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

Antique Shops in Ely

Printing on Lining Paper

Looking for something to print on, I didn't want to just print onto cartridge paper, because how would this help me in the long run? I headed down to a local hardware store and bought some lining paper.. They had a range of papers, some textured, some plain, in a range of prices. So I went for the middle ground, as this was my first attempt. I didn't want to spend too much money, but also I didn't want to get the cheapest and be disheartened when it turned out badly. So I went a trusty £6.30 roll of medium weight lining paper. I used the placement prints that I'd come up with in photoshop as a starting point and then just went form there! Combing different textures and testing new ways of applying and creating texture on the paper - using large brushes, the back of a spatula and scrunching up a piece of newsprint paper and dabbing on the binders and foil glue! One thing that I did learn to day, is that foils stick to the gloss binders, and that the end feel of the gloss binder in general is quite sticky and plasticky, which isn't something I feel I want to take forward, I want my work to have quite a soft finish, so this just isn't working for me.

Placement Prints

I've been using a combination of my digital and hand drawn technical drawings, printed textures and digitally made metallics to come up with some collages in Photoshop over the last few days! It's been really helpful in improving my composition and just being able to make something that's not a repeat, but is still balanced and interesting to look at. I need to be producing work that is thick with layers so that there is more depth in my work. I feel as though previously my work has always looked a little flat, so having so many more elements to work with this time has definitely improved the way that the outcomes look. I've also made some A3 sized collages that I'm going to use to influence the work I do when I'm in the print room over the next few weeks! One thing I really struggle with is just going in and producing something magical, I really envy the girls on my course that can just come up with something brilliant on a whim - it doesn't come naturally to me, but I'm getting around it. So I've had some screens made up and I'm going to start with using the compositions below and just seeing where it takes me...

TAKING OVER THE NUATEXTILES2017 INSTA

I ran the take over on our degree show instagram page today! It was lovely to be involved in getting all of our work out there and showing off some of my classmates who wouldn't necessarily get shown off very much. I can't wait to do more! Come follow us @nuatextiles2017 

Taking a Trip to the Ideal Home Show

In order to try and gain a little more inspiration for my project, I took a little trip down to London to visit the Ideal Home show with Emma. She'd been a few years ago and said it was a really great experience, we both work within an interior market, so I thought it would probably be a great why with me too! Although I was really excited and thought it'd be this amazing place, filled with wallpaper and luxury and beautiful pieces, I was very disappointed when I got there to see that this was not the majority, and actually quite lot of it was garden furniture and hot tubs, lighting and kitchen surfaces (something that would be very helpful for Emma who is working with ceramic tiles at the moment). I was still very glad that we went though, even if it wasn't as helpful as it thought. There wasn't any wallpaper companies there, nor anything of the like, but there was some furniture companies that had wallpaper books, that we papers they had used to decorate their stand. Again, I found a lovely sample book with lovely subtle metallics and glass beaded designs. Something I'm beginning to notice is that a lot of the wallpapers that I'm looking at are more simple, designs, perhaps that have come from a more detailed drawings, but they're now just silhouettes or textured shapes. Do I need to take my work more in this direction in order to fit into the market better? 

As well as this find on a furniture stall, there was a lot of great room set ups that could inspire how I connect my work in the future? Usually I would just fill a blank white room with my designs, but I think I'm going to attempt to build my own context image, so we'll see how that goes. This experience also got me a little more used to the way of London, and how to get across the city. I'd really like to do this more in future, at the moment I can get quite anxious in London, especially on the tube. Sometimes I'm fine but other times, normally when it's busier, I can have panic attacks and fits of tears when I'm down there. This is something I really want to try and get over, mainly because I'd love my career to take me to London in the future, it's the best place to be, but I can't be there if I'm panicking all the time. 

Combining the Hand Printed with the Digital Drawings

So after much thought and being rather undecided about how I should use the A1 prints that I made, I decided to scan them in (very tedious, having to can them in quarters and put them together on photoshop, but I got there in the end) and then make come more collages using some of my hand drawn and digital designs over the top. I had to fix the colours a little bit, metallics don't scan very well, but equally, creating them in photoshop didn't help either, as they look a little flat. I wasn't really sure how to work with these and feel I was trying to combine too many techniques into one thing and lost my flow a little bit, they all feel quite imbalanced and the  only one I'm really happy with is the one on the far right, however I feel like this is far too busy for a wallpaper. I know that this will lead to something good in the future of my project, I can feel something developing but I just haven't put my finger on it yet. 

Technical Drawing in Adobe Illustrator

So throughout the project so far, I've been attempting to translate my inspiration into a style that I'm not so familiar with: technical drawing. I chose this style because I wanted to work with a little more restriction, but also just to expand my portfolio and perfect something new over the course of this unit. However, after a group crit I realised that if I wanted my drawings to be accurate, I needed to start making use of the technology that I have around me, because even though when I'm drawing by hand I am trying to measure them so precisely, sometimes they do come up a little off. So it was suggested that I started working in Adobe Illustrator and using the accuracy the programme has to offer, in order to perfect my drawings. I started off just experimenting with the tools, and watching a few youtube tutorials, and then I began to translate pieces of jewellery I'd seen in the antique stores into this technical style. 

This definitely improved the look of my drawings, giving them a much sharper aesthetic but I'm a bit unsure on the outcome, they've lost a lot of the detail that my hand drawn pieces have, so I need to look into this in future and find away around it.

Large Scale

After seeing Yasmin working on a piece of fabric the same size as the print table, I was inspired to work a bit bigger (although not quite full table)! I'd become so used to working on my laptop or drawing very tightly with my fineliner, and after getting messy with textures on a scannable size of A3, I decided it was time to go a little bigger! I bought some A1ish cold pressed printing paper from the Uni Shop, as I'd worked on this once before in second year, and adored the way the prints came out. I wanted to work in a similar way as to how I'd produced my digital collages, separating the paper off in an angular fashion and then filling these sections with different textures. I tried to mix up some similar colours that I'd worked with in photoshop, some were Metallic Binder, Some Opaque and one Gloss Binder. I wanted there to be a range of finishes within these pieces, I wasn't sure what exactly I was going to do with them yet, I just wanted to have fun today.

It was daunting at first, I'm not used to starting with such a large white space, but once I got into it, it just came naturally. They might not seem very detailed, but a lot of thought went into the texture and layering of these pieces and working with different surfaces is something I'd like to focus on more in the weeks to come!

Colour Separation

Usually when I'm using photoshop to produce digital work, I use a lot of layer effects and rarely have a set colour scheme, so this time around this is something I wanted too escape from! I began to separate my designs into layers based on the layers in my drawings and then chose some colours that I'd had in mind of working with, adding a metallic layer to all three colour schemes! I just used magicwand tool to do this, however in the future I think I should build the design in layers and do it this way, to speed up the process and also make it a littler easier. I should also probably refresh my memory on AVA, this is what they would use in industry and a lot of the jobs I've seen advertised have this as a requirement.

The design below was more of a struggle to separate, and I had to split it into really disgusting, contrasting colours to do so, it just kept messing up. Even more reason why I need to start using AVA, although I did get there in the end! 

Beginning to Construct Repeats

Previously in my blog I mentioned that when I first started to put repeats together, I felt it was a little too soon. They had a rather blocky feel about them, quite like a tiled print and that just wasn't what I wanted to go for. Now with my newer paintings, I wanted to try again; this time hoping for more of a flowing repeat and hoping that putting them into a half drop will make them less boxy. 

In the image on the left I adapted the painting of the ring, making a more balanced pattern. Taking the circular elements from the top left side makes the design less crowded, but by moving them to the bottom, almost reflecting the top diagonally, creates a flowing element in the designs. It connects the largest circles with one another, through a pattern of smaller circles that will move the eye up and across the design when it is hung on the walls of a home. I layered over the technical lines here to add a little more depth and connect the shapes once more, also to reveal to the audience a stage of my design process (one of the secrets in my labyrinth). 

The second design on the right was made by mirroring my original art deco I inspired painting to reveal a design slightly more sophisticated than the previous. This looks most like a wallcovering you could find in shops, in my opinion. At the moment it only properly repeats vertically, I wanted to see what they would look like side by side in a half drop repeat - if this were put onto a screen to repeat on a length or wallpaper, I would simply crop them image down the centre of each strip, this would then work in repeat like it should. I believe this design is so successful because there is no obviois start or end point, which is really my intention for all the designs in my final collection. The circle design and diamond in the centre connect the other shapes, thus creating a flow as the eye travels down the pattern. However, one improvement that I think is needed is to add some colour into the central diamond, as is in the circle, because at the moment I think it just looks a little empty and disrupts the design slightly. 

These are just using the colours from the original paintings. One of the things I mentioned in my portfolio chat was showing more colour ways in my work, and also to showcase my ability to separate colour within a design, so stay tuned for that! 

Pecha Kucha

Making Textures and Placement Prints

I'd been in the print room this week, trailing different ways that I can create texture to use on the wallpaper and also in digital designs. I needed something to take my designs forward in the project so that I can progress. I feel as though I've been at a bit of a stand still recently and after starting the project on such a roll, panic is starting to kick in and the weeks are quickly disappearing behind us.

I just mixed up a dark binder (so that it would be easy to scan and then separate in photoshop) and then began attacking my papers - a great way to let out any frustrations I might add. I wanted to recreate some of the surfaces that I'd noticed on a lot of the tarnished metals I'd seen in the antique shops. They were so beaten, and they'd lost a lot of their shine, but for me this just added to the story of each item... How had they ended up like this? I wonder what they looked like when they were brand new? I knew that adding texture into my work would help give it a little more depth and also take my drawings to a new level, I was getting quite bored of just drawing with my protractor and compass, and so I just just let myself have fun with it! I covered the page with colour using a print roller, hitting it with a spatula, spreading ink through an open screen and applying the binders with a scrunched up piece of news print. These were the techniques that I felt worked the best, but they were all fun. Letting the paper do it's thing and just letting idea's flow made this day probably one of my best in the project so far, and really lifted the project off the ground!

I then scanned them in and layered them up with some of my drawings, developing ideas for composition and balance within repeats when I finally come to make them. One thing I would say though is that when you're working digitally, there is just too many possibilities, which of course is a great thing; the sky is the limit here, but I think when I move forward with these I need to give myself more restrictions, so I think it's about time I took some work into the print room, got some drawings on screens and get stuck in!

Digital Metallics

After working with the metallic binders in the print room and coming up with my own shades, I decided it was time I did the same in my digital work - trying to show a more weathered metallic look. After a bit of trial and error I found that it definitely works best on a darker background, otherwise it becomes a little washed out in areas and you lose the illusion of a shiney surface. I began by just filling areas with a preset copper gradient and using the layer effects to change the opacity and tone of the metallics. This is what I've done in previous designs, but it's quite limiting to the amount of colours/shades you can achieve. Instead, I headed to image adjustments and began playing with the hue/saturation of the copper and that's when it just fell into place, this was the way for me to work with metallics when I'm in Photoshop! By altering the hue and saturation, I managed to give the copper a) a more subtle looking gradient and therefore, b) an aged aesthetic like the antique jewellery I've been focusing on. Then by adjusting the lightness (also in this hue adjustment window). 

I've managed to create a few different shades that I'd like to use, including the dusty platinum featured in the images above, a rose gold and a tarnished bronze.  

Metallic Binders

This time around I've tried to focus a lot more on my research, trying to be more rigorous and increase the quantity of things that I'm looking at, whilst varying the source from just using the internet. One of the things I've found quite useful is ordering samples from the companies that are aimed towards the same luxury market that I'm heading for - I've got a huge pile of wallpaper samples from companies like Zoffany, Harlequinn, Anthology and many more, all of which are just so beautiful and the quality of work that I'm hoping to produce throughout this project. I'm interested in how these companies use metallics in their products and the different types of metallics that can be found. You have the foils which add the most shine, there's metallic inks with a more subtle look and even glitter on the papers too. I was unsure about how I would achieve these looks, the only technique I'd done before was foiling but I knew that wouldn't give me the tarnished look that I wanted in areas of my work, but then I found out about metallic binders and I think this is really going to work for me. Mixing the gold or silver powder with the metallic binder makes for a very high shine, but straight from the palette look (something that I'm trying to avoid), however after speaking to the technicians I found that you can mix pigments into these to create your own metallic shades... Time to experiment!

Antique Shops

After finding the fake jewels in the the cheap shop in my home town, I decided it was time to get my head out of the books and went looking around the antique and junk stores of the city to see what kind of heirlooms Norwich had to offer. Walking in it was a little bit daunting, I don't tend to like a lot of clutter and I really dislike it in shops when things aren't organised and you really have to rummage for the things that you want. Not to say that I'm an organised person, quite the opposite in fact (my life is a mess) but that's why when I'm looking for things or in shops I need it to be organised, I need other people to be organised for me it would seem. However, once I'd got over my fear of rummaging through boxes and squeezing through the tight isles - and got sensitised to that old, dusty smell - I rathe enjoyed my little adventure to the junk shops! There was lots of great finds that I found inspiring for my work and it wasn't just jewellery; there were a lot of objects made from metal that had aged rather nicely, with a tarnished look and a slightly weathered texture. And there were a lot of unwanted old style bed warmers. BED WARMERS EVERYWHERE.

Working with the Paintings

Just like I did with my technical drawings, I used the same system with these paintings - just drawing a section by hand and then using digital processes to complete the image. This time I was slightly more organised and I scanned the image after the technical lines and then after the painting had been done on top so that the two were separate layers when I was working with them in Photoshop.

I tried a few different things once they were scanned in, initially just inverting the image like I had done with my other drawings, but it didn't quite have the same effect. They reminded me a little of blue prints, which I thought was quite interesting but it just looked messy. Because the Quink isn't a solid colours, the background is quite blotchy and unpleasant in its colouring once inverted. I did however really like the way the metallic colours, turned into this almost UltraViolet blue tone, as if painted in invisible ink and the UV light is being shone to reveal the design - now this I liked a lot! I think its a good development from my labyrinth idea, holding lots of secrets, maybe secret designs within my prints? 

As these ones were muddy in colour and quite flat to look at, I carried on and just completed the drawing in it's original colours and then experimented with the layers and things, eventually refining the UV/blue print look! By separating the drawing into layers: one enlarged area of the Quink for a more solid background colour, then the gold completed drawing, with the technical lines over the top, filled with a copper gradient. I was then able to use the layer effects, in this case the divide to create the blue tones. It's not perfected yet, but it's getting there!

After using the jewellery from a current designer in one of my technical drawings, it suddenly dawned on me that copyright could be an issue here, I've been from other designer's products and it panicked me a little. I decided to use the knowledge I've gained from my research and previous drawings to try and come up with some of my own shapes and plans, but still influenced by the antique / art deco style that I've been looking at. This time with the idea of drawing different parts of jewellery, to the put together to make a hybrid from parts, not completed drawings. Things that can be easily collaged together, and although they'll be part of a collection, there will never be the same drawing / piece of jewellery repeated in two different designs because they'll all be different.

Quink and Metallic Inks

Starting to become a little bored with the restrictions of technical drawing in my sketchbook, I wanted to regain some freedom so tried to incorporate ink and metallic paints into my work. Something to add a little more flow, colour; getting me away from my ruler, compass and fine liner details. Last term I bought some gold calligraphy inks to use in my fashion project, but I used more fluid inks instead, rather than these six shades that come in a palette. I thought this is is a better time than ever to try them out. They took a bit of getting used to, you have to use a lot of water at first to get them soluble enough to then paint with - it takes a lot of stirring on the surface with the paintbrush! Once I got them onto the paper, they came to life, with so much shine! The nice thing about them was that unlike with my bottled inks, I wasn't restricted to one shade of gold, there was a range from a very yellow, 'standard' gold colour, to white gold and platinum. This was great for the tarnished metals that I was going for, although maybe still a little bit too much on the shiney scale, but we'll get there. I guess they dry with more of a glitter look, rather than smooth look like that of older metals. I painted them onto a dark background to get a stronger metallic look, using my trusty Quink ink to do so (my all time favourite). 

Future Plans and Portfolios

There was a pretty hefty two day session that appears on our timetables this week, daunting at first, but actually the entire thing was ridiculously inspiring and a great push forward to think more about the future.

The dreaded question "So what are your plans after your degree?" something that I get asked on a regular basis by everyone in my life, not just tutors or peers, but family, my boyfriends family, neighbours, my old boss and colleagues. I remember in the summer between second and third year, one of the first things my partners Dad asked me when I met him for the first time was "So what's your goal, where are you going after uni?" I just laughed it off like I always do, "You shouldn't ask stuff like that, we don't think about that yet" And then third year began flying by and that 'yet' moment still hadn't dawned on me - until this session. I realised I needed to stop putting it to the back of my head and start thinking; what do I want to do with my life? At one point I had considered a gap year to New Zealand, and possibly doing placements in Europe or America, however those just never got dealt with and became day dreams rather than future plans - something you say you're going to do but never get round to planning or working towards them. With everything that has happened in the last 6 months, I've also realised how family orientated I am and even though I'd love to travel, and live globally, I just don't think I could now. I'm obviously open to moving around to find work, there's not much textile stuff going on in Norfolk, but I'd like it to be somewhere in Britain. No matter how lovely a placement in NYC sounds, it's just too far for this anxious little bird to fly.

Duck Egg Blue Interiors, Ely - What a find!

So, thinking about what life is going to be like after university is over, I've been house hunting and eventually we decided on Ely. It's a lot closer to London, so my boyfriend can commute a lot more easily that he can from Norwich and also it's not too far from my home town either (but far enough that our parents can't just pop round for a cuppa when they feel like it)! Anyway, while we were talking around the city centre, which is more like the centre of a small market town, I stumbled across this little interiors fabrics and accessories store - a little Aladdin's cave of pretty ornaments and cushions, but in the back there is just piles and piles of samples books! Which led me to find lots of new brands to investigate! Casadeco, CaSelio and Eijffinger. All of which had some amazing paper in the collections! Metallics, glass beads and even some holographic designs... And boy do I love a bit of holo'!

Definitely a place to keep an eye on in the future, for inspiration and to keep my designs relevant!