Personal Brief For Sampling Project

For my visual research I want to collect photos of old architecture and interesting, broken buildings around Manchester which I can use for inspiration for my print workshop. I aim to collect a range of drawings and samples that are inspired by the photos. I want to create texture in my work and develop the skills and ideas that I have gained in my past project. I want to look at the 3D shapes within the photos as I found looking at shapes interesting from my previoius 3D workshop. However I want to work with 2D as I know that that is what I am most happy with and I can relate this to my print workshop. This will allow me to develop and explore different technuiqes that allow me to create interesting textures and colours.  The inspiration will come from my own photos and drawings that I will produce in order to help me with m y samples. Last term what stood out for me was felt as I could work with my hands and explore colour and texture within the fabric which I could relate to me drawings and mark makings.

Evaluation Of Work Produced So Far.

My initial expectations of this project were that it was going to be a very open project. One that allows us to develop the work that we have produced in our previous project and to use the skills and knowledge that we have gained in our first project to produce more skilled drawings and ideas. The word 'sampling' immediately stuck me as we were going to be doing a lot of experimenting and risk taking within our work to produce lots of different samples and combining different techniques that we have learned throughout our workshops.
I think that my work hasn’t improved as much as I would have liked it too and to improve this I would like to do much more drawings and narrow down my chosen two words to produce lots of experimentation samples. My workshop was 3D and as much as I enjoyed this I found that there wasn’t enough time for me to produce lots of samples and experiment however I was happy with my finished outcome.
I chose 3D as I thought that I could produce something interesting to do with my words ‘robust and fragile’ I explored materials and did a lot of samples which helped me decide what design I would use for my final idea. The aim was to make you think outside the box and create something that was thought through and that was appropriate to the two chosen words for the project.
I decided to look at bold 3D shapes for my robust side of the project, making them appear strong and unbreakable. I then experimented with different materials to see which ones burned well and gave a delicate touch to the material so that it appeared very fragile and almost breakable if touched. I put all my designs and ideas down into my sketchbook which allowed me to see what I have thought off and how I could develop these further. I also noted down my insperations and developed my own ideas from theses and did a few samples to see how I would go about making this as a garment and if it was possible to make. I haven’t produced as many samples as I would have liked therefore in my next half of the project that will be a big aim so I can hopefully develop my skills and introduce more ideas. I didn’t realise that I could have thought outside the box and developed ideas that lead from one to another.
I think that comparing work from others in the group would be a big help as it allows others to give feedback which would help me improve and see my work from a different point of view.

3D workshop

My 3D workshop was my first workshop for the sampling unit. I have chosen Robust and Fragile as my chosen words. To start with I looked at materials and fabrics that could represent these words.I looked at designers for insperation for my workshop and developed ideas from there. Here are my first few samples and ideas for my workshop.

 experimenting with textures

 looking at layering fabric

 Burning different materials

Insperations for 3D workshop

Week One

My chosen words for the sampling project are robust and fragile. My first 3D workshop got me thinking straight away about how I was going to apply these words to my chosen workshop.

I started to look at designers such as Anne Sofi Madsen, Alexandra Verchueren, Una Burke and Sandra Blacklund.

A delicate garment by Anne Sofi Madsen, inspired me with ideas for the fragile side to my project

A very robust garment by Alexandra Verchueren, I really like the 3D repetitive shapes

Really drawn to this garment by Una Burke by how restricted it looks and the metal stoods

This garment by Sandra Blacklund really got my attention by the repeated shapes that give the garment a strong, robust look.

Reflection on Slouths Spies and Lies project

I found this project rather challenging as I was unsure about where to go with it from the start. I wasn't particularly sure about where I wanted to go with it and I lacked confidence with the work that I was producing and became very negative towards this project as I wasn't showing my best work. I definitely think that this showed through out my sketchbook as it lacked a lot of development and experimentation.
I didn't take as many photos as I should have done and should have taken the ideas that I produced at the start further instead of leaving them un finished. I should have taken more risked and done much more drawing to help my ideas flow more smoothly.
Although I didn't do as well as I could have done in this project I think that it has still been very beneficial to me as it has given me a much clearer idea about where I was going wrong and a better start towards my next project. The constructive criticism really helped point me in the right direction and I'm going to put this into practice with my next project. I know what I have to do to produce work at a higher level and how I will go about doing this. I will try to document my work more and do lots more experimentation with my workshops and understand that I need to take risks in order to move forward. The ideas that I produce in my sketchbook will be much clearer and I will document what inspired me to do this idea and where I am going to go with the idea instead of leaving it as a drawing. I understand that it is very important to realise what ideas worked and what didn't and why this has happened and that it is okay for things to go wrong as I have realised from this project as I have learned a lot from things not going to plan. After the feedback from my first project I am looking forward to starting the new project and challenging myself much more than I have been doing. 
I'm looking f

Drawing workshop - Task 2

I think that my sketch book shows that there is a pattern of development flowing through out my book. At first I was uncertain about where to start and how to go about starting my project and what to do in my sketch book. I definitely had the fear of the white page I always find it hard to start off a project. The first page became very intimidating and for a long time I didn’t know where to start. Once I did I was very unsure about my work which lead me to worrying about my first tutorial as I was embarrassed to show what I had done to others in my group and to talk about the problems I was having. Once I had had my first tutorial things changed once I had seen others work and spoke about what I was having trouble with, it gave me a burst of inspiration and I was able to continue with my project from a different perspective and from then on ideas came flowing and I branched off from idea to idea some of which didn’t work out well but this still helped me learn through my mistakes which I could improve on.

I think that the exercise that we did was very helpful but at first I was nervous about showing my work off to everyone else as I didn’t think that anyone would really understand as I think my work has a different style to everyone else’s which some people might not like but I realised that it was a very beneficial exercise that I gained a lot of confidence and ideas from. I think that the positive ideas that other people gave to me on how to improve my work was very helpful and I have taken these on board with my work.

One of the notes in my book said that my book flowed very well and that you could see my development well throughout my sketch book. I found this comforting because that was something that I was worried about with my project. To improve this I know that I have to annotate my work so that it makes it more clear where I got the inspiration from, why those colours etc. I don’t have any photos in my book as a lot of it is done from memory or emotions so I do agree that I need annotations to help explain my drawings. 

I also found that the drawing classes that we had really helped me with my drawings in my sketch book. I am particularly interested in mark making so the black and white drawing classes have been a big help with my work. I have also looked into my lectures to help me with my work for example the first lecture was looking at how people feel in the clothes that they wear, what they think when they wear those clothes and what others judge them by when looking at the colours etc. This linked in nicely with my project so I found this helpful and interesting when looking into this and then transferring the information into my sketch book through mark making.

Origins unit

For my project I chose Afflecks Palace. At the start of this project I didn’t have a problem with picking a topic for my project but it was more a case of how to get started that I found most challenging. The first thing that I did was visit Afflecks and take photos inside of the building but I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I did find it incredibly hard to get started and to narrow it down as to what I wanted to focus on as well as trying to relate it to the project brief. I know that I felt very lost when approaching this project and wasn’t entirely confident which I think reflected in my early stages of my sketch book. I was looking at the literal far too much my drawings were far too obvious and I wasn’t looking deep enough and trying to find out hidden meanings and look beyond the obvious. 
Below is one of my first sketches of one of the fashion stalls in Afflecks.  

I then started to look at the history of Afflecks and did research on the building itself.  This was very internet based research, it gave me some background knowledge on Afflecks but it wasn’t enough for me to fully respond to the research that I had collected as I found it too vague and again too obvious.

At this point I wasn’t feeling confident or happy with the minimal work that I was doing. I then went back to Afflecks and really thought about the project brief and what we were meant to be finding out and the discoveries that we were meant to be finding out. I found that I was very interested in the gothic, punk rocker fashion shops  that were based on most of the floors and there was plenty to look at and get inspiration from. I took some photos and also had a detailed look and stayed for a while in each of the shops studying the clothes, colours and materials that were used in the garments and foot wear. It suddenly appealed to me that I want to discover more about this stereotype ‘goths’ and why they wear what they wear. Why do they wear big leather coats? Why do they wear massive studs? Why is their main colour palate black? What does it say about them as a person? Are they really as intimidating as they seem? This gave me a burst of questions that I wanted to look deeper into and answer through my own investigation. Also to learn more about the culture, clothes, colours the people themselves.
Here are some responses to how I felt about the Gothic culture and my response to my first initial feelings about it. 

  I found that my first lecture was very helpful when I began to look into this as it was about material culture how we read from symbols and clothes, how these things can make us feel good or bad and how people and things relate. This again gave me a explosion of questions that I wanted to answer and I became very intrigued and interested in my project as I had many things to look into, to find out and develop. By this point I was feeling far more confident in what I was doing so I could now visualise and build up a picture of what I was investigating.

My chosen work shop was dye, fiber cloth. At first I was sceptical that I would be able to link this up to my project as I was unsure myself about what I was doing so again it was all a bit messy as I was un prepared for what I was doing. Once I had narrowed it down I found it rather easy to link the two together, I focused on the colour palate and used pictures that I had taken of the shops, clothes and objects around the shops to influence me. This also led me on to looking into the psychology of colour and what people think when they see a certain colour which I then related to my felt work by trying to create colours that I think represent the gothic culture.

Once researching what the colours mean I then put the respond to this research into my sketch book through mark makings and drawings using black and white media. My drawing classes also was a big influence when I started expressing my ideas onto paper as they made me realise that you just need to do it rather than think too much about what you’re doing. It allowed me to not be intimidated of working on small and larger scales, also working in a time limit which all were very helpful. This made me produce some interesting drawings and marks which I found really helpful and influential. I was content with how things were going at this point but I still felt like there was so much more that I could lift up from the surface, I had a urge to draw more and to look deeper than what was obviously there. 

From this is branched off and started to take a different approach from visual research as I felt that I wasn’t getting enough from just photographs alone. I decided to go to the shops and try on the clothes, I tried on the dresses, leather jackets and even the big black boots! I examined myself and wrote down the feelings that I felt when wearing the clothes and the dramatic change that It had on how I felt. I then transferred these emotions into my sketch book through mark making and drawings. I only used a black and white media as I thought that this would be a good starting point and I wanted to keep things simple and really focus on the marks rather than the colour. Actually being in the clothes and stood in the shop really helped me and was a big influence as I could actually respond to the feelings first hand instead of looking at a picture. The shop that I was in at the time was also very gothic and had what I would describe as violent, gothic posters that seemed to scream out a mixed message to me that I couldn’t quite understand. The environment was deffienetly one that I was not comfortable in and this I’m sure must have had an effect on my emotions which again helped me respond better in my sketch book. 
Here I looked at a different approach and looked at more delicate ways of expressing my mark makings from my research. I like the simplicity of this. 

From this I started to think of other ways in which I could find research and relate back to it.  I looked into music and how that linked into the gothic culture. I wanted to try and understand more about their culture and how they must feel. I didn’t want to stereotype them like many people do in my work so I spent a lot of time figuring out what it really is about them that makes them seem so mysterious. I began by listening to some very heavy metal music that I heard in a few of the shops that I went into when I was in Afflecks. I didn’t know what the song was when I heard it so I asked the man in the shop if he would tell me which is how I found out about this whole new scene of music. The first song, straight away made me feel very uncomfortable and on edge, I put this feeling into my sketch book and carried on creating marks as I listened to the music and remembered how I felt when I was in the shops.