St. Peter's Seminary, Cardross

I'll be using these photos of St. Peter's Seminary in Cardross as the basis of my Advanced Visual Creativity Personal Project, in conjunction with sketchwork and collage ideas. My aim is to use the photography to depict St. Peter's as it appears now, and the sketchwork to depict my interpretation of what it looked like before it descended into its current ruinous state. I then plan to throw together a large collage of images interspersing the two styles of artwork.

Now, to give you some bumph about St. Peter's:

• Despite it's apparent ruinous, collapsing state, it is actually one of the few modern Category A-listed buildings in West Central Scotland.

• Designed by world renowned architects Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, with one eye very firmly on the works of Le Corbusier.

• Has been described by various sources as "a modern building of world significance" and "the finest example of post-modern brutalist architecture in the United Kingdom".

• Was included on the World Monument Fund's '100 Most Endangered Sites' list in both 2007 and 2008.

The building was originally intended to be used as a training college for Catholic priests, but just as it was being completed, the practice of teaching priests in seclusion from their eventual congregations was beginning to lose sway within the Catholic Chuch in Scotland, and as such, the building never came close to achieving full occupancy after it's official opening in 1966. From the outset, the building was riddled with structural and maintenace problems, mostly caused by substandard engineering and cost cutting during the construction process. It closed as a Seminary in 1980, and was used for a while as a drug treatment and rehabilitation centre, but the maintenance and engineering problems it had experienced earlier in its existence continued to plague the building, and as such, it had been completely vacated, stripped and left to the elements by the early 1990s.

More random Graphical nonsense

Some Warhol style Pop Art. All I've really done here is reproduce Warhol's original $ in triplicate and played about with the colour hue and saturation in Photoshop to create the yellow and green versions from the original red one. I've never claimed to be the most original artist or designer on the planet, but by the admittedly low standards of plagiarism, I think this turned out quite nicely!

I despise Caramel Wafers. It's like eating ten sheets of wafer thin MDF held together by a particularly sticky, unappealing wood glue, then covered in the kind of chocolate even Cadbury's would find insulting. Unfortunately, I couldn't use those facts as the basis for a 20' advertising billboard design, so I had to go with something a bit more mundane, and probably less libellous. They haven't changed in size (or flavour, I imagine) since they were first introduced in 1957. This piece was produced on the hoof in a few hours in response to one-day brief set by Levy McCallum. There was a prize and everything, which I'm kinda glad I didn't win!


Good old Lucas Electrics, the cause of sleepless nights for many a mechanic, and many a British Leyland customer!

Recyclage Deluxe! I despise the current campaign being run by Stella Artois, which purportedly focuses on the "environmental" credentials of the company. So the adverts take great pains to tell us that their bottles are made from 100% recycled glass, their cans are 50% recycled aluminium, and their packaging is 40% recycled cardboard. I decided to put this little piece together to tie into the current campaign, while simultaneously reflecting my personal belief about Stella Artois - the belief that it is, in fact, brewed from recycled urine!

Flash!

No, I'm not talking about flashing old ladies in the park.... I'm bored in a Flash tutorial class at Uni. That is all!

Life Drawing