Been A Long Old Time

So it has been a very long time since I last posted on here.. Been a tough few weeks but I won't go into that on here. So we are now doing the print project. And it is safe to say it is very tiring! So we are heading into the dye lab next Thursday to mix up our chosen colour palette. I took some photos of the choosing process of the colours. 

It was important that we had a range of light, mid and dark shades I began by looking for some more pastel colours as I wanted to approach the paisley design in a different way and not go and use the traditional colours associated with your average paisley.

I then decided to look at more bright colours and use them as accent colours to pop out of my final print when it has been made.

My final colour palette.

My theme I have chosen to work with is Aztec as it is very in trend at the moment and I also have a little obsession with the pattens and textures. I plan to combine the Aztec theme with the paisley and hopefully come up with 3 successful prints. But for now it is draw draw paint draw paint paint paint!!!

And finally just some of my drawings. Sorry for the poor quality of photos but they were taken on my phone as it was all I had to hand....

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No pleasure, no expressions just an illusion of what should of but wasn't. 

TIRED

But I had the most amazing day! So today was research day and Christmas shopping day! I got to see my beautiful best friend Hayley Jones and we spent a lovely day together rushing around London trying to find gifts and paisley prints of course. Anyway my day started bright and early and I was in London by half past ten. So straight away we headed to look for paisley designs and I spotted a very simplified paisley on Hayley's hood..  Very basic shapes and little decorative elements but you get the idea.

Wondering around Selfridges we came across a familiar face the one and only Santa Clause perfect photo opportunity... So here are our snaps. Hayley looking beautiful as ever.

& me not looking so great...

Anyway so I got side tracked by this amazing car accessories kit turn your fiat 500 into a reindeer.. shame I don't own one otherwise this definitely would have been mine!

Anyway back to paisley... so in Topman I found this rather nice shirt.. again a very basic paisley pattern but a paisley never the less.... today I have realised that the high street tends to focus on the more simple shapes whereas the up couture tends to be a lot more intricate and in your face.

 

Beautiful window displays... I do love this time of year.

This I found in Forever 21  I am not sure if it is a paisley but I think it had a paisley feel...

And again a very paisleyesque feel! Totally did not just make that word up!

Popped into see Mickey Mouse!!! Obviously... Oh how I wish I was a child again!

Liberty's  and found the Etro designs... I took a few cheeky photographs as you can see they are a lot more intricate and composed of a lot more pieces compared to the high street designs.

Again a slither of Etro.

£500 Swarovski  headphones. I had to take a photo because I could not quite believe it!

And into Harrods Christmas world which I have to say I was very disappointed with!

WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD PAY £9.95 FOR THIS HIDEOUS BIG BEN DECORATION IT IS DISGUSTING!

Hermione Granger's (a.k.a Emma Watson) actual costumes displayed in the Harry Potter Store in Harrods along with the actual wands from the films and lots of other amazing things!

And Finally we headed to the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park it was so amazingly magical though my phone battery died so I could only capture this photo of the ferris wheel! It was truely a lovely day out and to top it all off I got most of my Christmas shopping done now!

Now to sleep!

PRINT

So today we have been given our brief for our print module. I am so excited to finally get to print again! It has been way too long. We have been sent to London tomorrow... time for some research and a lot of CHRISTMAS SHOPPING!! I am so excited. Hopefully I can get it out of the way now and not have a last minute panic in a few weeks time. Anyway less of the shopping talk and more of the project talk. So this is a 7 week project based on paisley designs. Our aim it to design and create our own paisley fabric. I have been doing a little bit of research and have started to think about colours I may want to use together. But I thought I would put up a little update of what is to come over the next few weeks. So anyway here are a few things I have found to inspire me... OH AND SHOCK HORROR IT IS ALL BASED ON FASHION NO INTERIORS ALLOWED IN THIS PROJECT HELP! 

I thought this paisley bike by Liberty of London for Target was so pretty it had to be included as research even if its not fashion.

Extreme Establishment Vs Extreme Minimalism

Here are a few of my favourite outcomes... 

Sand papering the photograph and applying some ink and bleaching it off. My favourite one.

Hand stitching into the photograph.

Inking over the photograph then exposing an area with bleach then washing away some of the excess ink to reveal some of the original photograph beneath. 

Reading Week...

So today I had a very productive day. Got to catch up with Gayle and help screen print oh how I miss it! I also managed to get up early and head to a dilapidated house to take some photographs for our live project set by Karen Nicol.... I decided to take some black and white photographs as I felt it would suit the feel of the photographs. I was however a little annoyed that I didn't manage to find the proper entrance to the house and climbed through various bushes and ended up with a few twigs stuck in my hair... Anyway here are a few that haven't been embellished yet. 

I will put up some of the final outcomes over the next couple of days.

Lest We Forget

11.11.11 

Hello.

It has been a little while... we have been a little bit all over the place. We have received our new brief  which is a tad confusing so as well as trying to get my head around it I have also been panicking about our first VMC essay... Oh help. This is why I haven't posted on here for a little while. Been Christmas shopping and failed miserably I think I may be shopping a little bit too early but being a student I do not want to run out of money now do I.. Anyway so we met Karen Nicol she was really inspirational she told us to always keep experimenting and let go (which is a thing I do find hard to do) she has worked both in fashion and interiors and holds shows in galleries all over the world. She was a very lovely lady and its safe to say I was fascinated ..

  

1st Project Done!

I have actually managed to follow though with a post .. without forgetting to take photos of things etc. So yesterday was hand in day and it was a little bit stressful but I managed it. Time for a little rest well until Monday when it starts all over again. With Karen Nicol visiting us... http://www.karennicol.com/pages/gallery1.html specialised in beading and hand embroidery. All very exciting. Anyway back to my hand in here are some photos of what my space looked like...

Firstly here is one of my favourite photos I took that we used to create 3D structures.

My final A1 presentation board.

The 3D photo I was talking about with one of my structures.

Line Dictionary.

Final space consisting of line dictionary, colour strips for urban neutrals, oriental nomad and instinct, research book, 2 mood boards, secondary research, photographs, design cv, sculptures, drawing book.... think that's it. 

Pages from my research book... all the pages painstakingly hand painted with a white wash... took forever. 

My favourite page in my research book.

Finally the mono prints I was supposed to upload ages and ages ago! The one above is my favourite!

Both good and bad.

This one below was the water coloured effect one I wish I had more time to create a nicer looking one but you get the idea.. maybe one day I will return to this.

So you get the idea... fairly simple shapes a continuous line drawing of a safety pin but I like the way they have turned out well most of them.

And just another angle of my space.