LAST CRIT

Had the last crit of the year today... presentations all day. All that is left of first year is choosing our pathway and having a nose around the degree show then its back for 4 months of total boredom!! Working and lots of play! Determined not to have a dull summer!! 

MARMITE

 Also welcome to the newest member of the family Marmite. Cuddliest cat ever!

IM STILL HERE...

It has been so long since I have been on here that everything seems to have become more posh and modern... End of year is literally at the doorstep. Cannot believe I have completed my first year. Onto our final project at the moment Surface Design. I am loving it a lot. Life is stressful same old same old really. I am going to post to you a photo of my wall which sadly was taken down yesterday ready for the mass clear out of the red shed for the degree show. EXCITING STUFF!! See if you can spot the theme.. We have to choose our pathway and to be honest with you I always thought I was print but because print at Bucks seems to be more geared towards fashion, I am thinking I am now more surface inspired. It really has been such a learning curve, learnt a lot about myself and my work. I cannot wait to start second year and have the journey all over again.

It has been a month!

This is my 100th post on my blog, and I feel that it should be a happy occasion but I really do not have anything that fun or exciting to report. It is nearly hand in for the knit project (thank the lord) its not that I have not enjoyed learning the new skills etc, its more the fact that the brief was so mind numbingly boring that I did not want to do it. But I have a few things to upload and show you. I have not blogged in a month and I actually do feel terrible so a huge sorry  to my blog for being say here all alone. Back to the photos of knitting.... here you go.

A smaller version of one of my final pieces.

Trying out different techniques.

Exploratory stage experimenting with hooking up into a triangle, though when steamed it looked silly so didn't bother doing it again.

e wrapping triangles in a pattern again just experimenting.

I still want one of these...

I spy a birthday present for me?

YAY

I HAVE FINISHED MY KNIT TECHNICAL FOLDER!!! I CAN NOW KNIT STUFF. 

WEEK OFF UNI WHAT MORE COULD I WANT?

It Has Just Dawned On Me!

I'M 20 TWO WEEKS TODAY... BYE BYE TEENAGE YEARS!

More Knitting

Today I learnt how to do some points in my knitting to make triangles but I forgot to take a picture and I also learnt how to make bobbles and this thing called a dragons mouth basically creating a triangular 3D shape in the knit. I am also very ill been struck down with some scabby flu thing so I am extra pleased I managed to concentrate!

The bobbles....

Mini and Large Dragons mouth thing ....

More Knit Techniques

E Wrapping with a different yarn!

I am still here.

 Been too long once again but I was just avoiding my terrible print project. Never ever thought I could hate print but it just goes to show things do change. I'm sure if I gave it another go it would all go a lot better. I felt like I had never printed before the inks we had to mix up were horrid!!! But I did enjoy doing the devore and bleach prints. So I am now onto the knit project using a single bed knitting machine. It is all very confusing and taking me a lot of time to work out but I am getting there slowly and surely. We have been given a designer and a period of time in which to research and produce some samples of knit around about a4 size using a wide range of techniques and materials should be challenging but at the moment I am liking this knitting business.

First ever bit of knitting!!!! I was pretty excited I later changed colour and made it striped!

Creating things called lace holes. Basically making little holes in the knit.

But I forgot one key thing that happened in Wycombe SNOW!

YES

I don't want to work anymore, I want to own one of these. Someone buy me one!

Back Again...

Just a quick post to give you an update as to what I have been getting up to. Today I successfully coated a screen without dropping it all over the floor. I have also been taught about the process of bleach printing, devore printing and discharge printing. A lot to take in about chemicals and poisons but all extremely helpful and useful. I  am exposing my second screen tomorrow and then its onto creating my layers of print and hopefully coming up with something successful! 

Trying to come up with some ideas to create layers and things.

Layering up the koda traces to see how a print could look.

Not a good photo of the devore but you get the idea.

Uni Work Is Mounting...

See I really am turning over a new leaf I have come back to blog in less than a week. So I have now been back to uni for a week, and it is safe to say I have learnt quite a bit of stuff since being back. Not only have I learnt how to strip and re-coat a screen I now know how to expose one too! So much excitement. I have got a few photos taken on my phone that I have decided to post. It began by having to piece together some sort of design out of all my koda traces. I am used to taking a few images and then building up to create a pattern not coming up with a pattern that could be just printed in one go to create a print so that was a little bit odd for me, but never the less it was quite fun to experience a different way of working.

Just some of my imagery getting ready to play around.

Starting to build up some pattern and seeing what looked most effective.

Continuing to build up the pattern before finally....

Exposing my own screen which was so much fun! (Sorry for the upside down photograph) I have done something a little bit silly though. I covered up 2 of the large holes with the triangles in a mad panic and forgot that I would not be able to print through them.. silly me but these things happen I will just have to work around it.

Tomorrow I am exposing a new set of imagery that I can isolate parts off and create pattern through experimentation ( the way I like to print) rather than having to create a pattern to be used for one pull through a screen. 

I also experience a new type of printing called open screen printing. This is where you paint dye directly onto a clean screen it can be anything you would like and then using a special seaweed paste pull it over the painting and thus leaving the design you have created. I decided to go with 2 simple brush strokes as I wanted it to be used as another layer of colour rather than having a dramatic image that would be covered up by my imagery anyway...

So there it is for some reason it looks green in this photo but it is actually a dark grey. I am very much looking forward to getting my hands on a squeedgy and coming up with some hopefully interesting designs.. Who knows only time will tell.

Its been a VERY long time!

So it has been over a month since I posted on here I am totally shocked. I did not even post a Christmas post not good enough! Nearly had this up for a year now crazy stuff. So it was all a little bit manic at the end of last term emotions were running high and everyone could not wait to be going home. I should have lots to show you but it has all been going a little bit slow so I have not had many exciting things to write about other than getting a 2:1 on my first VMC essay!! Still working on a print project but having been off for 3 weeks yesterday was our first day back. So it was the realisation that I have 3 weeks in which to produce work worthy of a grade! Anyway today I decided enough was enough and as part of my new years resolution I am going to make a lot more of an effort to keep my blog up and running! So today was spent in the print room, dyeing 50 samples of fabric well eventually there will be 50 trying to match the colours we had chosen all those weeks ago!

All the dyes non diluted. 

Mixing bowl, trusty spoon, various mixes of colours and paintbrush.

Trying to create a gradient effect on the fabric sample. And trying to get the correct shade of grey without it going a little bit purple!

Not a very good photo it looks green but I can assure you that it is in fact a lovely grey, that I applied with a paintbrush to get the different shades to get a smokey sort of effect.

And the bit I have been most looking forward to since starting my course! I now know how to strip my own screens yay! And tomorrow we are learning how to coat them before exposing them on Wednesday. I will hopefully have lots to blog and show you over the next few weeks fingers crossed that my imagery is good enough to create some lovely prints!