Dialogue ignites change

Today we received our new project which is dialogue ignites change. We started by going on a heritage trail around Stockport lead by Kevin Dranfield, a member of the Stockport Heritage Centre. It was really interesting to see all the landmarks around the area that I wasn't aware of, and learn about how it used to be in the past. Then in the afternoon we met with Mark and Alice from Educate. I really enjoyed the talk and it really helped to get rid of the stereotypical idea of dementia and let go of any preconceptions.
The project brief is to create a piece of imagery based on an anecdote from a conversation with someone from the Whitehill Resource Centre,which is a day care for people with dementia, for Age Uk. I'm really looking forward to the project after today.

Final print

These are close ups of the characters and a photo of most of my final wallpaper print. Apart from a few bumps along the way, it went fairly smoothly and I am pleased. Overall, I've really enjoyed the project, as I think I do much better when I have a final outcome to work to.

Half-Finished Print

These are photos of my wallpaper beginnings. With the background droplet repeat printed in blue, and the middle layer of the frames and coral in brown. So far it has been fairly simple to do, although very time consuming. It is the first time I have enjoyed printing in my whole art based education. I am worried the final layer with the character on will be a little more difficult to line up with the current design.

Final character designs

Horse, octopus and jellyfish final designs. Done in pencil and fineliner. I am really happy with how these came out, and when I put them in photoshop with my other elements they turned out just as I imagined. Let's hope printing is equally successful.

Idea generation - characters

These are some rough ideas for my 3 characters, and exploration for the underwater theme.

David Foldvari

My tutors are probably getting sick of the sight of David Foldvari's work in my research. I've been taking influence (in a slightly obsessive way) for years. I love his use of line, and the odd addition of colour, and for my final character drawings will use this style.

Picture Frame Element

I used pencil then went over roughly in fine liner to draw these frame ideas. I will use the last one for my design by making it first look more professional in photoshop.

Background

After drawing a variety of symbols/ideas to repeat for the background of my wallpaper I decided on the image below as it looks decorative but still simple enough to not overpower the paper. I plan to use a light blue for this layer.

Wallpaper planning

My rough idea for the wallpaper is a background that reflects the underwater theme, and then frames containing my different characters which are the Sea Horse, a jellyfish and an octopus. I will post the progress.

Edward Bawden

I really love Bawden's handmade, hand-printed style. These images are all papers, and have been done as colour hand-prints in distemper from lino blocks on paper. They all have their own little narrative which is why I have chosen his work as an influence. The vintage feel and neutral colours are exactly what I have in mind for my own design.

William Morris

 William Morris is probably one of the most influential and well known textile designers of all time, but especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I myself have not seen one image of his work that I haven't found incredibly stunning. The intricacy and detail is astounding. This and the colour schemes are what I applied in my own design.

3D Final

Here's my final creation! Thankfully it went better than expected.

Plush Toy

One of the suggestions for the 3D part of the project during the briefing was a plush toy, and when researching methods I found I was always drawn to these the most. The pin cushions on the Mieke Williams site by Renilde particularly caught my eye. However I was a bit reluctant at first as I have pretty much steered clear of anything to do with sewing since I had an incident with a sewing machine in a textiles class when I was 13. I thought I'd give it a go anyway so had a look online for examples of handmade horse toys to get me started.

Wallpaper

I also made a little wallpaper sample book in some free time with the leftovers from the prototype development so thought I'd pop it on here.

Prototypes

I started the 3D process by making some prototypes out of wallpaper samples (due to the project subject I thought it appropriate, also I work at b&q so very easy to get to) in the shapes of other characters from the story I told in the summer project brief. It went alright in the end but I did struggle with stuffing them as they are quite small scale so with my horse design I will make it bigger. Also, I think I'll use felt for my sea horse as I imagine it'll be a lot quicker and easier to work with. Though, overall, I enjoyed the process.

Mieke Willems

Mieke Willems is the name of a shop in Belgium owned by Mieke Verbijlen and Veronik Willems. They collect quaint little trinkets and items that they restore or give new life to from ebay, vintage shops etc. It's really inspiring work as they make something so simple into something wonderful, without much complication or time. I considered taking influence in this way, by making things out of materials you wouldn't necessarily think about.

Readymech

Readymech

Readymechs are free, flatpack toys for you to print and build. They are designed to fit on an 8.5"x11" page and printed with any printer. You’ll need double-sided tape, thick matte paper, and 10-15 minutes for build time.

http://www.aboutus.org/ReadyMeCh.com

These are small, beautifully designed paper craft toys. Most of them are strange colourful creature designs, so it is similar to the subject of my project.

As amazing as they are, I don't think I'll be working this way as, first of all, making a horse would be quite difficult to do in a net format, and I'd like the way I'd make the horse to be more reflective of its beauty that is described in the book.

3D

The first part of the brief is to create a 3D character of one of the characters from the book. However, as I'm not usually very good at working this way, I wasn't sure what method to use. I began by researching different artists to get some ideas.

Sense of Place - Imaginary Beings - Narrative Surface