dying our fab fab fab fab ric

YAY we actually got to dye our actual fabric today instead of just more samples. it was quite nerve racking actually like not completely scary but sort of like ooooo man if this goes wrong we are screwed! anyway so it did go a bit wrong. we dyed our fabric. and then it was pale so we dyes it again. i think it was then still too pale. so we dyed it again. we then done it another couple times. it was still quite paler then we originally wanted but by this point we had been there about 4 hours and we weren't getting anywhere fast and we changed our plan a bit. before today we had decided we were going to dye our fabric a deep raspberry colour called 'coral' although in my opinion it really isn't coral and is really as i said a raspberry colour, and we were then going to use discharge and illuminating discharge on it. by the end of today though we have decided that we want this shade of 'coral'/raspberry which is quite light and then print using the same colour but a really dark mix of it, and then also use a turquoise. we aren't one hundred percent but i really like this idea and think it will look really nice.

x x x

z

another context i think my work would fit into would be in magazines. for a long time now i have been reading nylon guys magazine and every month they have illustrator Ted McGrath do work for them to fit into the dear nylon guys letters page. 

http://www.tedmcgrath.com

ab

i got my final design back today and i am so happy with it. i am glad i got it on silk satin, for my work i much prefer it than my samples on crepe de chine. 

i havent rolled the edges yet because we are going to be taught that after hand in.

aa

while in london i also visited a art show which was called 'FREE' at the royal festival hall. it was free entry but it was called free because it featured work done by prisoners. i love stuff like outsider art so i was actually really excited to see it.

that was my favourite work from the exhibition. i just think its really exciting in the colours. i think outsider art is exciting because its not trying to be too pretentious and its just done like real free and what i think art is.

y

because it was reading week i went home for a few days. i call luton home and it is only 30 minutes from london on the train so i thought it was perfect to do some market research. when thinking about shops i really didn't think that my work would fit into Topshop, i think Topshop has a different image its a lot more put together but my scarf is for someone really with more of an eclectic style and is sort of more out there. i think it would really fit well into Urban Outfitters.   The shop has clothes, which have a real sense of humour and can be really off key. Some items I feel can be really weird.

H’n’M is another shop which aims for the youth market. Previously in the year H’n’M they had a series of tops featuring illustrations by Johnny Ryan who is an artist I have enjoyed the work of for a while now.

http://www.urbanoutfitters.co.uk

x

while on reading week i realised i hadnt done nearly enough work for the first part of the project which was the repeat project. i had done some drawings and i used those drawings, some tracing paper and my new photoshop skills to make some repeat patterns. for these patterns i used red and blue rather then the colours i had been using in my norwich project which was quite refreshing. its amazing how quickly ideas can move forward just by putting drawings into repeat.

these were my drawings before:

this one i just made using tracing paper and
print offs of some photos i took of my clothes

this one i scanned in but when i tried using it one photoshop it was
really difficult to use because a lot of the lines were really
thin and didn't print out very well

this is a mirror repeat i made using tracing paper

i used photoshop really basically just to show that i understand repeat patterns like drop repeats, half drop repeats, block repeats, mirror repeats etc. now i know how to use photoshop a lot better i will definitely be using it a lot more often

w

i got my samples back and i love them. they have worked well but the best ones are ones have block strong colours rather than weak ones which i lowered the opacity of.

worked well on crepe de chine

i think that it worked well compared to the others because of the material it was on. the material has a texture to it so i think printing something on it which was also textured made it like too much but using the flat colours on the textured material evened it out a bit. because on my final design i want it to be more textured i am going to use a different fabric. i want to use silk sating because it has a nice sheen to it which i really like.

v (placement 1-2-1)

when our class had a presentation about making a creative CV, i had a separate one to one about how to do it. i was really worried about having to make a creative CV because i have never done one before and didn't know what was expected from it. i feel a lot better now after my one to one and a lot more comfortable attempting one. Richard said that it should be able to show my skills to the people before they read anything. i am going to use photoshop to make my CV and use my scanned in drawings.

u

using my drawings and photos i made these outcomes too. i made them a few days ago but forgot to add them to my blog post. 

i really like these but i think my other samples are more interesting and theres more left for me to do. after these i took a whole bunch of files to the digital printing room to get some samples. because digital printing is so expensive i left it till quite late to get some samples because i want to get the most out of them i can and use a group of images i am really happy with. i do think i should have given in my files earlier though because then i could get them back and think more about making changes because it will be a few days before i get them back while i'm working on my design. i got them printed on crepe de chine. we were told it was a good value fabric and that it would take the ink well. i am going to wait to get my samples back before i decide what i want my final design to be printed on.

t

after doing all my drawing with the character i wanted to use them in my scarf so i used those and laid different colours over the top. i had to change the opacity so that you could still see the images. i was happy with how it look but it was a bit plain. i then laid the floor pattern i made the other day over the top and changed the opacity. i change the colour of the characters underneath a few times. i first had them in black and they really stood out, i then tried orange and i liked it a bit better although they were harder to see, i thought it was ok for me because i knew what they were but for other people who don't know they it would be a bit harder for them to work it out. i changed the orange so it was more of a luminous colour and that worked a lot better.

i then put the puppet man image over the top but i think this just looks too busy. the orange though i think looks a lot better and when i have asked other people they have agreed.

s

'Ultimate illustration' was a really interesting book for me. there were loads of illustrators in the book that i loved. the two i chose to include in my project were Naoshi and Sarah Beetson. 

these works are by Naoshi. Naoshi uses 'sunae' which is making art with sand. i love the bright colours and the way her works include such kooky characters. 

“I'm an artist based in Yokohama, Japan. Using shiny colorful sand

（It's called Sunae in Japan）, I make art portraying surreal people living in a real world with various everyday thoughts and emotions, such as joy, happiness, sorrow, and anxiety.

When I make Sunae, I'm always inspired to live life brightly each day just like the sparkly shiny sand. It is a very unique and meaningful material for me to work with, and I enjoy it very much.”

- http://www.nao-shi.com/English/Profile/Profile.html

The reason I chose to look at Naoshi’s work is because I thought that after this project I would like to carry on drawing interesting characters, and I also thought that it fits into this project where I’m looking at what I think is a really interesting vibrant character. The colour’s I really like because they’re so bright and playful and really excite the viewer. The compositions are really interesting and play with like size a perspective. The way that all the colour’s are so flat and not blended make them sort of off key, like there isn’t a difference in tone or colour to show the difference between what is the floor and what is the wall which means the characters can be anywhere and almost like anything could happen in this world.

Sarah Beetson's work i thought related to mine because of all the textures she uses especially the parts that look spray painted. her work focuses a lot on people and and their life sort of.

r

on my one to one something that the teacher picked up on most was that i should draw more things about the puppet man. i thought that was a good idea and spent the day doing drawings i started with his puppets because i thought that was the most obvious thing to do. because i have already pretty much filled my sketchbook there wasn't many more pages left that i could draw on. luckily had had a huge piece of paper that my mum used to send me a package in the post. it was brown which is one of my colours i am working with. i wanted my pages to look more interesting as well so i used gouache and other papers rather then just using varying pens. 

after drawing the puppets i had this idea like a party. like puppet man is throwing a party and his puppets are invited. i then drew his microphone and his stereo, but with faces. it sort of continued from there when i thought about the area he performs in and created other characters out of the bins that are around the area and thought about the shops that he was nearest like mcdonald's and prim ark. i then had this whole group of odd beings that all fit together.

q (threadless)

Threadless is an online shop that I have been aware of for a while now. It has been described as one of the most innovative small companies. Independent designers upload their work allowing other people to critique their work so it can be improved. The designs could then get selected by Threadless to be made into a range of products from t-shirts to phone cases to backpacks. The designs are very exciting with fun characters and illustrations, which use bright colour’s because that is what their target market likes. I am going to include them in my contexts.

i picked up a book about ten years of threadless and that when i started thinking about using it in my work as a context and also as inspiration for my work.

http://beta.threadless.com