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! 

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.