Livingstone studio - 6 weeks in, only 3 left...

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here so far in London. I have felt very welcome by all the artists in residence and the gallery management. In terms of preparing for my 3rd year of uni, my inspiration is expanding quite well. My travels around London have been extremely helpful for primary research and it has given me a lot of time to go and explore more museums and galleries.

In the past 6 weeks I have been able to create a time plan and a diary of research gathered. This has helped m to determine and control the use of my time as i understand that for my 3rd year i'm mostly on my own! I will have to produce new innovative ideas for fabric with only the help of all my research from the summer, so i plan on making the most of it... i.e. seeing all the parts of London i possibly can (making the most of my travel card as well!) as the experience isn't going to come along again anytime soon and the price to get up to London isn't cheap, which i was originally aware of, luckily!

I'm not sure quite where i would like the research to go yet, as i know that i still have 3 weeks left in London so i feel that i can find a lot more interesting places, and plus i have all summer so who knows what the outcome will be?!

The gallery work has been great fun to create a better understanding of the textiles industry and to think about my possible future business in textiles. I have had the opportunity to meet and work in the same studio with some amazing designers. And also meeting the famous actress Emma Thompson when she came shopping in Livingstone studio one day.

M&S Lingerie design competition won!

Earlier this year i entered a design competition for Marks and Spencer lingerie limited edition collection. I have been informed today that my designs has won! Very exciting as it was my first competition entered during my time at uni. The designs are created using my own drawings and other digital manipulation inspired by S/S trends and my own research of textures and feathers.
These were the two designs that won: 

Final Unit Year 2

All done with 2nd year print and am happy with this years outcomes. The final unit was based on London and included a closer study of colour and print texture. Collage was the main use of texture and shape in my initial samples.

Now am currently starting an internship for 2 months at London's Livingstone studio, studying the business and creating my own research to go towards my final project in 3rd year of uni ! Time has simply flown by! 

2nd year Unit 1 complete... happy days

All done with the new unit for the second year... dragged out a little but was worth all the hard work. Quite pleased with the final piece although there's always room for improvement. The project was based around the idea of "compare and contrast" and so after doing some research and sketching i finally chose to work around a fox skull found in a wooded area where i live and some interesting feathers...

And so after 6 months of sketching, sampling i came up with a final art piece using Velvet, Silk Satin and Bamboo Silk and as the piece shows stages, as does the print itself and gradually begins to fall apart. And after being introduced to Devore this semester i can safely say that this technique has been abused alot but all for good purposes...

The piece is 3m tall ad 1.15m wide all together and overall uses 6m of different fabrics to create the different layers. the idea of a visualization was for it to be shown in the natural history museum as a representation of the stages of life and fragility of the objects within the museum, the green and earthy colours also take a part in creating a more natural element to the piece.

All prep work with this project can be found in "UCA Work"

That's a lot of icicles!!!...

Whilst on my way to uni this morning a just had to stop and take a picture of this amazing amount of icicles ... it continues along the bush about 5 meters! 

SNOW DAY!!

Enjoying a day off uni, outside in the snow with the dog :)

Year 1 Completed..

The year has flown by! I've learnt a lot already this year and have a lot more ahead of me in my 2nd and 3rd year at uni. I really enjoyed the last project in the 2nd semester, as i had the chance to go a little bit wild with all the new techniques I've been shown ... and i'm really pleased with the outcome I've created on fabric. Its been a whole new experience and has made me realize how much i need to step up in order to achieve the best in my final year. But for now, i'm going to enjoy and make the most of summer 2012...

Final Piece 1