything to do with my ideas! Here are the results in little pics and large ones at the bottom again.

The colours are naff in the pictures because this is dark turquise sort of colour.

7-04-03 Great day Jack has prepared the wall for me and given it a coat of emulsion which will make a good base to work on. My computer generated pictures of the proposals also look good. I worked on another one today which involved the transpotision of the piece by a semitone. I want to talk to Alan about this because I need a second or third opinion about this area.

4-04-03 Been struggling to notate the inrtroduction to 'Tell me why do I hate mondays' Cubase is a tricky program to use and after a fair bit of efforrt I have managed to get a score to work from. I am not ashappy as I thought I'd be with the outcome. Basically the chords just get bigger and bigger - up to 17 notes - but the same ones. I have been thinking about the background colour fothe wall piece and I think that I ma going to leave it white. The black looks wrong and the greys look strange. Here are the proposals I have developed on the computer today so far.

First and third proposals are the transpositionof the second by a tone and then a tone again. Larger pictures are at the bottom of the page. I think it could be quit effective especially without a boarder. I like the gradual growth fromt he left to the right, has a sense of development about it, new openeing broadening of horizons etc. I need to talk to Alan about it though on Monday.

3-04-03 Managed to take some digital pics of the piece of corridor I have to work on. Jacl is preparing the walls for me and putting a layer of undcoat on.

1-04-03 What a day! JR has now found me a wall space I can use which is in the main glass corridor by the painting and drawing studios approx 7' by 14' which is okay but not really related to the arichectural space in a way that I would have liked. It just feels like I'm missing out the canvas rather than using the architecture - but it's a start and I am grateful for his help. I need to get a digital picture of it tomorrow so that I can work on a design for the space. I'm thinking along the lines of repetition or introduction because its an area that students pass by frequently to get to places so many different students will pass by each year but to do basically the same lessons. I have a few ideas noted down in my sketchbook - need to try and find Sugar Babes Round Round, that would be funny!!!

31/03/03 evening I have been working on the design for the studio T008. The aim is to paint the space above the hangers. This pic shows that...

Here are the five designs I have created based upon the same bar sequence from the symphony.











I have rearranged the order in which the notes are oerded on the page to give different balances of colour.. I have to show JR the designs tomorrow morning. T008 could look like this computer generated image...


31/03/03 I Spoke to JR about the possibility of using the T008 wall for a site specific piece and he said its ok and will also look out for another wall space for me to work on as well. I planned the piece based on a few bars from the Beethoven's 1st Symphony a cello and dbass theme which is later developed by the other instruments. The piece will be included here tomorrow when I have created a mock up on Photoshop.

My trip to see Rosemary Gray went quite well. She seemed interested in my work and was impressed with the digitally enhanced pictures I had done. She is taking my work to the other managers to see what they think of the propsal. I am not holding my breath.

Picture of me with the college principal when putting forth my proposal for the front of college.

04-06-03 Today was spent trying to get the old computers in sculpture to work - well the CDROM drives so that they may be used to project this piece in the exhibition. Alas neither machine had a CDROM drive that worked properly so we are having to wait for another one to be delivered from IT dept..

03-06-03 It really is finished now. I have put all the files together and made the autostart file and the whole thing really is working - yippee!! I can't believe I have managed to get to the end of it. The pictures below show the finished CDROM - I did all the packaging too of course to make it look good. What a thrill to have got this far - I am truly delighted as well as jolly damned chuffed too. I reckon that this piece has taken in the order of 250hours work. I am going to enter it into the Walsall Open exhibition to see if they will show it - I would be just so utterly over the moon if they would. Wow! Ah well I can hope/dream. Now I have to finish the canvas work for Friday.

28-05-03 Today has been spent working on the thechnical details of getting all the parts of the piece to link together properly. I have also had to do a lot of expeirimenting with Flash MX and the Action Scripting features with which I am not familiar. It has been a deeply frustrating day at times and I have had to keep going back and rereading the manuals I have. The CDROM from the US I sent off for has been a Godsend withregard to programming with the scripts. I have now resolved that the piece will be projected using the Flash player on a Windows platform. I shall have to state that the best resolution for display is 800by600 because although the player can play on any preset resolution of graphics card I find that due to rounding errors you seem to get the odd horisontal line appearing which is not goo, but the 800by600 which I designed for is always perfect. Additionally I have been reading up on how to create a menu for the piece to allow it to be started at the beginning of any episode. This was extremely tricky and I am not convinced my method is the best but it works nicely. The menu appears on the screen when you press the space bar and then disappears when you select an option. Rather nifty if I say so myself. Now I need to get onto making the CDROM version self starting to allow for absolute ease of viewing - important when I am entering it for the Walsall Open. Can't afford for there to be any cockups! All this technical stuff is doing my head in a bit and reminds me how much things move on and how very quickly - Using Flash deffinitely takes a certain mindset I think. I am now taking the links off the page for the viewing of an Online version because these are nolonger applicable since the final piece is now ready to be viewed. I have to do the writing and instructions for viewing now.

27-05-03 It is 1747 as I write this and all I can see is musical score! It has been a very long two days working on the fourth movement but at last it is completed - yippee! All that I have to do now is the engineering and linking it all together which is fiddly but not as mind numbing as the score translations and I am delighted to have got this far. The first opening bars to movement 1 I want to rework because of a change in policy in the way that I deal with chords in the violins but that won't take too long. The main part of the work left is the task of turning all the flash files into a CDROM with a suitable cover etc etc. STill a fair amount of work to go but I am pleased to have got through the score now - it is a great relief. Why I wonder do my bright ideas always seem to invelove a huge element of tedium?! joke!

26-05-03 Bank Holiday Monday and I am now on the last section of the symphony - it's very exciting but also daunting because the last section is 204 bars long with several nasty bits to get through but at least the entire score will have been 'processed' when I've done it and then I can start getting on with the engineering.

24-05-03 The first two sections of the fourth movement are complete but I it is a very complex movement to work out especially since the bassons have contrasting rhythms which are always the hardest to get right in each part.

I haven't put the thirdmoevement online yet because I think I shall wait till it is all complete before I put anymore online - don't want people seeing it before it's displayed in college!

23-05-03 Now the third movement is finished and all the repeats repeat correctly so I am thrilled. It has beena right nightmare getting all the pieces together properly and att he right frame rates for the rhythmic quality too. I feel elated and as if I am on my downward slope towards completion even though the fourth movement has a few interesting little twists.

22-05-03 Alleluia alleluia! I have finished the third movements scoring, but I still have to dot he engineering because of the complexities of the file-linkage system. The third movement is made up from twelve sections and all the various calls to get the repeating sections begin to send you moronlike.

21-5-03 The third movement is proving to be quite trying on the brain because there are so many repeats and a da capo too just to add a bit more confusion to the filing system.

Martin and I are still trying to work out the possibility of making a self-starting CDROM or DVD. There are some difficulties which I need to reseearch about how to go about doing this..

18-05-03 I worked on the engineering issues again this evening because I managed to have a long conversation with Martin about the possibility of creating a self-starting and self setting up DVD or CDROM of the final piece. This would be really useful if we can get the code together so that the piece sets up the graphic in the way it wants before it starts and then the user won't need to do any set up work at all. Martin it looking into it - now I feel like SolLeWitt with my little 'crew' beginning to emerge. It was also a bit fiddly getting the First Two movements to work properly on the laptop ready for tomorrows presentation tot he group with Rob. Feel a bit nervous about it - don't know why just do. Albeingwell I can have a practice in the morning without pressure.

14-05-03 My eyes hurt so no work tonight.

13-05-03 Having spent all day working on the piece it is now complete to the end of the second movement.. Its duration is 14mins 14secs. It can now be viewed online using the link above. I have to say that it is quite mesmerising and also uplifting to watch. It makes me think about the way in which our brains must work in recognising colours. I am looking forward to showing this piece to the group next week in our session with Rob.

11-05-03 I haven't written anything about this piece of work for a while because it is had to quantify progress through my new method of working. I used to be able to say I had reached bar XYZ on page ABC but now that I have found it easier to work on one instrumental part at a time it is harder to plot progress so easily. Well here goes: I have now done the woodwind and the brass and percussion to the end of the second movement and I am now working on the strings from bar 65. The piece will be updated online when I reach the end of the second movement.

I have several reservation about the peiecve at the moment and I am not quite sure what I am thinking about it as a piece of art. I shall address these when I next write in the evaluation section.

08-05-03 This is my notes for last night because I was too tired to update the site and wanted to get to bed! I am now working on the second part fo the second movement and I hope that this will be finished by the middle of next week, albeingwell.. As yet I have not put it online, although I shall when it is finished - then I shall be half way through the symphony - Alleluia! It is really a labour of love, but the results are spectacular, as you can see.

06-04-03 Progress so far has reached the repeat of the second movement which is page 38 of the score. The work has all been put online for veiwing as usual. I am still thinking about the process of making it viewable during the show week. I will pop into the lecture theatre and see if I can book the theatre for the week.

29-04-03 Alleluia alleluia! The eight hours work of today has seen the finishing of the first movement - episode one. The piece is now onlone for 'viewing' and the compiled code is quite small in size which is very pleasing because the final piece will now easily fit on a CDROM. I shall have to work on the design of a case for the final CD case. Although there are three movements/episodes to go, the achievement of reaching the first milestone is very refreshing because the first few stages were exceedling slow indeed, however, now that I am so adept at reading a score and know all the coordinates of the instruments off by heart it has certainly speeded up what is a very slow and tedious process. Such is the way of system's art.

27-04-03 Today I have spent doing the first violin line from bars 110 to 294, the end of the first movement. Only the second violins and violas and cellos & absses to go now till the end of the first moevement. I have also put the light piece on line for viewing. The results look quite pleasing, although I wish to discuss the work with Rob and Alan next week. The process of 'transcription' is getting much quicker because I am become very adept at reading the ledger lines now and also I know all the octave positions of all the instruments now after these 400 odd bars. I just hope that I manage to keep up the pace for the rest of the symphony. I shall have to do a bit of carefull thinking about the engineering of the stop and start aspects of the whole but for the time being I am keen to just get though the remaining 50 pages of the sore and then do some of the engineering and tweeking.

26-04-03 I have spent many hours working on this piece over the last few days. but I have to admit that I am becoming quite bored with it - well bored is perhaps the wrong word, more that I find the process a little tedious. On reflecting on this I am reminded of an interview with Sol LeWitt who maintained that sometimes he found his work tedious. In some ways I feel that I am doing a mechainical process which could be done by a machine, although from time to time I need to make decisions when I am confronted with a new situation I hadn't foreseen. The speed of work is getting better although it is very slow progress. I am becoming a lot better at recognizing patterns in the parts so that I can copy those frames. Also I have discovered that it is a lot easier to work on one instrumental part at a time. This enables me to pick up patterns much more easily, it also means that I don't have to keep looking up where the colour shape goes, contentrating on a pair of areas at a time is a lot easier. So far I have completed the first movement for the flutes, obes, bassons, trumpets and trombones. The timpani I may do tonight and the strings will take a couple of days I guess because those parts are always a lot mor tricky to work on. I may try and put the version of the piece online as it develops, but I am not sure about doing this because I inteded it as a projection piece and not one to be viewed on the net - although this may be a good wasy to develop art online and in realtime.

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23-04-03 I spent a few hours working on the piece again today. I have a stinking cold at the moment but at least I can manage to get a bit of work done, although the process is exceedingly tedious, very slow and tends to send you a bit dolally after a few hours. It reminds me of my days doing computer programming for the MOD except that this time I understand what I am doing and why I am doing it - also it's my choice! So far I have arrived at bar 84 page 10 of the score. Soon I shall be reaching the first time bar of thye reapeat which will be a delight because I can copy much of what I have done in the second time repeat.

When performed the piece now lasts 6mins and 10seconds

10-04-03 I have now reached bar 74 (page 9 of the score) I am now using a 'control' layer to put action scripts in and also to mark out the bars. Using this method makes it very much easier to find ones's way around the rather large files. It was an idea I had last night when I was concerned about the managability of the movie files in terms of finding one's way around to edit them or make changes. This use of a control line has helped greatly. Also I have made a copy of the movie files as they stand today, partly for security reason and partly for a record of where I have got to and when. The progress is steady and I am pleased that this week has managed to produce such astounding results - I shall have to preview it on the large screen in the lecture theatre after easter, I also want to discuss its progress with Alan and Rob. Feed back from peers would also be useful. Here are some little snap shots of the movie in action.

I hope that these few snapshots from the piece give an idea of what the piece is like in action. The backup disc can be consulted for the movie at this stage in the development.

9-04-03 As per yesterday the work continues slowly but surley. I have now put in linkages files to make the work complete, for viewing even in its incomplete state and it is looking really rather remarkable. It will be amazing to see it in large screen format. Today's work has got me to bar 64 of movement 1. So far it lasts about 120 seconds in all.

8-04-03 More of the first movement and I have reached bar 44now. It's a slow business doing this symphony but it looks really good now all the linkages are working properly. The final piece will be quite spectacular I think..

7-04-03 Continued on the first movement and got to bar 30 - the second file this is the fast bit. The new linkage method works really quite well and I am pleased with it, the only drawback is that you need a fast enough machine to read the files in and interpret them quickly enought to not get any glitches. this should be fine provided I use a fast base unit and I need to explore this area further with Martin. I'm also working on a design for the case which the final CD or DVD will be housed in.

6-04-03 At last I feel like I am beginning to get somewhere. The first 12 bars are done - yippee and I have also done the linkages between the introduction initial pause and the first twelve bars. I have had to end up using absolute pixel addresses for each instruments patch of light because neither me nor Martion can se to get hte snap to grid or snap to guides or snap to objects working in the copy of flashMX we have. I am sure we are not doing anything wrong but at least we have managed to come up with an alternative because it was getting a little worrying earlier in the weekend when a solution couldn't be found to guarantteeing that all the patches of colour are in the correct position exactly. Here is a picture of me working on the LIGHT project.

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5-04-03 Still having alot of trouble with the positioning of the symbols in Flash. Called in Martin to help and he is thinking about it - sometimes you just regret having a good idea and this is one of them - complete nightmare and I think I am going mad the amount of time I am specnt looking at this computer!t

4-04-03 Day full of hassle. Having a nightmare time with the snapping to grid and guide functions in Flash. After many many hours work I have managed to get two bars of the symphony done - what a nightmare.

3-04-03 Worked today on the links between the movie files to ensure that I'd got the calling mechanisms correct. Also I sorted out which octaves are to be the principle/main octaves of each instrument (see sketchbook) and the arrangement of the instruments int he movie area (see the pic below) The screen will be divided into 18 areas and when the violins have two three or four parts each then their areas will be subdivided.

Here is the definitions CD too.

2-04-03 Today I worked on making the colour symbols for all the variations I shall need to create the symphony. These are now stored on a CDROM for reference throughout the work of the creation. Also I developed a general template with the lines of definitions for the instruments in the orchestra - this file will be used in the creation of each of the files listed in the Engineering Document (cira 25 movie files) Its been a heavy day but all this ground work will stand me in good stead for egtting going.
I also did a simple introduction to the piece which looks rather nice. See image here and below for fuller version.

These are just captured shots of a movie with the words scrolling in from the top and the left and scrolling out to the bottom and right respectively.

1-04-03 nothing achieved today need to get hte colour symbols done this week and the templates.

31/03/03 The Engineering planning has been completed at the wreekend so now I am ready to start making the templet files.

05-06-3 The work is now completed all but for the editing of this webpage and putting it on a CDROM so that people can look at it during the show week. I want to include a section which enables people to add their own commenst about the work to try and get some feedback from the general public as they pass through the exhibition. I think it would be interesting to see what people put as comments. I am not sure if I am going to be able to do this though because I have a lot of other things on at the moment as well.

02-06-03 Sorting out the engineering to the light piece is proving tricky and tiresome. I am very pleased to have spent so much time and energy planning this stage right at the start - it would have been a nightmare to just have got here and needed to sort it out. After a lot of work with the FLASH MX manuals and CDROMs I have learned how to make a pop up style menu and put it into an invisible layer which means that the whole production can now be controlled between episodes. Although it would be truer to say that you could leap between episodes and then just press the space bar to make the menu appear on the screen - I'm quit chuffed wih this detail to the piece, looks really quit swish.. Ah well I shall look forward to comments next week when I take it into college.

21-05-03 This week has been a frustrating week so far because the inspectors are in and it is hard to get things done because life is geared around their appearance and theri presence in studios and workshops. Naturally people are tied up with them. I have been trying to make a frame and find space to work on it but studio space is being used so I have had to try and find a workshop to work in. I also had the added difficulty of getting one of the carpentry technicians to bevel the timber for me, which was a suggestion Ian had for the last canvas I made. Eventually I got it done and today I have just finished preparing the canvas for painting. I am doing one of the captured beats which I had been looking at earlier in my preparatory work. It captures in a cvas one beat of Beethovens Second String Quartet. WHen I have an image I shall in clude it here. This will be the last paint piece I intend to do for my FMP because I need to put all my energies into the completion of the light piece which has lost out on time with the inspectors coming in becuase I prefer to work on this at home where my facilities are more suited to the work - i.e. I have a tablet and Martin's 21" monitor which is easier to work on for prolonged periods.

Yesterday we had a group crit of my work which took a bit of preparations too and the digital projector I managed to borrow wasn't as powerful as I'd hoped so I only managed to project it at about 4 feet by 3 feet rather than my intended 10m by 8m or so. Also I had to project it in a light room which looses the effect and power of the colour that a dark room would have. Rather suprisingly the comments were all about the power of my work. People seem to think my work is very powerful in its presence. The discussion generated a lot of discussion and I have to do a review with Rob at his next session. His assessors from Wolvs Uni also joined in which was good rather than just being passive observers. This week has made me feel really very proud of my work and ideas. It has been a tough year for me and I am very pleased with my efforts. It is a nice feeling to think that I created something that will stay on the walls of the college for a time - until someone else has an idea.

My next problem to overcome is to find a venue for the projection of my light piece in all it's glory - I hope. I am going to approach the Walsall Art Gallery to see if they will host it for a session in the exhibition week. I think their dark room would be good.

07-05-03 I showed my work to James from Manchester - a friend. He made a few observations on the Light piece which are making me think about the introduction and in particular the scrolling titles - which he thinks look naff and I think I am in agreement, but they were done as a temporary start so that the piece could be put on the website. I am going to remove the scrolling altogether I think.

01-05-03 Today's comments are about the masking tape problem. The new tape was just as sticky as the last lots which have been used, so now I going to use an idea given to me by someone who came to look at what I was doing. He suggests I touch the tape against something before I put it on the wall. This will take away some of its stickiness. I am going to give this a go because I have now run out of options apart from buying the tape at £3.50 or £4.35 a roll and I really do not want to spent £8 on the last colour going up on the wall.. It is a challenging problem, as they say, and I wish I had an army of little helpers to do masking tape research for me !. Ah well maybe oneday.

Andy and I spent about half an hour this afternoon talking about the presence of the piece in its space. Now that the later stages are being reached the piece does have a tremendous power to it. The digital mock ups in my sketchbook were very powerful but to see the work in place is quite moving. I feel a sense of honour at being entrusted with such a large public space, and there really is a sense of feeling exposed personally by offering my work for generall veiwing. I have decided to call the piece "Wall Painting #1" I am not too sure yet about the rest of the text on the plaque that JR is planning but there may be a reference to its original idea - we'll see.

28-04-03 I spent a long time talking to ROb (PGCE student) today about the work I am doing. This was good because generally I had a rottoen day, mainly due to a headache and too many 'witty' comments from passers by.

Rob and I filled in one of his Negotiated Action Plans, which is in my sketch book. The work I am doing on the site specific piece is coming along ok, the main difficulties are process ones. How to get the turquiose paint to stick tot he wall rather then the masking tape, and how to manage the insecant comments from passers by, which I am finding quite wearing. As part of the future strategies part of the Action Plan we put down the following points.
1) use better masking tape to ensure a better finish (cost implications at £3.50 a roll)
2) look at the process to ensure a better wall surface
3) Types of paint - qualities of the different paints and materials to be investigated
4) Perhaps consider other ways of using blocks of colour (other materials than paint)
5) cross reference with Sol Lowitts observations on wall and surface finish - process and ideology.

23-04-03 I have been reading a lot of papers about Sol LeWitts process for his wall drawings and I am now beginning to wonder if I should really have done some experimentation on surfaces before I began work. The wall which Jack prepared for the Site specific piece was not in the best of conditions and although Sol LeWitt said that he considered this to add to the piece and not detract from it, I have also read that he had some of the walls prepared by plastering them to make a suitable surface to work on. Not that I really have the time or resources to do such a thing but it is worth bearing in mind for future reference. The interviews he gave in the book I borrowed from Andy have been very enlightening when it comes to the process he was involved in about the sale of a piece of site specific art. Sol LeWitt sold the idea for the work with a certificate and then the buyer had the work executed as many times as they wished, or as it was agreed - sounds rather like a royalties sort of agreement. I shall be investigating this further as I get deeper into the texts.

One of his greatest/largest pieces of wall work was in Frankfurt Law Courts and I am currently investigating if I can afford to go and visit them for a day. The difficulty will be sorting out/finding out if I can look inside the courts and the chmbers also if I could take photographs. The flights seem to be about £100 return if I can book more than three weeks in advance with BA and they go from Birmingham. I have more investigations to do on this one.