Research

The look: Gothic fashion revived
We’re drawing from traditional notions of Gothicism, not the Gothic subculture of more modern times. It’s an important distiction: the look isn’t about smudged eyeliner and the addition of tough, punkish details. It rises up from the shadows with flawless, porcelain skin and blood red lips. The starting point is that cold beauty, paired with a sharply androgynous velvet suit or a vampishly feminine black lace number – and the imagination grows wild from there. If you look at the female archetypes in Gothic fiction and fairytales, there’s the virginal maiden and the evil queen. Fall 2012′s fashion trend can draw inspiration from both, but when we’re looking at dark, noir themes it’s the latter that wins out. Frida Giannini typified the theme with her fall 2012 collection for Gucci. Hair was wild and flowing with a twist, lips stained berry red. Billowy sheer fencing blousons, tuxedo jackets and capes were married to voluminous jodhpur pants and riding boots. The feminine contingent at Gucci was darkly ethereal: rich velvet off-the-shoulder gowns and creeping black embellished vines across sheer floor-grazing gowns were some runway highlights. Alberta Ferretti headed to the dark side for fall, but she took her trademark delicate touch with her. Black lace and textured gowns were constructed around structured – but not too strict – Victorian bodices. Black leather accents featured heavily, as they did for Diane Von Furstenberg. And who could imagine this list of neo-Gothic proponents without Givenchy? Enter the mind of Riccardo Tisci and you could lose yours in his dark imagination. Tisci’s collection was dreaming of Dracula, shadowy figures and brooding Victorian castles. The masculinity tailored outfits – more jodhpurs and riding boots, paired with silk high-necked shirts and pallid skin – rode in on a 19th century literary storm. Channel them, and you can too.

Drawing a day

Over the christmas period we we're asked to do some drawing work in relation to our data project, I kept to my shadows theme and tried to record the differences in the types of shadows. I used lace and doiles that I'd reflected on the wall and then tried to draw from the shadow I also diluted ink and sprayed onto the lace. I tried to make my own lace by cutting into paper I think this was one of my less successful drawings because I think they looked more like snowflakes and was verging on christmas decorations. Here are a few pictures of my successful and not so successful drawings.

What is design?

Design is about enabling ideas, processes and products: making them approachable, usable, desireable and memorable. — JAY DUTTA

I absolutely agree with this quote I think there is more to design than just idea I think design has a lot of different meanings for different people. For me design is about an initial idea which changes with lots of different inspiration and influence along the way. It's like a journey that starts as a small seed and grows with different ideas that contribute to it. I love to look at my final result and then remember right at the beginning the first thing that gave me the idea and remember the long journey that got me to my final outcome. everything around us is design from nature to man made objects. Usually in shops and gallerys we always see the final outcome and not the journey or the initial idea but sometimes its just nice to imagine the journey yourself. I think design inspires everyone it something that makes everyone feel something for me its like an escape to something I love to do something that makes me happy.

An interesting website I found about design http://desizntech.info/2009/05/do-you-know-what-is-design-41-answers-to-one-simple-question/

Shop report

I thought this was a good task to do because it helps you to have a look at what's in fashion on the high street at the moment. I went into Zara, M&S, French Connection and Selfridges. The trends that I'd noticed were lots of floral prints and lace I also noticed lots of figure flattering garment silhouettes such as peplum tops and pencil skirts. I also noticed there was a lot of embellished clothing I think this was because of the festive season. The colours that I came across on the shop report were yellows, navys, greens and pinks mainly a variety of colours in prints. I thought this was nice because of the winter period here being quite dull and cold I thought the prints in the shops make the shopper feel happy because they don't reflect the weather outside.

Cutting Edge Exhibition Manchester Art Gallery

I went to see the cutting edge exhibition with one of my friends and I have to say it was one of my favourite exhibitions I have been to. The way the artists had cut into the paper in a really intricate way. One of my favourite artist was Andrew Singleton's stellar spiral in the eagle nebula, i really enjoyed this one because not just the art work inspired me the shadows that it left on the wall also really inspired me It showed another side to how the art could work beyond the object itself. I thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition because fistly it was beautiful and secondly it gave me inspiration for my data project as I have decided to use shadows and light in my project. I have selected a few favourite images from my visit.

Evaluation of Origins unit

I started off my project by diving head first into research in inspiration. The reason for this is because I feel it helps you figure out your taste and also artists work can help you influence what you do next. I’ve tried to check back with my research and also keep it as an on-going process whilst I do my own work, I have tried to use the research I’ve used but I’ve also tried to put my own spin on the designs and introduce the things that I have created myself.

                I tried to choose the pieces of work that I felt strongest about to take further and develop for example my print samples I have tried to layer them and combine them together to differentiate between my samples and give them a variation I also used my edited images of Photoshop because I felt that they are very rich in colour and catch your eye so I decided to work into it by sticking them on A2 sheets and then introducing paint and line drawings into it. Looking at designers and work that’s inspired me it helped me to choose backgrounds for my prints and helped me with a colour scheme, I think this influence was good because it helped me keep to my specific colour scheme so now looking at my work I feel you can clearly see I have chosen a specific colour scheme. Having said this, I have used artists as influence but also used what I though myself would add to my work and what I think would look good. I’ve also tried a variation by using already made backgrounds and also made my own.

           I’ve noticed that in this project I am very peculiar about keeping my work neat and organised I usually try keeping my work looking pretty and pleasing to the eye but during this project and also contextualising practise lectures and work I have been doing for that has made me think about how not being so perfect about my work could actually make it look better and thinking about other ways to approach my objectives such as surrealism.

Photoshop image exercise

To make these images I used images that I'd just found on google, I layered images on top of one another and experimented with the layer style and layer opacity. I also played with the hue and saturation by using the colours from my colour palette and then layered them up and finally used the eraser tool to rub out an image and reveal the one underneath. I really enjoyed this exercise I think the results you get are really pretty if I was to go back and do something else I think I'd use more images and make more and then go on to print it out digitally and then take it even further by taking it into the print room and use them as a background but I still feel that these images work beautifully just as a picture.

An Islamic Art Exhibition

Today I went to the islamic Art Exhibition at the muslim heritage centre. I thought this was a very inspirational exhibition firstly as a young muslim artist myself I feel their aren't enough muslim artists that stand up and show their work and have enough recognition, I think this exhibition has supported and gave artists in islamic community confidence. I also think this exhibition was a good research source for my project as some of the work showed the repeat patterns and colours I've been working on in my own work here are a few pictures that I've taken at the exhibition and I must say my favourite artist from the exhibition has to be Yusuf Ali, his use of riffles and guns to make a beautiful butterfly is very clever it makes something so ugly and violent look so beautiful it shows the importance people give to guns.

Print room

This week I went into the print room it was quite enjoyable. I got a lot of work done, I used lots of different types of materials which meant I could layer two and then print because some of the fabrics where thinner which made it more quicker and efficient.

Photoshop exercise

For this photoshop exercise we used our colour palette to make the colour swatches and I also scanned in some hand painted designs that I'd made and turned them into brushes on photoshoped. I used various tools on Photoshop such as gradient tool and the brushes. I created different repeat patterns to keep with the theme or arabian nights. I liked this technique because I like the fact you can use hand drawn effects with photoshop. finally we chose one and sent it to the digital printers to have it printed on to fabrics.