Sketching again!

So…it has been quite a while since my last post due to my assessment for semester one taking up most of my time so I apologise. After countless cups of tea and coffee, staying up to all hours and endless collage!…I handed everything in and passed! Very surprised with my mark and done much better than I first thought! so I am very pleased but there is always room for improvement as they say. So, my hard work paid off and now I can enjoy my Christmas holidays!

After my assessment and final hand in for my Change By Design module assignment, I took a much-needed relaxing day off!

So, I was a little bored so I decided to sketch a nice rose. Regrettably, it is a little sketchy because I didn’t have proper tonal pencils at the time but I have a brand new set so will definitely be drawing another! I hope you like it!

Boo!

Made a paper model from a sheet we had been given today so here is my little Halloween inspired paper model!

Jack Skellington from the Nightmare Before Christmas!

Only a short post today! Happy Halloween!

Fashion&Textiles

Before I came to Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, I studied a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Fashion Textiles at Cardonald College, Glasgow. So, this makes this year my first year in DJCAD as I am a direct entry student. Quite scary! New city and a new course.

For this post, I thought I’d take the opportunity to show my final design from the end of my 2nd year of my HND. For my college project, my brief was “The Art of Collecting” so for this, I based my theme on the 1980’s. I chose this because my parents have a very large collection of records from bands from when they were younger. Bands such as: Fleetwood Mac, Blondie, Eurythmics, Guns and Roses and so on. Furthermore, I really like a lot of the bands from this era so I think this helped a lot during my design process. I focused on the music and Fashion from this era as I think it was quite different and more daring than today although, a lot of the 80’s seems to be reappearing more frequently!

For my design process, I took a lot of my inspiration from a vintage camera I found in my loft as well as my parents old records. As my theme started developing, I started to head in a more Grunge style (Very 80’s I think). I loved how my project developed into this as I felt that I could be much more experimental and really have a lot of fun creating a grunge fabric. I used a lot of inks and a technique called Devoré to achieve this. Devoré is a technique of creating ‘cut work’ in fabric without actually cutting though. Furthermore, I think it brought out a style of work that I really enjoy and feel very comfortable with!

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This slideshow is a selection of my drawings, sketchbook work and some of my earlier fabric samples and prints. This slideshow also shows my final dress design. This was my final dress design inspired by the grunge style I developed in my final design process. I hand dyed all the fabric and also Devoré the fabric (Bottom and middle layer). I decided to add a collar piece to emphasise some of the brighter colours used in my drawings and finer details within the camera.

My dress was shown in our college fashion show: Envisage and was also selected for a design competition. I really like my final outcome and I think it relates very well with my overall theme. It’s also a style that I could see myself wearing!

Hope you liked it! I sure do.

For the whole fashion show, click the link! Cardonald College Fashion Show: Envisage 2011. Album 1 and Album 2

Enjoy!

Inspiring!

Hello! I was recently researching some Textile/Fashion designers and came across a few that I thought I’d share because I find them quite interesting and inspiring. I got two books out of the library for this research and the first book was:

•  New Fashion Print by Martin Dawber and the second was:
• Textiles Now by Drusilla Cole.

They took a while to find but I’m very glad that I found them because they introduced me to a lot of new designers/companies that I had never looked at before and gave me a better insight to the world of Textiles and Fashion.

I will only mention a couple because there is so many great designers from those books & there is not enough space for them all here! So hopefully you enjoy the next section of this post…or at least find it interesting enough!

There is a few that I can’t get online due to their blog’s being restricted etc etc but if you ever get those books, check them out! They are Vicki Fong, Jillian Cole (Graduate of DJCAD!) and Gina Pipét. I couldn’t find those but knowning my luck, I won’t be able to find another few so here’s hoping I get something for you all to look at!

One designer I did get though was Rupert Newman. He studied at University College Falmouth and while he was there he experimented with his own style of mono-printing and discovered how to repeat the original motif with a roller. From this, he produced wallpaper designs and from the collection he created, he focused his creative ambitions into the world of Textile Design using the digital print facilities of Falmouth. Before this, he went to Sherborne School in Dorset – where he grew up – and developed his own distinctive style while studying an art movement called Rayonism, a Russian movement in the early 1900’s where the artist’s paint the rays of light that are reflected from objects rather than the objects themselves. It was from this project that his artwork has had a kaleidoscope look.

These are two pieces of art from one of his sketchbooks. I really like both of these in particular as they are quite colourful and quite unusual. they represent his kaleidoscope style very well. Also, I think that they are quite graphic and eye-catching. Well, they caught my eye! as I find graphic and more illustrative art quite interesting and I particularly like approaching my own work in this way as well. If you want to see more, checkout his website here! Rupert Newman.

Another designer I want to show you is Longina Phillips. She has her own company that goes by the name of Longina Phillips Designs. She grew up in Poland but now lives in Sydney,Australia where has studio now is. Her studio/business includes herself and a team of designers based in Surry Hills, close to Sydney. She studied at the University of Technology, Sydney and studied Visual Communications. She is inspired by the world around her and particularly likes bold/very strong graphics, uncluttered statements and everything that is beautifully drawn.

These pieces are from her current womanswear collection. I particularly like these as I really like the colours and the beautiful details in each design.

This is a sample design from her swimwear collection.

This is a sample piece from her menswear collection. I could go on and on showing you all her wonderful and very interesting designs but I don’t want to bore you…especially if your not a fan of this particular designer! Thought I would show anyway!. For more of her designs, check out her site. Longina Phillips Designs

Those designers are from the New fashion Print book by Martin Dawber. Great book! have a look! Textiles Now by Drusilla Cole was the other book I took out for research. I found this book particularly interesting as it not only showed me new textile/fashion designers, it introduced me to new styles/techniques that are very unique and interesting! The first designer I want to show is Jeung-Hwa Park. I think that her work is very unique and very beautifully approached.  She is a Textile Designer and here are some examples of her interesting work! These examples look very fine and delicate as well as being very unique and textural.

More examples or her work are on her website, check them out here! Jeung-Hwa Park

Lastly, one more designer to show you! Carole Waller. Here is some examples of her very interesting and unique work!

For the whole collection (those pieces included), she hand painted her designs as it makes them much more personal and unique. I really like this approach to creating a design on fabric and this is something I will consider when it comes to the fabric sampling stage. To see more from this wonderful designer, check out her site! Carole Waller

So that was a quite a long blog today! but hope you enjoyed everything and found something inspiring like I did! Bye bye for now!

illustration designs.

For my next blog (well my first official one since the previous one was helped by my lecturer for a module) I wanted to show an illustration artist known as Johanna Basford.

Johanna Basford is graduate from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design and since then has become a successful illustrator. She has her degree in Printed Textiles (a degree that I hope to achieve! ). I really like the overall look of her work as it is quite graphic and precise. To me, her work is really inspiring & very eye-catching as it is a similar media and style that I really enjoy working with & hope to explore more within my degree course!

This is one of many piece’s of work that I find really interesting and to make it even more amazing, all her work is hand drawn as she feels that computer drawing is cold and emotionless thus, she believe hand drawn works of art show energy and excitement…just how each work of art should be!

if you want to see more, check the site out! Johanna Basford

Anyways, that was just a little insight from me…or just rambling but hope you enjoyed my (kind of) first post. So goodbye until next time!