Week Eight

I am a bit disappointed this week. I have been ill and have been signed off work for two weeks as I have got a trapped nerve in my neck and am finding it hard to do much. I wanted to get quite a lot of my project done this week and just haven’t been able to. I wanted to do another photo shoot this week with the wedding dresses, and I wanted to photograph my samples in the studio. I still need to do this and am going have to book in. I wasn’t sure where to go with my project after doing my samples, so I spoke to Lorna and Janet to see what they thought. They suggested looking through my photographs and seeing how they could fit onto the figure. I am not very good at drawing the figure so I think I am going to use Photoshop to layer the body with the images of my samples. I can cut out the sections I need and layer them up to create some kind of garment. This will show what I am thinking of doing, even if they are not of a high enough standard to use for illustrations. I can put them in my sketch book for ideas. This may help me to think of where to go next. I wouldn’t mind not even having a final garment for the show. I would like some photography if it is good enough. Or even a sculptural piece which I can show could be used as a garment but in the show it is just shown with some photographs. I will just have to see how things develop. I am not that confident at using the materials I have chosen. The different wires and meshes. They are not something I am used to. I am glad that I am experimenting but I am finding it difficult to show what I would like, and to think of how I could transform them into a wearable piece. As I am not used to working with the materials I don’t think I would be able to make something suitable for someone to wear, as it would either fall apart, or even hurt them. Luckily it won’t be needed for a catwalk. Once I have done some Photoshop images of my ideas using my photographs, I think I need to upscale them. I could use the mannequins and papers and cardboard, to show them almost in “real life” or “real scale” I could then use these to help work out whether my ideas are going to work on the figure or whether I’m best sticking to photographs and a sculptural piece. In my samples I have used papers, plastics, wire and metal mesh. So in the Marquette’s on the mannequin I can use different papers and card for the different materials, if I get something of similar properties, I will be able to work out which work best. I cannot buy the mesh and wire before I know what will work as it is too expensive to waste on testing and sampling ideas. The mesh I used for my small samples was £4.99 for an A4 sheet. You can get them in A3 sizes, or you can order other amounts if you ring up and speak about what you need. But it would cost a lot to make something at the scale to fit the body so I need to be sure it will work before I order anything. Something which I have got done this week is my portfolio ready for interview. I sat with Andréa and went through my work from this course and the BTEC to see what was suitable to take. I have re scaled some work down to fit into my A2 portfolio as there wasn’t much point in carrying an A1 for just a few sheets work. Also with my bad neck I wouldn’t be able to! I have also found work from my final major project on the BTEC course and mounted it up, as when I did the project I didn’t have anything on sheets it was all loose, or up on the wall for the show. This is the best work I have done, and something which I am most proud of so I wanted to show what I had done. I think I might redo the shoot from the project. The images I have I do like, so I would do them the same. They are on just a black background and the model has geisha make up to match the Japanese theme of the project. The only problem with the images is that on the ones I have, you can see some of the background as I used fabric not paper. And some of the makeup isn’t perfect either. But I think that if I was to use the photography studio they could look really amazing. When we do the fashion shoot for the wedding dresses I will try to do that at the same time so that I have help off other people and they should come out really professional. I have ordered some photo books this week. They are done online, you upload the images you want to include in the book, and they get printed up and sent back. I have done two with my samples in from the project to go with my work. And I have then done two of the wedding dress glam rock project to show that we did the show. With it being a quick project that we did and wasn’t something included with my own work, I hadn’t got any sheets to show the time I had spent on the dress, so I thought that if I don’t get time to mount anything up, I can take these books to interviews and talk through what I did. They should also look very neat and professional.