week 8 (4/11/24) - (10/11/24)

 My first week back to college was a change of pace to the relaxing time I had during the half term.

I started off the week with Lareen where we learnt how to pattern panelled skirts and godets. This was difficult because we used the small pattern blocks and to create the pattern for the panels you add excess on both sides, so it corrugated together to make something a little bit confusing. However, after this part we then used the practice round that we did with the full blocks and transferred our knowledge onto actual patterns, separating the two halves of the block. The godet wasn't hard to understand but I had trouble making the curve symmetrical.

In the afternoon I took photographs using the idea of diagonals which I found fun. I tried to think of the different compositions that I could use and incorporated the human body to create subtle diagonals in the photos while using objects to be more obvious diagonals. I found it engaging but also a bit nerve-wracking because I had to take control of the people who I was taking pictures with (we worked in groups) making sure that I could get the poses that I wanted to and ensuring that they came out to the best of my abilities.

 

On Tuesday I spent my time in stretch sketching out and lining my final piece for my Poster for Project, this was a calm lesson where I spent the time that I needed in making sure the anatomy was as good as I could get it and that I was able to correctly draw all the small aspects like the flowers and roots. I found that this was a bit stressful because I'm not that great with anatomy, but I still wanted to make it have some semblance of realism in terms of proportion. I am happy with the result even if by the end of the lesson I had not finished the lining. At home I will complete that and them do some watercolour as a base of the poster, next lesson I will embroider on the paper to finish it off.

The most stressful part of the day was with Sam where I had to do a presentation (that I had prepped during half term and the start of the term) on Art Nouveau. The presentation had to last five minutes and I wasn't sure I would be able to make the presentation last that long because I didn't think I would know what to say. We were told not to read straight from the presentation of from cue cards, but I had neither, I spent the presentation remembering a basic format that I had written in and key points that I had put down so I could speak through the presentation without relying on the presentation at all since I didn't have cue cards. I managed to push through the challenge and my presentation did last at least 5 minutes. My feedback was mainly to make sure that the board was readable since the font was a bit hard to read. I had recognised this issue before I presented but I didn't have time to fix it beforehand. I will make sure to change the typeface immediately if I recognise that it is hard to read in future presentations.

 

Wednesday was a very interesting day because we went on a trip to visit the Design Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum to view the Barbie Exhibition and the Naomi Campbell Exhibition.

We first went to the Design Museum which hosted the Barbie Exhibition where we went through a thorough history of the doll from the first doll to the present. Throughout the exhibition we had to create drawings using techniques that we had used for our first assignment like continuous line and non-dominant hand. This was a little bit difficult because it was hard to choose what I wanted to draw, but I settled on focusing more on the clothes that Barbie wore. Going through the exhibition I was amazed by all the different details and notes that I could find of all the different promotional material and products. My favourite part was all the clothes which I found especially impressive due to the small size of the dolls. There were lots of bespoke type designs that focused more on artistic expression rather than showing casual wear but there were still a few that used a more normal daily fashion of the times that they were made. The last room was the most spectacular because it was covered in a silver like foil and filled with life-size outfits that you could also see on some of the dolls. However, what came to my attention was the few displays of the clothing and promotional material for the Barbie movie (2023). It was intriguing to see the outfits that I had seen on screen right in front of me and I could see the details in the designs that you couldn't quite see in the movie.

Our second and last stop of the day was going to the Naomi Campbell Museum where we also had to draw from what we saw in front of us. I found this exhibition a lot more interesting in a fashion sense than the Barbie exhibition because the Barbie exhibition was filled with a lot of nostalgia. I found myself stopping and appreciating the work done on the outfits and trying to capture different patterns and technical skill on my phone to put into my sketchbook. The first section of the museum was a history on Naomi Campbell's life with a voice over of her describing how she got into modelling and different things she had done. The second section was a big room filled with many different outfits that she had modelled in her career, carefully placed and displayed all around the walls of the room, leaving a big space in the middle that was partly filled up with a practice catwalk that was an optional activity that anyone could do. I really like all the different styles and technical work I found on the garments and the ways that the mannequins are posed to fit best with the outfit displays and express how Naomi Looked in the outfits.

 

On Thursday I worked on research for my zine that I must make for Lareen's class on Fibers and Fabrics. I am not too confident on my research because we are supposed to highlight and write notes about what we read but I have always noticed that I am terrible at this exact thing and tend to over highlight and not know what to write for notes. This is something I need to work on.

 

For my lesson with Sam on Friday we started work on repeat patterns as part of our work on making a wrapping paper in out project. This was an interesting yet simple activity because I had to pick out different patterns that I could find using a viewfinder and then all I had to do was mark them out using line without shading or colouring. After we had drawn 10 different ones we photocopied and cut out them all to start placing the patterns in different formats to create repeating patterns. This part was the most fun because I could simply move the different pieces together and achieve a completely different design.

The weekend was spent making sure my books and folders were up to date by sticking in all my work from the trip and patterns along with creating the (partial) panelled skirt for Lareen. The skirt was challenging because I hadn't been guided on the best order to sew the skirt together in, but I managed to figure it out after a lot of trial and error with pining and folding fabric to see how it would work. The Godets were the trickiest part trying to make sure I didn't sew through the wrong thing and create puckers in the skirt. I did notice that the pieced were just slightly uneven, but I could have manipulated it properly if I would have sewn all the way down the piece. In the future I will pin from the bottom in this scenario or anything similar where I don't sew all the way down. This will help keep my pieced more accurate and well made.