My Lexicon of Marks

Throughout Foundation and now on Degree lecturer's always put lots of emphasis on mark making. We did lots of exercises to develop and explore mark making during foundation and this week at uni we made a Lexicon of marks.

The the task was to create a "language" of marks using a variety of mediums. I used pencil, ink,fine liner, charcoal and a rubber. I aimed to explore as wide a range of possibilities for making a mark, a line or building texture as I could.

I think this was a really useful and successful task, I will be able to look back over this exercise in future when stuck for inspiration or when looking for a new approach to drawing.

BBC Work Experience

This Summer I had the opportunity to do two weeks work experience with the BBC. I worked within the art department and costume & Props department on a drama called Da Vinci's Demons. 

The experience was truly valuable, It was a fantastic opportunity to gain insight of what its like to work creatively for TV  Just walking around the sets and being able to spend time watching the props teams in their workshops and the members of the art department at work was a real privilege. 

Straight away I was given tasks to complete and was put to work on various tasks as part the existing teams. At times I felt a little out of my comfort zone by what was expected of me. However, I think I completed tasks successfully and was making a useful contribution and not getting in the way!

Throughout my time I tried to be proactive, to say yes, look for more jobs as soon as Id finished what I'd been asked, and ask for advice if I needed it. I think at the end of my time I was left feeling far more confident in myself and my skills, and words of appreciation and thanks from staff I'd been working with helped confirm this.

During the two weeks I got to put to use many techniques and skills I have developed so far from using a sewing machine, to dyeing, to painting. I kept a diary of tasks;

Day one

• Read Script, introduction to staff and their roles.
• Tour of Sets
• First task; cut 20m strips of fabric, and dye black.
• Hang fabric to dry.

Day Two

• Continue cutting and dyeing fabric strips.
• Task two; follow Props manager on meetings with Carpentry/workshop team to decide on the design and creation of "the Pope's Chair." Source and buy fringing for the chair.

Day Three

• Task three; Make a 10" Cushion out of red velvet with a rope and tassel edging.
• Continue with cutting and dyeing fabric strips.

Day Four

• Task four; The next day the Pope's chair had been made from MDF. I worked as part of a team to decorate it. I measured out sections that needed to be covered in leather. I glued on decorative panelling and fringing. 
• I also decorated the top panel again with the decorative embroidery ribbons, and the top by pleating gold silk.

( This was my favourite day, the workshop team were lovely to work with and although we were under pressure to complete on time the atmosphere and mood was really positive. The Olympics was on in the background on the radio. It turned out to be a very successful day for team GB resulting in numerous outbursts of Spandau Ballet's Gold!)

I would love to put photo's up of the chair as it was rather impressive in completion, but I'm not too sure about copyright, maybe I'll put some stills up after the Drama's aired.

Day Five

• Sew all the fabric strips I'd cut and dyed together.
• Sew crest on the back Military jacket, edge with gold rope.
• Hand stitch ties on pinny's.

Week Two

Day One

• Tea stain sketch book pages (props)
• Ink over computer printed drawings to make them look hand drawn (props)

Day Two

• More printing, cutting and inking over sketchbook pages that would be actors props.

Day Three

• Some tea staining of various letters and diagram props. 
• Sewed together more of the dyed fabric.

Day Four

• Cut out a building that was in a tapestry being used that was too modern for the era (continuity is key!)and repaired.

Day Five

• Making book spines look old and dusty with walnut powder, talc and fixative (magic!)

Architecture

Its my first week on my Degree Course. So far so good! For the first few weeks we're going to be doing lots of drawing (yay!) and then workshops to learn the techniques and processes and how to use the equipment and resources available. 

We spent the first day drawing and photographing the business management building. Its a fairly new building and the architecture is really clean, crisp and modern.

From our initial drawings we were then given the task of making drawings with just a scalpel and white paper.

I enjoyed this task and the medium used really suited the subject. Through my drawings I played with line, geometric shapes and perspective.

Mapping the Stars

The first mini textiles project on Foundation had the title "Mapping" I decided to look into astronomy and space. This was a mini project so I made samples each based on a particular constellation and decorated with various dyeing processes.

I used mono print and the heat press and experimented with scrunching the material in the heat press, using thread as a resister, and splashing the dyes with a toothbrush.

For a final piece I simply made all of my samples into a fabric book.

Gateaux Birthday Cake

Alongside textiles, craft, art, music and my million other passions I also really enjoy cooking. Yesterday my Gran was 81! So I made raspberry and white chocolate Gateaux cake! Mmm Mmm Mmmmm....

Space the final frontier.....

On foundation I had the project brief "holes". I decided to research black holes and space. As a Star Trek fan I enjoyed getting my "Geek on" and delving into science. Reminiscing my visit to NASA in 2004, and with The Big Bang Theory on in the background I researched all sorts of photography from space and scientific Therese.

Then I used a giant household paintbrush, my best small paintbrush, lots of water, drawing inks and food dyes to create these drawings inspired by space photography from my National Geographic magazines.

I was really pleased with the results and excited by the fact that paintings like these would translate well into textiles through a number of techniques.

I thoroughly enjoyed this project, and at the time cosmic patterns, and space age designs were trending in the fashion world so I had lots to be inspired by. Maybe this is a theme I can come back to in the future...

Summer Project Stresses

I'm currently anticipating a summer project from Cardiff met where I'l be doing my degree in textiles. So this post is about the summer project I did last summer for foundation.

I find summer projects stressful, how much work do you do? what if the others do the same?? How do you complete a project without studio equipment???

Anyway the brief for this project was "Survival" I began in the usual way, mind mapping and researching before deciding to work with themes of surviving grief and loss.

I filled a sketchbook with lots of research, visits to galleries, photo's, samples and drawings. I drew motifs such as poppies, pocket watches and hands.

For my samples I experimented with combining stitch and image transferred photo's.

I made work representing each of the stages of grief; anger, loneliness etc. I used harsh stitching over some photo's to portray pain, and used bleach over photo's to represent loneliness and fear of forgetting lost ones.

My final piece consisted of three canvas's, I combined stitch, text and image transferred motifs. I stuck to a colour pallet of white black and red, and matched elements of each of the canvases so they worked well together in sequence.

We had to present our projects in front of our lecturer's and class on the first day. I was glad that I had a strong project and my lecturers appreciated how hard I had worked.

Remembering the responses from this project and with all the confidence in my work I have gained on foundation, really I should have nothing to worry about for any projects that may be coming my way....