Research: Dissertation

Today I did some work on my dissertation. It's slowly getting there! It's so interesting reading up about Land Girls and their experiences during their time helping the war effort. Some of the accounts are actually pretty emotional and overwhelming. Basically my dissertation is just an excuse to say THANKYOU to them for being so awesome and help path the way to equality for women.

Today I was specifically looking at WWI recruitment posters and how they portrayed the Women's Land Army in an idyllic and, almost, glamorised manner, using patriotic sayings and suggestions to encourage women to sign up.



Personal: Doilies

I love patterns and I really love drawing mandalas. I've had the idea to draw on doilies for a while now after seeing someone draw a portrait on one. I thought the pattern from the doily would make a nice frame for the hand drawn pattern.

I'm going to make a little series and frame them. I would also love to embroider fabric doilies in a similar way.



Personal: Tattoo of Cai

Back in the summer, before I started back at uni, I was commissioned to draw a picture of a beautiful saluki hound called Cai whose owner, Jess, wanted to get tattooed on her leg. Jess is a dancer and wanted the tattoo to follow the shape of her leg so when she moved, the dog would move too!

This was not the first tattoo design I had been asked to do, however, Jess is the first personal to actually have a piece of my artwork permanently on her body!! With great thanks to Colly for translated my artwork so well onto her body, here are the finished results (photo credits: Jess)



Personal: Sketchbook

Really enjoying just having the chance to draw for fun at the moment in between projects. Here are a couple of sketches from my sketchbook from today.

Reference:



Practical: Williams Handmade Workshop & Gallery

Today I had the privilege of manning the new gallery/studio space in Leominster for Sarah, who makes beautiful bags by hand from painted bridle leather.

She left me a small but fun project for the day.

When I arrived I was greeted by a pile of leather cut offs, a couple of templates and all the tools I might need, with the instructions to cut about 20 of each template from the selection of coloured leather.

 

I'd never cut leather before and have never been very accurate with a scalpel but. lo and behold (and

without any injuries!) the pieces were cut!

The pieces will then be stitched together and folded over, attaching with a popper...

 

...to make nifty little card wallets!!!

I will be helping out Sarah casually from time to time, so hopefully there will be a few other little projects I can take part in, seeing as I really enjoyed today's challenge!



Personal: New Sketchbook!

Today I went for an interview in a local gallery/studio and got myself some casual hours a couple of days a week. Really looking forward to working in a creative environment. Also I have the opportunity to do the leather cutting to help in the process of making bags which is something new
and exciting!

To celebrate, I bought a new sketchbook and a new pen.



Project: MOO/YCN Brief

The MOO project proved to be quite difficult to make what I had pictured in my head into a final piece. I gathered different materials, such as paint brushes, paper clips and buttons, to use as a collage to make a machine that would portray the slogan DESIGN WONDERS WONDERS.


I originally wanted to make a steampunk style machine as I love the style and worn look. However, MOO have quite a particular illustrative style and colour scheme that they wanted to use so, to keep true to the brief, I had to alter the design style entirely.





I started with a pile of materials.





From there I experimented with creating a suitable background as a basis for the design. MOO have quite simple and colourful graphics that they like to use to promote their company so during my experimentation, I had to change some of my initial designs as they seemed to be too fussy.


 


 


 


I played around with the idea of using buttons as cogs, but it didn't reflect as well as I hoped it would. I decided to incorporate some illustrative sections within the design to make the buttons appear more 'cog like!' I used the MOO style to do this.


 


 


I found this style of cog worked a lot better.


I then experimented with making little arms for my machine!! I used a combination of illustration and collage again to do this.


 


The next point was trying to build the machine up and see how it would work it's way up the page.


 





As I experimented more, it seemed to take shape.





With the strong colours and the bold illustrative style, the machine seems to be getting closer to the initial outlines of the brief.








Project: Mural Final Piece

Although the mural has not been put up in The Butter Market yet, Nat and I have completed our notice board style mural.

The collaboration worked really well. Nat's beautiful but simple illustrations counterbalance the hand rendered typography perfectly. The colour scheme helps to tie everything in together so that nothing overweighs anything else to the viewer.

I enjoyed experimenting with the hand rendered type, trying to produce a different type face for each stall, to symbolise it's originally and personality.

The use of the white and black on the blue/red background really makes the type stand out and easy to read. Small illustrations also make it more exciting. 

Project: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit Final Piece

Here is my final design for the brief. Although I am not completely happy with the design, I hope to alter and work on it before the actual competition deadline in March.

The idea was to create a subtly suggestive front cover, inspired by The Einstein Couple's work they created for the posters to advertise the film, Nymphomaniac. My design was suppose to use orange segments to symbolise a vagina, to coincide with the theme of sexuality throughout the book. Unfortunately, I don't feel like I quite hit the mark and, although the print is quite aesthetically pleasing, I don't agree that it has that extra 'crude' edge to it - which is what I really wanted!

I struggled quite a lot on this project, trying to get the simplicity of the design to be as effective as I desired. Choosing the right type was also a big hurdle. I ended up choosing a digital type for it's 'no-nonsense' feel, sans serif, basic, easy to read.

The composition works nicely but I think is still too bare. Maybe if the image was larger and central? I played around with quite a few designs, changing the scale and the position of the type/image, but this still seemed to be one of the most effective compositions.



Personal: Stones

After having so much fun painting a stone my Grandad asked to do for him, I decided to go on a little adventure the other day to collect some interesting looking pebbles and have a play around with painting them. Here are my first attempts.



Personal: Christmas Break

During the Christmas break, I did a couple of drawings and painted a stone!

'The Dogs' - Christmas present for my mu

WIP Chief - Christmas present for my dad











Owl Stone - by request of my Grandad














Owl Stone - my request of my Grandfather




Project: Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

After experimenting with ideas using pen, I painted some papers with yellow and orange acrylic paints to make some washes to use for collaging.

I started trying to incorporate the mirrored shape I was aiming for with some text.

I also tried some 'butterfly' prints using the acrylic paint. The paper accidently stuck together and tore as I pulled them apart but actually made a really lovely effect!