Thursday 8 December 2011

Graphics

While looking through my files to find something I came across the image below which brought back some memories. Before doing my foundation degree I did an art and design diploma year at Newcastle College which gave me the chance to explore other fields I may not have tried before, like fashion, photography, ceramics (and even textiles - I had never done it before that course) etc. When I went to do the diploma year I thought I would specialise and come out doing graphics as that is what I had done and enjoyed in high school. however I soon learned textiles is the direction I really would like to go down instead.

This image was done during the 8 week rotation, where we tested each different type of design to decide which we liked best. In the graphics one we had to pick a celebrity and a meal time out of a hat and had to connect the two somehow. I got Simon Cowell and a picnic. I chose to collect objects that you might take to a picnic that could signify Simon and photograph them (like marmite for eg - you either love it or hate it) I then did things like photoshop his name and DOB into the wine bottle etc to make it more personal. Let me know what you think...

Wednesday 7 December 2011

Fundraising

O and I also forgot to say. In my absence I have done a bag packing session at Marks and Spencer in Newcastle to raise money for our final show next year. We each have to pay for certain things in the final show so we're doing things like this to help us not have to fork out the whole amount ourselves (remember by the time final show comes around we'll have had to pay for all our final designs etc which wont come cheap so we wont have any money left to pay for the show ourselves anyway.)

We didn't expect to get much from this session but I'm proud to say between 6 of us we managed to raise around £340. This means that we each have about half of the amount needed by each student... one more fundraiser like that one and we'll be sorted...

Not been on in a while

Hey bloggers,

Not been on here in a while, (sorry for that) I've been distracted. I am currently starting my Final Major project (gulp) but I don't really have much to report with that yet, I'll keep you posted when it starts getting interesting.

I thought as I haven't posted in a while due to not really having much going on I would post some pictures of some old work. When I started this blog I said I would do this quite often but never got round to it with the amount of work I had to do with the current project. I however actually have time now so I thought it would be a good time.

This project is going back a few years now. It was my Final Major project in my Diploma year at Newcastle College. It was about favourite toys through childhood and how they might have effected the person as they grew up. I ended up creating 3 patterns that got used on all the different products. There was a boys collection and a girls collection using the same pattern just in different colourways as well as a bear / train collection (used to cover the bookcase).

My original idea for my final products was to cover a piece of furniture. I found the bookcase so covered that. Once I had done that though it meant I had to fill it, otherwise my final show would look a bit bare. I thought instead of simply putting the same design on everything and it looking boring I would change the colours and create a boys collection and a girls to fill it better.

In the end I think I went a bit over the top with my products, I kept having new ideas of things to put my designs on so I did it. I think the collections look great and to this day have come in handy - the bookcase and some of the things on it are still being used in my mothers house now.

first we have one of my final boards with one of the original drawings on to show where the designs started from.


Next is 2 boards which has photos of the two collections and the various products in them.




Finally is a picture of me with my final set up at the final show. As a last minute thing my mum used the scrap material that was left over from when I made the cushions and made the rag doll (which got named Daphne).


 I really liked the outcomes from this project. Although bright and complicated I think they work nicely as a collection together. Let me know what you think...

Tuesday 15 November 2011

More boards

So this afternoon I have been getting my research boards up to scratch before handing in and this is what I have ended up with. I know this should have been done at the beginning of the project and I had done some but I have obviously developed the project so I have tweaked the ones I had done and neatened them up etc.

I think the colour one especially looks really good (particularly with one of my finals behind, it shows that I kept - kinda - to the colours pallete I planned)

1 board down... I don't know how many still to go...

I've finished my product board for my minor project and I think it looks awesome!!!!
I chose two rooms from http://www.dezeen.com/2010/04/22/eugene-lounge-chair-by-stefan-diez-for-e15/ to add my designs to. I chose them because they were white and quite minimalistic which would make my designs stand out more.

I've added a picture of the original room aswell as one with my alterations.

Original



Original
















Once printed I placed them on a board with some material samples and a paper sample to show exactly what I have added to the room, and what they are meant for.


I am really pleased with how these have turned out... Let me know what you think.

Monday 14 November 2011

'It's the final countdown...'

So its the last week for the minor project... Deadline is on Friday (gulp).

I've been working hard but there is still a long way to go, it's mostly writing stuff to do now (yawn) but fingers crossed I'll get it all done with time to spare (I know there will be a late nighter on Thursday before hand in, but it won't be doing work, Breaking dawn comes out and has a midnight showing so me and my friend Michelle are going to that :-P )

I'll post again soon with more images of how it is going but for now I should probably get back to work...

Tuesday 8 November 2011

New record

Wow 44 viewings of my blog in one day (and the days not over yet)... thats a new record :-) keep viewing everyone :-) keep that number going up.

Final wallpaper designs

So money gone and prints collected... and they look AWESOME!!!!

I thought I would do a quick post to show you all what they came out like. I put all 8 out on the floor to see how they work together (not that they fit in the space I had very well, they are rather large) and think they look really interesting. Each one is so different from any of the others in the collection. I also picked my favourite and stuck it up in my bay to see what it looked like on the wall aswell.

None have random white lines at the repeat points which I am thrilled about, and the colour is really bright making them stand out really well.

Gulp... my poor bank account

So my bank account has taken a hit today :-S I have managed to get my designs to a stage where they are ready to be printed and each one is costing me £10 to print. I have eight of them... :-S This is just onto paper as well. I want to print a few (smaller scale though) onto fabric to show what they could look like on furnishing fabrics which will cost me more money.

For now below is my final collection which I have printed out... Let me know what you think in the comments...

Monday 7 November 2011

Deciding scales...

Even though I haven’t finished with my catch up sessions for this project I thought I would post about something I have done today. I’m at the stage where I am preparing to print my final designs. Today I have spent the day printing my 53 x 53 cm squares out (to scale – I’ve had fun doing six piece jigsaws getting them to fit together correctly) I wanted to see what the sizes would be like when they were printed properly, especially as a few I had two different choices for sizes. I needed to look at them full size to see which worked the best.


I think this is my final choices. I have chosen two of the bigger scales and one of smaller. I think these fit together better. There are some large designs and some smaller which works nicely.

Thursday 3 November 2011

Catch up... Photos

After changing my project to reflection I tried to find some more things to draw. These are some photos I took of the most interesting things I found. While sitting on my train one morning at Newcastle station I noticed the condensation on the window which I thought looked really interesting so I got my camera out and took a quick picture. I like how the closer drops are really clear whereas the further ones are blurred out. I think you notice the two halves more that way.


I also found a paper weight in the shape of a diamond I’ve had for a while so I brought it into college and tried to take some interesting pictures with it. I chose instead of just doing it by itself I would try and see what it would look like with some of my past work underneath etc. I love the colour and patterns it creates.






























So after doing this and drawing from these the development began... I may get round to adding some designs on here to show how I went from one thing to another to get my finals but to be honest there is alot of it and I don't know if I will have time... So for the time being I think it's time to stay up to date and start posting about things as they happen...





Wednesday 2 November 2011

Catch up continued...

As I haven’t posted in a while I thought I would try and add a couple more image of my work so far as I have a little bit of time. We’re going back to the start of the term here where I had to continue drawing.

Before talking to my tutors for the first time I drew this interesting line drawing from one of my drawings. I think it is quite a nice image and something that I could develop with. I put it onto Photoshop and made it into a stamp to create the repeat that I have also posted on here. I love the 3rd image of the repeat with sections coloured with another pattern. I thought this was an interesting idea mixing designs together and think this one especially works great.


After talking to my tutors and the other girls in my class my project changed to reflections instead of just ‘tea total’ so I had more width to work with. Due to this I had to try and draw some more objects. It’s easy finding things to draw for this but at the same time it’s really hard to find something interesting and different because there is so much reflective items but they reflect a person etc. This is an interesting quick drawing I did in the observational drawing workshop. The photo is obviously not what I drew but only part of it. I thought it was an interesting image though.



Thursday 27 October 2011

Timorous Beasties and my dissertation


I haven’t managed to get on here to update my minor project work for a couple days            (shame :-( ) I’m missing it already; I need to find time somehow. However I thought I would add an interesting video link on here which I found when doing some last minute research for my chapter 2 hand in for my dissertation tomorrow. It’s about Timorous Beasties and they’re toile work which kind of fits in with what I’m talking about. Anyway enjoy I found it really interesting to watch... I better get back on with writing up some more dissertation to see how much I can get done (yawn) :-)              

Sunday 23 October 2011

100 views...

Yay, so far i've had 100 views :-) that sounds so little compared to bigger sites but for me it's great especially as I only created the blog last monday. Lets hope this number continues to rise like this....

Saturday 22 October 2011

Catch up time

I have finally found time to get back on here and do a catch up post, it's been a busy couple of days. So where to start, where to start...

How about with my summer work.

After finishing at Newcastle college in June I went to CCAD to see the 3rd years final show, and while there I met with Tricia Mckenzie the head of the course I was going to join. She gave some summer homework to do. I had to write my personal brief for and start work on my minor brief. I chose to try looking back on a project I had done when I first specialised in textiles which was tea total and see how I would do this again now I have developed my skills.

I started with some research where I found the two images from the previous post by Traci Parks and Jessica Subtonik. As I had the summer ahead of me I chose to pick a couple of sections to draw which I think turned out great. I decided as they looked good to stick them on one of my drawing sheets to show the colours I would like to use later on etc.


After doing that sheet I chose to draw some of my own images using various media. I found some mugs that looked really interesting and created really nice reflections so I chose to try and draw them. The next image is one of my photographs that I took of these mugs to work from. I really think the composition is great and the colours and lines you can see make it interesting to look at.


These mugs were really hard to draw but I think they were worth it because I think they look great in the end. (The image of the red and purple handle isn't great as it is blurry but I think you can still see how detailed it is  and how it looks really well drawn.) I love the use of colours, they looks bold and eye catching.

 




I also chose to draw some distinct images that you would expect with tea total like a teacup, a teapot and donuts etc. I thought it might be nice to mix the abstract with the obvious together to try and create something new and not as plain as the normal 'happy teacup' you see in the shops. I don't think the line drawings etc are as successful as the abstract ones though and think it's more likely that I will take the others further.


Before I had organised my drawing sheets into what they are I had all my work in a pile in my room. One day when I went to do something I looked at this pile and decided to take a photo of it. This happened twice over the summer which I thought was really interesting. I don't know what I will use them for now but I think maybe they would be good boards for something. 


At this point I still had quite a while before I had to go back to college so I decided to go on Photoshop for a bit and see what kind of things I could get from what I had done so far.


Original image close up
Image mirror repeated and colour altered etc
the design layered over the top and the blending changed
more layers and a more dense repeat (I love this)
using the filters adjusting the repeat

These are my most successful photoshop images from this session. There were so many that I did which I thought were strong it was really hard just choosing these. I'm not sure why the colour of the 3rd image changes but i quite like it to be honest, if it was made into a larger repeat it might be a change to the design instead of it all looking the same.

I chose again to try and mix the patterns with a more traditional tea total image and see if my idea would work. I used the outline of the teapot which I think is the more interesting of the line drawings I did before. One of the designs is alot more obvious with the outline actually being there and a simple stamp being used as a background whereas the other is the teapot merged into the pattern more. When on photoshop I can never seem to stick to a colour, I tend to experiment with them and tend to really like different colourways so you will notice in my work the colours changing often.


Another drawing I chose to try and develop over the summer was the simple donut which I thought stood out. I chose this as it is so different to the other image I developed. I hoped it would give different results to what I had already done which I believed worked. They are similar in ways like the graphic nature but I think they are different because they have more of a motif to work from, it's not just simply pattern.
Original image - I made into a stamp to create an interesting design
repeat pattern made from a stamp design of the motif
repeat pattern layered over each other
stamp pattern over a repeat pattern

The final images I will add tonight are a couple more photohop designs where I tried mixing the two developed ideas together. I used the original pattern as the background and tried to add the donut stamp over the top. One the second and third image I used the original image to create another mirrored repeat, this gave it more depth I think as the layers of pattern increase. I think these two things go surprisingly well together.

donut stamp on pattern background

playing with things like the layer blending to change the colours to look really interesting

This is point where I left it to go back to college. I think in total I had about 175 photoshop designs saved which I was impressed with. It wouldn't have been possible to show all of them on here so I chose some of my favourites to share with you. I was really glad with where I got to over the summer. I put some hard work in and think that it meant I had a good starting point to work from at college.

As it is quite late and I am at the end of a chapter as you can say in the catch up session I think its about time to say goodnight. I will continue to bring you all up to speed with the minor project in the next couple of days but for now folks that is your lot. goodnight and sweet dreams to you all :-)