Unit X | Belle Vue Archives

This week I learned a lot about Belle Vue considering I'd never heard about it before.

We had a talk and there was some information that particularly stood out to me. The animals weren't treated very well and often died within a few weeks or months. I've always been a big animal lover so this really got to me.

One of my ideas to work with is that the animals were used for entertainment purposes and weren't left to live their lives. They were seen as a form of entertainment rather than seen as unhappy and dying. 

I collected lots of visual information of animals and the zoological gardens posters from the visit to Chatem Library, to help me get started.

I also made a board on my Pinterest especially for circus and zoo animals.

http://gb.pinterest.com/caramillet/animals/

 

Unit X | Blackpool

 I really enjoyed this weeks trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach. I took plenty of photos for visual research because I want to hit the ground running in this Unit. From the past I've found I draw to a much better quality when I have collected vast amounts of research.

Actually being at the theme park and experiencing it in a way you can't by just buying a ticket definitely brought some inspiration itself. I collected many photos of the roller coasters and their structures as they looked amazing from the angles we saw them from.

I have started doing some drawings from these photos however I'm not sure roller coasters is the direction I want to go in. The architectural side of things has never really been a key interest or strong point. We have more visits and lectures this week so I'm hoping other aspects stick out for me.

PE Task

 During the sampling unit I believe that other artists and inspiration have played a huge part in the decisions I have made and the outcomes I have created. They helped me choose which directions I wanted to go in and guided my own thoughts on what I want my samples to look like and become.

My first inspiration was Karen Scott. Her main input was her theories on her work. She gave me the idea that data doesn’t have to just be numbers and figures. It can be information that comes from you. It may not be able to be read by everybody but still has as much meaning as a group of numbers. It is the interpretation that is relevant. From this I created my own doodles which relate to my mood at the time. Furthermore, her work is based on circle shaped mandalas that tell a story. Circular shapes have played a huge part in my work either being the main centre of the image or separate circles used to create a more diverse picture.

Beatriz Milhazes has also been a huge inspiration in guiding me towards my final prints. I have taken a lot of aspects from her use of colour to her arrangement of motifs. Although her work appears messy and unorganised, it is in fact quite compositional. From this I have taken composition into account throughout all of my prints. Layering is another key aspect that I have used in my work which is very similar to Milhazes. Overlapping and underlying in an effective way has been something I have had to monitor through the whole unit. Similarly to Karen Scott, she also used circular designs which again I have made use of in my samples.

Finally, in relation to the purpose of my designs I believe they could be used to decorate stationary and papers. This idea came from Paperchase. I have been a fan of Paperchase and their products since I was younger. They appeal to girls of most ages and can range from notebooks and pens to wrapping paper and purses. My designs make use of a variety of colours and in many cases are floral and could be considered as ‘pretty’. These qualities are often found on paperchase products in order to appeal to a wide age range. I think my designs would not be out of place on the front of a notebook and would be widely sellable to the public. I made two practice purses which came out successfully. 

Karen Scott

Beatriz Milhazes

Paperchase

Print | Week 8

In the final week of print I finally have a set of designs that are complete and can be seen as a collection. When I was making my final touches I felt like some of the designs weren't finished or didn't look good enough. Rachel showed us how to finish our samples with bondaweb which got me thinking about using bondaweb to glue different fabrics onto my designs. 

I decided to use lace cut into circles, which I think works really well. The circles draw attention like Karen Scott and the use of lace looks similar to things I have created in photoshop using the selection tool.

I also decided to create some small practice pouches using two of my prints to demonstrate where I see my designs going. I wrote earlier in my book about Paperchase and how their stationary products are the type of thing I see my work turning into. I am really happy with how they look and although they are very rough copies and only took 20 minutes to create, they still represent my ideas successfully.

Print | Week 7

We had a peer review this Tuesday in the studio. I found the review really helpful and I got really good feedback on my work. The only criticism I recieved was that I need to cut my samples to the same size. I also got mentioned for having good relations with my colour image. This took me by surprise but I was really happy because this is what has been worrying me the most. I have obviously been being too picky and judging my work to harshly. I now know to stop focussing on it so much.

I have also been doing more work on hand designs. After being shown examples of watercolours last week I decided to experiment with it myself. I created watercolour backgrounds which were similar to the gradient tool I have been using on photoshop. I like the designs I have made and so I will take aspects of them and put them into my final designs. My peer review also said that my hand designs inculded strong ideas. 

I tried to continue using the bold and varied colour palette I have been using, similar to the techniques Beatriz Milhazes uses in her work. When doing my final designs I am going to experiment more with layering and overlapping in the same way that she does.

Print | Week 6

I focused on my hand designs this week.

So far I have only used gouche and acryllic paint because I wanted strong bold colours like Beatriz Milhazes. However Sally showed us some examples that used water colour paints and I really like how they looked, so I'm going to experiment with that myself. I am quite happy with the painting I've done so far however to become a final print they will need some more work. Some of the colours need to be fixed as they don't look right.
I am quite concious about my designs portraying the mood of my colour image, as this is the aspect I'm finding hard to control. My colour image has quite a range of colours in very different proportions which is worrying me slightly. Trying to get the colours to look they way I want them to is quite difficult. However I am managing my time so that I can do enough tests and practices to create the result I want.


I did manage to get into the print room this Friday, and I am finally starting to create final prints. I have my colours and fabrics and now just have to put them together using my design plans drawn in my sketchbook. I am happy with the prints I have done so far, but I also want to focus more on including circular designs similar to Karen Scott. Unfortunately because of the motifs on my screen I might have to try this on digital and hand designs.

 

Print | Week 5

I worked in the print room quite a bit this week. I began to dye my fabric using the vats to see which colours I want to work on. I decided to try and create a vast amount of colours from my colour image and test all of them to see which ones I want to use. In the end I had colours ranging from dark blue to light peachy-oranges. I was quite happy with the colours, although the yellow was far too bright so I decided not to work with that one.

 I have also noticed that n Beatriz Millhazes work the background colours tend to be more subtle and the colour is in the design on top. I kept my backgrounds toned down but without banishing colour completely.

The first two sessions I've had in the print room were very much just testing sessions. I wanted to see what the pigment colours looked like on the coloured fabrics and how well they worked. I learnt a lot by testing things out, I now only want to dye fabrics subtle blues and oranges then dye onto them to create the other colours in my colour image. I feel this will help make the colour mood better as blue and orange are the most used colours in my image.