Continuing distractions.

Continuing distractions.

Another wasted(?) period of time, six weeks or so since my last post.

I spent a lot of the time working on the continued transfer assets to a newer version of Unity to allow for a cleaner (smaller) executable and for more actions within the space. Conversations and research have convinced me that I need a narrative and more interactions in the space and I think I’m going to combine them. The thing I haven’t got at the moment is words.

So I decided to take a step back and produce some developments towards sculpture based on the lemniscate drawings. The full gallery is here …

The drawings began as experiments with binders and carriers for graphite powder following the comfrey torus drawings from this post, stepping aside occasionally

studio drawing

A1 drawings made in the studio

These drawings were then torn into quarters and collaged together

A1 torus collage

A1 torus collage

And finally these collages were worked over to define a central connection and suggest a sculptural solution.

Final A1 Torus drawing

Final A1 Torus drawing

There are 16 drawings in total and I’m working on a series of maquettes.

I also made some paintings of peppers I grew this year.

Continuing distractions.

Fruit and Peppers, oil on denim, 12″ x 12″

There are six paintings and they can be seen on this link

https://www.ian-latham.com/painting/four.html

Drawing

I’ve carried on drawing every day and you can see the November  images  here

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

The drawings are posted to Twitter and Instagram each day.

Being Sidetracked (continued…)

Being Sidetracked (continued…)

This is the first post since the end of August and I’m still off track. Pottering I think. About six weeks ago I saw a competiton for VR work that matched the geranium project

In preparing for entry I reconfigured parts of the project and added some effects in the rain garden and the painted garden, storm effects and shadows, and also did a lot of work preparing the piece for Quest 2 as well as The Index and Vive.

Although you can easily build for both platforms you have to switch the platform in Unity to do so. I now know that while it switches without a problem it won’t switch back without causing all sorts of glitches.  I’ve spent far too long building two versions of a very big Unity file. The advantage is that I’ve now got the file updated to a more recent Unity and I can use some better effects in the new work.

The submission got no traction at all, nothing after the acknowledgement, but my own analysis and discussions with colleagues led to the idea that I need to develop a narrative that guides you through the VR world. So that’s where I am now, trying to write a story that I can take through the process.

I’ve not been entirely idle alongside this, a few months ago I started a drawing of a fox

I’ve done some more work on that and it looks like this now

Being Sidetracked (continued...)

Dark Fox

I’ve also been working on some found or accidental images, the first is from a piece of plastic acquired from my last workplace, that I thought suggested an interior.

Found Interior Chesterfield

Found Interior Chesterfield

Drawing

I’ve carried on drawing every day and you can see the October images  here

There is a link to the previous month’s Gallery on each page.

The drawings are posted to Twitter and Instagram each day.

Garden’s Project 8: Not really the Gardens Project most of the time.

Garden’s Project 8:

Not really the Gardens Project most of the time.

I’ve been meandering through the swamp since early June when I last posted, stopping and starting, changing tack and changing back, generally not having the slightest idea what I’m doing. At time like this the discipline overtakes and “doing” becomes the purpose in itself, mostly for the worse.

So I’ve kept drawing, I’m halfway through July in my sketchbook and for this month I’m working one day left handed and the next day drawing the same thing right handed.

Gardens Project 8

First pair of drawings, 30/06/21 and 01/07/21

This is the first pair of drawings for July 21, I’ll put them together as agallery at the end of the month. The key is to spend about the same amount of time drawing each page and see what happens. Drawing left handed is still hard, especially in terms of connecting with the paper – I don’t seem to be able to exert the same pressure on the page as I can with my right hand, something I obviously didn’t notice on the iPad through to May.

Onwards and upwards.

VR project wise I’ve been stymied by having to relearn modelling and upgrading my equipment. I’ve got so much data now that it took two days to back up between computers and externalhard drives. I also fitted a new SSD to my big computer and got a new laptop to use with a new Quest 2 that I’m just getting to grips with.

I think chapter one of the gardens project is pretty much outlined now, the direction is there, but the finish on all the environments is not what I want yet and the dome with floating news doesn’t give the impression I want. So I’m developing another way to navigate the space with objects that you move out of the way to progress. This will give me a better way to look at the passage of time as well I think. I also want the environment to be a lot more black and white and possibly drawn.

More to come.

I got a message about a post from 2016 regarding “Photosynth” a now defunct software, I updated the post in response and it’s here Garden in Balby – Photosynth with a link to an article that discusses the software and what happened to it.