Yesterday, on the 4th July, Jonny Briggs visited Hautlieu to talk to us during our lesson.  I thought we would start the task straight away but he first sat us down in a group and asked us a particular question. He went round everyone and asked whether they though fear was a good thing or a bad thing when working on a project. My response was that I thought fear could be turned into a good thing if you are able to control your fears. If the fear overwhelmed you, it could cause you to give up, or make irrational mistakes. However, the most successful people are able to take the fear and use it to push them forward.

Briggs’ whole talk was about fears and mistakes.  He did a task with us, were we had to draw a face of a person with our eyes closed. I thought it was a very unusual thing for us to do, but Briggs’ explanation of the task at the end was very interesting.

For the next part of the task we had to draw the face of someone in the room with our eyes closed. Here is my response of that part of the task. 

Briggs then asked us which one of the images we found most hard to draw and why. Drawing the image of the person we knew was the most difficult for me because rather then just using my imagination to make up simple features of a person, we had to draw someone we knew which meant we had something to compare to. The second had to be more accurate which was difficult with your eyes closed.

Briggs then asked us whether we would find an image that we drew with our eyes open more interesting compared to the image that we drew with our eyes closed. The quality of the drawing would be much better if I drew it with my eyes open, but the image drawn with my eyes closed would be more interesting because the shapes and abstract forms create a greater artistic feel.  Briggs then used this theory and explained that although the image we drew was full of mistakes, such as the eyes not being right, it doesn’t mean we have to regard the image as bad. Its the mistakes that make the images interesting.

The next task we did with Briggs was destroying an image that we brought in. I brought in an image of my parents at their wedding because it links with the project that we are doing at the moment, about family. We were asked to manipulate and destroy the image in some way with a meaning behind it. I decided to cut out the faces of my parents and swap them over. I then stapled them back onto the image again. I wanted some gaps within the image so light could be seen through.  I’m really happy with the outcome of the process. I choose to swap there heads over to symbolize that through their marriage they would have to take on the roles of each other, and learn the traits of them.