Looking Back....

This project has been a real breakthrough for me: I feel as though I’ve really found my feet, and pushed myself to work quicker and to a higher quality than ever before. I’m going to move on from this, begin planning for the degree show and my portfolio, build a website and *if* I get picked for new designers, they’ll be a lot of work to do for that too.

But that’s for another blog post….

After handing in my final work today I’ve been thinking about what could possibly have been improved on or done differently throughout my journey in this uni. The thing that I am absolutely adamant on is that I should have started working in the print room a lot early - it’s not like I can’t multitask. I should have been printing, testing screens, colours and materials whilst I was getting into my usual drawings. And whilst I do have my reasons, it’s been a really tough year, I just wish that circumstances were different so that I could have achieved my absolute best. Another thing that I would have like to have done is more drawing work for my portfolio, alongside developing work for the project. In the final weeks I really focussed all my attention onto my final collection, but in hindsight I feel as though I should have focussed more on LO12 and come up with a collection of professional marketing ideas, such as business cards, finalised portfolio and also a website. I know that I have the time to do them now, but it would have been nice to have had them done in time for deadline day. But never mind, my CV was finalised so hopefully this is enough.

I’m certainly very happy with the way I have acted during this project, in comparison to the last unit, when I lost my Granddad, I really let that drag me down and my way of dealing with the loss was to shut myself away and do nothing. Whereas this time around, when I lost my Grandma in the beginning, I tried to focus all my sadness into motivating me in the project and pushing my forward, hence why I chose to dedicate my collection to them both. Of course it was hard, and I’ve had plenty of days where I’ve struggled to get out of bed in the morning or just gone back to my home time and cried, just wanting to give up - but I didn’t. I’ve made it though to the other side and I know they would be proud. They may not have had the chance to see me graduate, but I know that they would have been so happy to see me in my cap and gown, could they have been there. I’m excited for the weeks to come,and ready now to start my career! Starting with finalising my portfolio - watch this space for new drawings, new repeats and most importantly, FLORALS!

TAKING OVER THE NUATEXTILES2017 INSTA AGAIN

Analysing the 3m Lengths

Over the weekend, I played around with my lengths and attempted to put them into some sort of context. normally I would do this digitally with my repeat works, but obviously as these were not in repeat, I think I'd have found it really difficult to do so. Instead, it was all about strategically placed furniture and well thought out camera angles. It was fun, but I think I'll stick to doing it digitally from now on!

Then, this afternoon, I had a chat with my tutor, Nick, about the progression of my project over Easter and how I can move forward in these last few weeks. One thing we discussed is taking away the foil element from the designs as this adds time to the manufacturing process, as well as being quite temperamental under the heat press - it doesn't fit completely, so I have to press it twice to cover all the areas, which means that some foil will get heated too much, burn and lose it's shine. In some cases, it even burns the rest of the design that is just on the edge of the press, leaving a fold in the wall covering...

I definitely learnt a lot when I was making theses lengths, mainly that I can in fact work on a large scale and I can't wait to do more stuff like this in the future! It's so freeing not just to be sat at my laptop all day. Now that I've done some smaller prints, and these lengths, it's about time I start working on my final designs and putting together more repeats, that will become a part of my final collection! Time is slipping away, so it's time to get moving!

Visit to Reeds Home Store, in my Home Town

At the end of the Easter holidays I spent a few days back home and visited Reeds Home Store, and just stumbled across these sample books in the upstairs amongst the fabric. So even though there was no wallpaper actually in the shop, I managed to scramble through some piles and find some more sample books to look through. Again, they were very much about texture, with lots of depth in the work and if they were just drawings, there was texture in the line or the background. This is something I'm going to continue moving forward with.

More Digital Collages

Two More 3m Lengths

THE BIG PRINT