Planning my Final Major Project
My proposal for the FMP
This is the proposal and planning form I submitted to UAL yesterday for my Final Major Project (FMP) that I'm calling Sense of Place, which sets out my premise and narrative for connecting people with the natural world and engaging communities with their local landscapes. It is my plan to deliver this project through my prior involvement with Surrey Wildlife Trust and my personal 'sense of place' that is associated with their beautiful educational nature reserve at Nower Wood, Headley.
Saturday 01 March 2025
Week Three (03/03/2025): When will I deliver my project steps?
I have an FMP title, premise, narrative, audience & broad plan for research... all I need next is to create some art! I will start by printing ideas next week that create a visual link to my 'Sense of Place', which includes screen-printing designs based on chalk fossils.
Friday 28 February 2025
BRILLIANT... I've started creative practice for my FMP by designing templates for making screen print stencils and lino-cut blocks inspired by nature or fossilised coccolithophores found in chalk on Nower Wood SNCI.
Sunday 02 March 2025
My 'Sense of Place' Plan
I've now discussed my preparation and ideas for a Final Major Project proposal with my tutors, peers, family and friends. I've reflected on their feedback and advice. I've considered the points raised and discussed during my recent meeting with the manager at Nower Wood SNCI and recorded outcomes in my FMP workbook.
A key outcome of my decision-making process last week is that I've now modified my FMP plan and proposals to focus my project on Nower Wood, Headley rather than my local parish. However, I've retained my art narrative about 'sense of place' so that I can use my own creative practice to help communities and people engage with their local landscape.
I've also thought more about what methods, as well as print-making, I may use to deliver a body of work. As an outcome of a chat with our printing tutor this morning I've decided to move away from creating a large mural or collage to 'host' my body of work. I'm now considering the value & practicalities of creating a hanging display in style of Chant (Paula Roland, 2003) or Samuri banners to provide a conceptual image of a woodland.
Monday 03/03/2025
Printing my coccolith design
Today I collected my lino-cut monoprints from print tutor Monica after a busy session in her studio yesterday creating a body of work that is inspired by the geology of Nower Wood. In particular I created a design based on the fossilised microorganisms that make up chalk, which I used to make two slightly different lino-cut blocks that I printed with hand-mixed water-based black, white and blue inks. The blue pallet was in turn inspired by the blue tones found on the Small Blue Butterfly found in that area of Surrey Hills and mentioned in the Nature's Anthem rap by Still Shady that initiated my FMP plan.
Tuesday 04 March 2025
Reviewing my FMP plans
What a busy week! Lots of printing... lots of feedback and lots of ideas. Apart from creating a body of work that is inspired by the geology (chalk) of Nower Wood I've also developed a plan for my FMP and Diploma Exhibition, which replaces the idea of a mural with hanging banners to symbolise trees in a wood. I will link the trees of this ancient woodland back to our cultural heritage of the Celtic Tree Calendar & Ogham Alphabet to create a visually engaging installation that celebrates the key features of my Sense of Place.
Now that I've cracked the initial proposal and planning for my FMP I really need to think about timescales, while keeping my ideas focused and achievable in the timeframe remaining for Stage 3 of FAD. I have four (4) weeks before Easter, so whilst I can write the Unit 4 Contextual Essay and update my workbook and WIX website during that two (2) week break, I need to start printing on materials for my banners beforehand. I then have another four (4) week period after Easter to complete my FMP work ready for submission on Friday 16 May 2025.
I will take some time over this weekend to think more about possible timescales, where I will resource materials for my hanging banners and research inks suitable for hand-painting and printing textiles. As my FMP work is an installation I will be using it for my Diploma Exhibition too. I'm feeling REALLY motivated by this development of my FMP planning and appreciate the positive and insightful feedback from both tutors and my peers... sometimes others can see the obvious staring you in the face!
Thursday 06 March 2025
Week Four (10/03/2025): How can I connect my art to nature?
Pathways into Nature
At this point in time of my UAL Stage 3: Final Major Project - Sense of Place I have taken some time to consider the evidence in support of the concept that art can help people connect with nature. This is an aspect of my project that I'm considering exploring further in my Contextual Essay but at this stage I need to confirm that my narrative is valid and achievable. This is an academic study by the University of Derby that considers five pathways to help people connect with nature and I believe all five can be interpreted and shared through art and by consolidating my creative practice during Stage 3 of this course.
Tuesday 11 March 2025
Citation: Richardson, M., & Butler, C.W. (2022). The nature connection handbook: A guide for increasing people’s connection with nature. United Kingdom.
Reviewing my FMP title & premise
As I was unable to attend art college two days this week due to a family medical emergency I took some spare time working at home to consider the question... "How can my creative practice help people connect to nature and encourage them to develop a 'sense of place' so that they protect their local environment?" I am thinking of exploring this aspect further in my forthcoming Contextual Essay as part of my Stage 3 FMP.
As part of this consideration I applied 9 criteria to my creative practice and identified works that show how my art can achieve this. These images are shown above with text explaining the criteria and the artwork. I have applied my creative practice during Stages 1 & 2 of this FAD course to the various key projects and in doing so produced work that meets these criteria. The exception is the last slide that is a political T-shirt that I originally purchased as a student in 1980 but now wear a new one to college to prompt political discussion.
A key aspect of this Stage 3: Final Major Project is to consolidate my creative practice so that I can find new ideas, methods and materials to produce art that will help people engage with nature and develop a 'sense of place' for their local landscape. I want to use my art in community projects to entertain, engage and educate people about nature, wildlife and environmental issues affecting biodiversity.
Wednesday 12 March 2025
Nature journaling
So this fifth week of my FMP I've been exploring different effects created by different methods of printing. I've also been using material that I gathered during my field trip to Nower Wood on Friday 28 February to create different Nature Journal pages as one way of applying my creative practice to help connect people to nature.
I've really enjoyed this process as it allows me to use a variety of methods such as print, drawing & mixed-media. I aim to find a way of integrating this into my FMP & Diploma Exhibition.
Thursday 13 March 2025
Week Five (17/03/2025): How will I deliver my FMP?
Meeting my tutor & reviewing my ideas
Today I had a one2one session with my FAD Tutor to evaluate the progress of my FMP, seek feedback from his perspective, share the ideas in my FMP Workbook and discuss opportunities for my final piece and Diploma Exhibition display. The outcome was clarity about what I'm trying to achieve with my creative practice for my FMP activity. I want to create an art installation featuring banners that entertains and engages visitors so that they open a dialogue about the educational aspect of the narrative as set out in my FMP plan.
The display area in the art college gallery has been allocated to me (LHS image) and comprises a white timber frame open sided cube structure 2.4m x 2.4m x 2.4m with a slatted ceiling from which to suspend objects. I plan to create a set of banners to be suspended in a similar style to an installation by Leonor Attunes (discrepancies with T.P II 1972) that I saw in the Tate Modern Gallery (RHS image). These banners will feature my screen printed designs that will include Celtic runes, tree leaves & possibly wildlife.
For the purposes of UAL Stage 3: Final Major Project the relevant research, planning, production & presentation is being recorded in my FMP Workbook and on this WIX Website. The final presentation will include this planned installation, a PPT video that links to the installation and a book that develops the visual information featured on the banners. In the installation the video will be on a large screen TV monitor that will form the nucleus of my FMP display and this video can also be uploaded onto this website.
The book will comprise A3 landscape format pages created on Daler Rowney Mixed Media (250g/sq m) paper featuring individual trees, or fungi, wildflowers or animal wildlife that will be linked to individual banners by Celtic rune symbols. These nature journal pages will be scanned into my FMP data base as PDF and JPEG files for use on this WIX website and a PPT presentation to be viewed on a monitor during the exhibition. The original pages will be hand-bound into a simple book to accompany exhibition display.
Monday 17 March 2025
Natures surfaces & textures
Today I delivered my FMP Presentation for critique by course tutors & got positive feedback about my ideas so I decided to explore natural surfaces.
I borrowed these 3 source books from our college studio library so that I could research different natural surfaces & ideas for creating patterns on my display banners.
I found the 'Woven into Memory' book particularly inspiring & may well experiment with other ideas for creating elements for my FMP display.
Tuesday 18 March 2025
Revising my personal Project Plan
After reflecting on the outcome of my one2one with FAD Course Tutor David Tinn on Monday and the feedback from my FMP presentation to David and Contextual Studies Tutor Lloyd Jenkins on Tuesday I have revised my personal FMP Plan v4 (see above). Whilst the title, narrative, context and audience remain the same with their sound approval, I have modified the content significantly to reflect their feedback and my reflections. I will still make eight (8) banners to create a conceptual woodland installation but the centre-piece will be a TV monitor showing a video loop about my Sense of Space, which will include nature journal pages linked to each banner and tree through ancient runes associated with the Celtic Tree Calendar and Ogham Alphabet.
This reflects my narrative about the people's interest in history and culture being more accessible to a wider audience than nature and biodiversity. The plan is to trial a concept for using my creative practice to make an installation that can be used by conservation groups in public spaces as a 'hook' to entertain 'hard to reach' audiences and to engage people in a dialogue about wildlife and educate them about nature conservation. It is now time to push on and start creating banners in the Printmaking Studio at art college.
Wednesday 19 March 2025
FMP Interim Crit Presentation
A key aspect of the FAD course is to seek feedback from tutors and peers, share my ideas for the FMP and ask for comments about the FMP title, premise and proposed plan for delivering creative practice. One aspect of this approach is this formal presentation to tutors by Powerpoint sharing my title, premise, narrative, themes, ideas, methods and proposals for consolidating my creative practice to produce and present my project. I felt my presentation went really well and the positive verbal feedback from tutors David Tinn and Lloyd Jenkins was backed up by a favourable written assessment (see later in Evaluation & Reflection page).
Thursday 20 March 2025
How can I connect my journals to my banners?
So today I consolidating my experimentation in the college printmaking studio and reading research of other artists and movements in the nature-inspired creative practice about natural surfaces. I want to create a set of stencils for screen printing a simple background onto my FMP banners that create the effect of bark and/or other natural surfaces found in woodland and on trees. Another key aspect of my FMP banners is creating a simple link to the nature journal book that I plan to make to compliment the visual narrative generated by the banners themselves. My idea is to use ancient runes from the Celtic Tree Calendar and words from their Ogham Alphabet, which will appear on each banner and page from the nature journal that refer to the eight (8) specific trees and shrubs that I've selected to represent my chosen sense of place at Nower Wood. I've put all this work into my FMP Workbook and shown the relevant images above.
Thursday 20 March 2025
Week Six (24/03/2025): Final method experimentation phase
What is the key driver of my FMP?
I help direct and manage a small community interest company, called Sorbus Learning CIC, that has a mission to work with local communities, charities, councils and agencies to help individuals and groups connect with nature to improve their physical, mental, emotional and social wellbeing. As a team of experienced outdoor learning practitioners, therapeutic gardeners and artists we have worked with partners in the NHS to deliver ideas for delivering 'green social prescribing' projects. So what is GSP as it is often referred to? Well nothing can explain its purpose, and the link between nature, outdoor activity and art, better than this video. ENJOY!
Monday 24 March 2025
Project Plan - When?
Today after a busy session in the printmaking studio I've had a chance to reflect on the outcome of testing my original ideas. I had some successes & some failures but outcome is a clear idea how to print the background bark effect & leaves on the tree banners. I also had a think about how I'm going to deliver the different aspects of my FMP and this evening shared those ideas with my tutor. I now have an initial plan for delivery over next month.
Tuesday 25 March 2025
Exploring ideas for printing my banners
So today I've continued to consolidate my experimentation in the college printmaking studio and research of other artists in the nature-inspired creative practice to identify a method for replicating natural surfaces. I want to create a set of stencils for screen printing a simple background onto my FMP banners that create the effect of bark and/or other natural surfaces found in woodland. These backgrounds will be screen printed onto each banner using appropriate opaque inks and I'm thinking that I will use different colours to refer to the eight (8) specific trees and shrubs that I've selected to represent my chosen sense of place at Nower Wood.
My preferred outcome is the black ink relief print of the reverse surface of the textured wallpaper onto the off white lighter newsprint paper, which has produced a more distinct and simpler design. While in college on Tuesday I photocopied these dry relief prints at various sizes to further check their suitability and discovered that my preferred option when enlarged to an A3 size in horizontal format created an ideal image for making the UV stencils for screen printing. I've purchased a 3m x 1.5m strip of calico cloth so that after the Easter break I can start making some banners, which I've decided will be approx 2m x 300/450mm in size.
The template for the oak leaf failed dismally but after discussion with the print studio tutor Monica I've decided I can solve this problem by making lino-cut templates using hand-drawn images of the leaves from the chosen trees. I've put all this work into my FMP Workbook and shown the relevant images above.
Thursday 27 March 2025
What is the long-term outcome of my FMP?
As I've already explained I manage a small community interest company, called Sorbus Learning CIC, that has a mission to help people connect with nature to improve their health & wellbeing. I work with other experienced outdoor learning practitioners, therapeutic gardeners and artists in partnership with the NHS to deliver ideas for delivering 'green social prescribing' projects. I want to create a transportable art installation that we can use to entertain audiences and engage them in our nature-based activities so that we can educate them about the natural world and benefits of connecting with nature. This video about a recent project that we ran with the Gateway Community Project in Earlswood, Surrey was produced by Surrey County Council and funded by the NHS and Natural England as part of a national programme to develop new ideas. ENJOY!
Friday 28 March 2025