Mats Bootcamp February Mini - Magnolia's

I have always adored Chinoiserie, so much so that I would love to create my own. Imagine how utterly elated I was then, when I discovered that for this months mini exercise in Bootcamp my mission was to paint magnolia’s.

I decided for that reason that I’d like to keep my flowers for this assignment relatively representational and I thoroughly enjoyed getting back into my watercolour paints, after several months of learning new processes in the textile print room at college. I also decided to try two new colours that have been sitting in my palette all this time and yet I never use them!

Admittedly, I probably don’t have time to develop this into a Chinese style wallpaper design just yet, but most certainly have visions of coming back to it in future months.

My Mats Prep for Bootcamp 2019

Hooray! It’s here again, the inevitable anticipation is over and our first ‘mini’ assignment has been released. Bootcamp with Lilla Rogers has to be one of the creative highlights of my year!

We get a week to work on a little warm up exercise before we’re given the main assignment. We then have 2 weeks until sharing our work in an online public gallery. Then a weeks rest before the cycle starts all over again and so it continues for four marvellous months of incredible inspiration with a group of kind, talented and wonderful artists, many of whom like me, come back year after year. There’s always a fabulous mixture of old and new faces alike and a buzz of excitement which is quite contagious.

Before the class begins, Lilla always posts a little preparation exercise or two. This time we had to collect a variety of objects from around our homes to create a colour palette from. That’s a photo of mine below. I’ll be sharing updates of my work from the assignments over the next few months so feel free to follow along.

BA Textiles - Preparing for Year 3 Submission

I haven’t posted much for a few months and that’s quite simply because I’ve been absolutely snowed under with work. Switching from Illustration to Textiles and Surface Design for the Final Year of my degree has been such a massive learning curve, it’s utterly wonderful to learn something new, but at times it has also felt overwhelming. I’m now in my last week before having to submit the entire body of work I’ve created in the last few months. Our module has been all about Innovation and Experimentation. Quite honestly, each and every new process I’ve learnt… and there have been quite a number of them, has for me been experimental in itself. There are so many new skills to learn and get up to speed with, from seemingly simple things such as how to make a collection cohesive to different dye techniques and fabric surfaces and a huge variety of different technical processes. Gradually, very gradually I am getting there, although I still have a huge amount to learn.

For now though, I thought I would leave you with a development on my New Year design which has sparked so many new creative ideas of its own.

Happy New Year 2019!

There is something so cathartic about this time of year. It always feels to me like the opportunity for new beginnings, a fresh start. There’s a lot of change ahead in this crazy world of ours, but may the coming year be full of joy, love, friendship and many blessings. Happy New Year!

BA Textiles: Experiments With Geometrics

With the year nearly over and the first term of the final part of my degree complete, I have a great deal to reflect upon. Choosing to take this final year in Surface Pattern Design has been an enormous undertaking, as I get my head around different processes and industry terminology. My actual ‘hand-in’ date isn’t until the end of January, so over the next month I’m hoping that all my work since September will start to come together. It feels as though I’m a long way off realising the briefs requirements at the moment.

Ultimately, it will all culminate in two very different collections of 10 pieces, a sketchbook, a fabric swatch book, a customer board and inspiration board and among other things, 2 final visualisation boards . The module is all about experimentation and for me virtually each and every process in the workshop spaces has been an utterly new experience. I’ll share some of those pieces over the coming weeks. But for now, I thought I’d begin by showing you some of the simple geometric collection I’ve been working on. Geometrics are quite a departure from my normal work and I’m not entirely comfortable with them. Some are created by hand and some I’ve learnt to create digitally in Photoshop. It’s made me realise how much I miss my trusty old paintbrush and watercolour paints though and I’m looking forward to reacquainting myself with them in the New Year!

Etsy On the Horizon ...

It has been absolutely sweltering hot in my little studio and since my windows don't actually open I have been slowly melting, add children's school holidays into the mix and the result is not a lot has been getting created!  However, I have been managing to rework some of my existing images in the cooler evenings while mulling over the idea of preparing to open an Etsy shop in the near future.  For now, here's my little folk tin with an update all of its own, including a new background!