Gaining Experience

I have continued to send my CV off to local schools,I have been in touch with a local craft centers and youth centers about any experience I can get. I have set up to help out at my local Salford community center with their fate. There are other university students involved and we will be working as a team to create art stalls with things to see to help raise money for the center. I'm thinking of incorporating quilting somehow. I have been researching into industry jobs

 

Self-initiated Brief: Week Four Introduction of Gawthorpe

This week live briefs were added and I have chosen Gawthorpe; Significance, to create a response to the Gawthorpe archive where if chosen It will be shown in the knitting and stitching show. I chose this because it was an open ended brief and I learnt from Bradford that I work better in this way.

During the archive visit there were a variety of textiles, I was drawn to the quilted and patchworks and in particular a small geometric piece. I plan to merge my own geometric work with the Gawthorpe brief and create a response using patchwork. The brief continues through unit X which is what I wanted to do with my self-initiated so the two work well together.

Self-initiated Brief: Week Three

 This week I continued to build on my body of drawing still using the chance dice and colours. I created varied scale collages in a variety of papers concentrating on colour and composition. I used a crimper to give the collages a changing texture, the lines created mimic that of a quilted surface. This is something I want to look into. The process of spending a few weeks on drawing has definitely been beneficial to me as I now have an abundance of ideas to develop.

My Own Collages

My Own collages

This week I have also been researching artists for inspiration and context. The Bauhaus art movement is an extremely influential movement that passes through many industries and contexts including; Art, Architecture, furniture and design overall. They use geometrics and have a contemporary feel which is something I want my work to have.

Bauhaus

Bauhaus

In terms of context I feel my work is aiming more at high end interiors; one off contemporary pieces. HAY is a high end design company for interiors from tables to kitchenware. This where I see my work fitting. The geometric forms also relate the my own work and that of the Bauhaus movement.

HAY 

Self-initiated Brief: Week Two

This week I continued with the idea of chance to create my colour pallet. I chose the book 'Print and pattern geometric' and simply flickered onto 9 separate pages at random and chose a colour, I then used gauche to paint the colours out. This was a simple but effective way of choosing a colour pallet as it was restricted to a page however I had the choice of every colour within the page.

Self-initiated Brief: Week two

I have been inspired by the idea of chance that comes with a dice. However when looking back at the Michael Kidner launch I have been inspired by the Mathematical processes and planning Kidner used within his work. 'The process comes first to the colour'

The concept behind this body of work is contrasting processes. The chance dice determines the geometric forms which I will use to create designs. The fact that the process is out of my control is something that is vital to the initial drawing process. However it is not all by chance, there is an underpinning factor of mathematics. Firstly with the dice; there is a set of outcomes for which the dice can be rolled. Secondly within my sketchbook I drew grids to put my designs on (Can be scaled up or down). Also the geometric shapes have a mathematical factor to them. The idea of regiment merging with possibility is something I find interesting and is the concept behind this brief. 

The process of the chance dice has been successful in creating the beginnings of a body of drawing however I feel it is too uniformed within the sketchbook and so I plan to create some bigger drawings using a variety of media including paint, papers, pro-markers, and a variety of pens. I also want to achieve a colour pallet. I am not yet sure what form this work will take in samples but I'm concentrating on experimenting with drawing for now.

Self-initiated Brief: Week one

This week I concentrated on my issue of decision making. I researched into how to become better at this and the different decisions making methods.

When researching I looked into ways of making decisions with no control for example flipping a coin. I came across a novel 'The dice man' written by George Cockcroft, He wrote this book based on his life and how he used a dice to make every decisions through his psychiatry degree.

The Idea of incorporating a dice somehow in my self-initiated brief is something I plan to look into. This would take the control of decision making out of my hands, and thus remove the process which should allow more time to create work instead of time battling with decisions.

In terms of shapes and forms which I plan to incorporate in this project I have been inspired by the geometric style of tattooing. This is a complete opposite to fluent nature of pleating in my previous brief and instead the geometric have Sharpe clean edges, this is something I want to explore.

Transition From Bradford to Self-initiated Brief

After taking time to contemplate the Bradford brief, and deciding that I no longer want to continue with it I have thought about why it wasn't a successful project for me. Bradford is a context led brief and I have learnt as an artist I don't work best in this way. I felt that it impacted my potential of work because it was too specific and I had preconceptions of a fashion material. I didn't experiment enough within the initial stages of drawing as I was too engaged in the final outcome.

I hold myself back in terms of decision making within my work. I am too conscious of the risks and consequences. This is something I want to challenge in my self-initiated brief as tackling this issue would not only help in terms of the next unit but also in my future professional career. For the live briefs I plan to choose more open ended briefs which don't have a fashion context.

For next week I plan to create some inspiration and possibly a concept for my self-initiated brief, there are a few ideas I have been thinking of in terms of this:

- Something that tackles my issue with decision making

- No specific context

- Influence on a body of drawing/ experimenting

- Sampling

One thing that jumped out during the crit was mt wide range of materials and how some of them were synthetics so one thing I know for my self initiated is that I want to use only natural fibers.

Michael Kidner Launch

After the Michael Kidner launch, I felt totally inspired by the enthusiasm that the kidner family had for his work but also for the prospect of what type of work the students could come up with.

The statement that totally grabbed my attention was; “Structure comes first to the colour.”

 I feel that the Kidner live brief could work well as it relates to my ongoing practice which is currently focussing on pleating and fabric manipulation.

Kidner’s “wave” collection really made me think about pleating and giving me the idea of creating a more three dimensional effect with the pleats. And the different context of the shift from fashion to gallery is something i find quite inspiring in terms of where my work fits and it audience

Kidner's work in the gallery

Michael kidner wave collection

For the next week I plan to experiment with different types of materials to see how they react to the pleats for example; Wool, Paper nylon. I want to see how the qualities for example the stiffness and weight of the material impact on the pleats and also to see how natural and synthetic materials react.

Bradfrd Brief: Week 4 Presentation

This week I held my presentation for the Bradford live brief. Doing this with my peers allowed me to compare and contrast between our work. I made myself a sheet of bullet points and ran through the presentation to make sure I could fit it in the allotted time slot doing this prepared me and allowed me to have a more professional manner within the crit. It was quite easy to see from my peers who had prepared well and who hadn't. This presentation also gave me an idea of what to expect for the next one, 

Our presentation skills is a criteria for the practice mark scheme. I know for the next one I shall create a powerpoint to give a more professional edge.

Other than nerves I feel that the presentation went well. The presentation helped me think how to further my work, however I don't feel that I want to continue with this body of work. My piece which I preferred to use as my final sample I didn’t feel had enough going for it because it was just pleating and embellisher so I made a sample with cornelli and other techniques. In the crit it was talked about how my strongest sample was in fact the pleated embellished one and I should have had the confidence in my work to know that instead of having preconceptions on what I thought the tutors and Bradford wanted.

Pleated and embelished sample

Bradford Brief: Week 4

Throughout the weeks I have sampled and ended with a small collection of beige and brown samples and a large collection of tones of white pleated samples. I feel there has been successes and downfalls within both collections. I have incorporated techniques such as:

-Pleating (made a pleating card)

-Cornelli manchine stitch

-Hand stitch

-Embellisher

-fabric manipulation

-Trapping

-Heat press printing

Beige/Brown collection:

There has been success and downfalls within both collections firstly I don’t feel that the colour scheme was quite right with the collections as adding the blue to beige and blue to white was too harsh when in fact looking at my inspirations I wanted to create a more subtle colour change. I also feel that I struggled with the idea that simplicity is best. In some samples I have used too many techniques because I thought that’s what I should do instead of trusting my gut and artistic eye. However there has been successes, I have gained a greater knowledge on pleating and some samples were simple but effective. 

White collection:

In terms of context I was looked over my artists and designers and I’m drawn back to Iris Van Herpen. Below is a close up photograph of one of the designs, the idea of the pleating being the shoulder of the garment is something interesting as it stands as a focal point for a statement piece. The chosen materials of my samples and the pleats are quite delicate and fragile as a result of this I feel the fit more as a collection of one off pieces to be in boutiques or runway instead of being mass produced on the high street.  

Iris Van Herpen

Heyhouses Primary School Experience

This week I assisted in Heyhouses Primary school in Lytham for a short two day placement during ‘mad week’ in which the school has a week full of creative activities. As I had previously completed a high school placement I used this opportunity to cement that I do in fact want to carry out a secondary education PGCE. This opportunity did this for me. This placement allowed me to work on my professionalism as I had to be punctual and looking presentable as well as acting in a professional manner with the infants. I was there to assist the teachers and make sure the children completed the objectives set at the start of class. 

After this I have sent my CV and cover letter off to a variety of high schools in my local area for any experience I can gather. I was given permission to take photographs.

Bradford Brief: Week three

I took inspiration from my initial photographs in terms of composition and technique. The sample I created using Suffolk puffs. Although it shows clear like to my inspiration I didn’t feel it was successful as it was too bulky and opaque. Below Are photographs of my initial inspiration and the Suffolk puff sample.

I used this downfall to forward me in my sampling I stopped using Suffolk puffs due to the build-up of materials and after looking over my images and drawings began to use an off white sheer pleated poly viscose material and manipulated it on the embellisher. The embellished material echoed that of crashing waves. It pulled the pleats away and changed the course of the fabric, this is something I want to further experiment with different materials. I also want to create my own pleats

.

After using a white material I want to explore this more and create a body of samples with a white theme as it mimics the natural clear forms of my inspiration. As I am creating a sample for a fashion material I continued researching designers and now with my new colour pallet tones of whites I came across Issey Miyake. The SS15 collection was all white and the designer also uses fabric manipulation. 

Issey Miyake SS15

Bradford Brief: Week Two

This week I reflected back on my own photography and began to take inspiration for samples and drawings. I gathered a large source of materials including; heavy weight cotton, printed cotton, poly viscose, wool, chiffon, linen etc. and decided that I would take time to just sit with the materials and manipulate them with my hands so I could get a greater feel for how they could be manipulated, I thought about;

-Weight of the fabric

-Stiffness

-How easily the material creased and if it held the crease

-The effect of layering the materials ie. Printed cotton with a sheer layered over

This process was vital and although it was slightly time consuming it should save me time in the future when sampling, as I will know which type of material to manipulate. This process also allowed me to narrow my choice of materials to take forward.

I also began drawing this week in and out of a sketchbook. The process of creating larger drawings is something that I found effective as when drawings are in a sketchbook they seem slightly flat and are restricted in terms of scale, drawing larger scale is something I will continue to do in the next unit. I drew from my shells and rocks I had collected and used different techniques such as;

-Blind drawings

-Mark making from looking at the textures

-Drew on a variety of papers to get a different quality of mark

-Drawing directly from drawing from the essay

- Gouache painting in coloured blocks

I used a variety of media to create my drawings including; Graphite, Fine Liner, Gouache, A variety of pencils form 4b-6h etc. Each media gave me a mark which I could translate into stitch or manipulation of fabric.

Blind drawing of rocks and pebbles on mixed papers

 This is one of the blind drawings the pencil line varies in thickness and could translate through the thickness of stitch by overlaying, it also give the impression of a cornelli stitch. The masking take and papers imply an air of pleating. Next week I plan to start sampling and continue with drawing.

Bradford Brief: Week One

‘Create a fabric for either fashion or interiors’ was the brief I chose out of the Bradford selection. As this project is running for 4 weeks in comparison to the longer second half of the practice unit I decided to take a chance. I would like to angle my work toward the fashion field as this something I haven’t explored within my work.

For this project I have captured initial photographs to collect some inspiration from the natural forms of rocks, shells etc.

I am interested in fabric manipulation and reflecting upon my photos there are many aspects within that relate to this process for example with the shells there is a correlation to pleating, folding, layering, gathering and the barnacles convey an aspect of manipulation possibly Suffolk puffs. In terms of a colour pallet I’m going to take tones of muted beiges, greys, creams and whites from my initial photographs. I also drew inspiration from textile artist Kathleen Morris who incorporates fabric manipulation within her work, she also has some pieces which she works in a similar colour scheme.

Kathleen Morris

Kathleen Morris

In terms of context as this is a fashion led brief I have been researching designers. Below is a dress designed by Iris Van Herpen, this designer uses fabric manipulation to create there garments which is something that I would like to look into. This is the context in which I see my work fitting (fashion industy). I will look into where I feel my work fits in terms of high street, boutiques or runway as I sample through this unit.

 

Iris Van Herpen

Degree Show

One of the tasks for the summer project was to visit the Mancchester metropolitan university degree show which is between 13-24th June 2015. and look get inspiration from students work, choosing three students and explaining me reasons for this. I was quite daunting walking through the show as I will not be long before I’m one of these students. I found it inspirational how all the different sectors for of the art school because one whilst showing their work.

Tazmin Richards work

The first students work I that jumped out at me was Tazmin Riches who was a fellow textiles in practice student. Her work stud out to me firstly because it did literally stick out forming triangular spikes which seemed as though they were growing of the table. I find it interesting how she chose the table to show her work something that is quite ordinary and has now come something out for the ordinary. The geometric forms and harsh edges are something that drew me in, I haven’t really work with geometrics before and this has inspired me to give it a try. The cut outs and reliefs with the sculpture give the work a sense of density the idea of layering up is something I’m also interested in doing.

Annie Richardson's work

The second student whose work I felt was one of the strongest was Annie Richardson who is a mixed media textiles in practice student. Annie said her work was suitable for a wide range of context this idea of ambiguity is something I would defiantly like to explore as not only does it mean your work could fit into different context but also opens more opportunities of professional income. Similarly to Tazmin Annie uses geometrics in the form of circles which are raised from the background giving an effect of quilting. This process of quilting is something I have always been interested in but not yet had the opportunity to delve into, I’m looking forward to exploring this during my third year.

 

Ellie B-J's work

Ellie B-J's work

The final student whose work I have chosen to write about is Ellie Birkenhead-Jones. She also uses geometrics this link between all three wasn’t something I notice until I began writing this blog post, this could possibly mean that my eye is drawn to the shapes and so I shall try working with them. I’m interested by Ellie’s use of repetition and pattern she does this this but not in an obvious way such as print but in a more abstract way.

This visit has made me feel enthusiastic and I am looking forward to what third year brings.

Key Blog Post Three

We finally did it. After all the ups and downs this unit have threw our way the sense of achievement feedback from the year 7’s is overwhelming. After such a shaky start I am extremely proud of myself and our group.

I feel my engagement within this unit has been of a good standard and I have appropriately contributed well. I missed a workshop due to a hospital appointment, it was one I was looking forward to. Other than that I feel I have engaged well. Over the past week I had noticed that one of the girls hadn’t felt quite right so had a quick look at her blog just to check. It was clear from her blog that she felt left out this was quite upsetting for me. I felt like I had to talk to her. We had a conversation and she expressed to me she felt out of the loop, this is something I wouldn’t want anyone to feel. We had a conversation and talked it out, after this our group dynamic improved immensely. This was something that felt like an achievement to me as in the past I would have taken things personally in a negative way. But working in this group I have learnt to think before I speak and look at things from every side because noone is always right. I feel in group work I have had my say whilst letting everyone else have theirs. However at times I could see that other people’s ideas weren’t being heard. In future I will try and help people get their ideas and opinions through into the group.

 As a whole I feel the place that most needs improving for future is time management and communication. This was clearly in need of Work an example of this was the run through day, it went miserably. Tim management, communication, planning were off, due to people not doing their set jobs. We got it together at the end but it would have been nice to not worry. In the future I would not presume that everyone had done their jobs, and I would have my own backup plan. I would ask throughout if they were getting on alright and if they wanted any help. After all this is a collaborative unit and it’s not fair to place the blame on other people for not doing the work because me personally and as a group should have communicated better to make sure everyone was okay. This was a key factor that arose from this unit and is something that I will most defiantly improve and use in future.

When doing our workshop we had to think on our feet. We were put into an unfamiliar and ambiguous scenario that we had to find a way out of. We had planned to have the paint Olympics outside and got the okay off the school. However we didn’t get permission on the day due to the mixed lunch times. We had a disaster plan ready and covered the room in dust sheets. We didn’t fully take into account the paper used to cover the floor so there was a bit of tidy up time but we did protect the rest of the classroom and the walls.

The choices we made in terms of artistic media we based on the key motivations we had from DACA. The children didn’t have room to show their own artistic flare and that they only seemed to use acrylic paint and work on small pages. We chose A3 for the children to work on and chose a variety of media including; chalk, oil pastel, food colouring etc so that the children could expand their create mind with new things. This clearly worked as one child said “we only work on big paper in groups” and how many of them had never used food colouring, oil pastels or chalk within the school.

I feel like the theme worked well with the year sevens “colour and emotion” as it was clear and easily understandable. A motivation I personally had was how to make the workshop relevant and I feel we did this by using art direction and the Frozen film. We got each child to pick a film genre and colour there frozen poster in the colours that you would perceive to be from the genre. This was an enjoyable part of the day for me as this was new to me and I also learnt about art direction. This is something that I plan to look more in depth with in my own practice.