Unit X so far

I have really enjoyed doing Unit X, my favourite part was working in Hotspur, it is such a good space to work in. Everywhere you look you will find something new and different. I feel I have expressed myself and delivered a lot of ideas. My development of my soap has been up and down but I am really happy at the point I am at now. I think my work is really strong and the theme of Planets and Space has been well executed. I have enjoyed working alongside other course such as Fine Art; I have made a really good friend in Fine Art who allowed me to show my work at her exhibition at Antwerp Mansion, that was a great experience. Having different opinions from a Fine art student and a textiles student on my work has been really helpful as I get two completely different views.

Interrogation Manchester has been fun, finding new places, meeting new people and having brand new experiences. It was a great way to end my first year. I feel I put everything in to it and i would not change anything.

Fish eye effect

I have just created my own fish eye effect on my camera using a piece of cardboard the results are better than I could have planned. I am really happy with the images. I love how it is a circle as it links in with the planets. It is almost like the planet is made up with extremely large rocks, which also links in with project as I have been using strange and unusual objects. The images with the curves soap structure have been most successful and as it curves with the circle. The colours have also been successful, as i looked at the photograph on the NASA website it had a lot of purples and golden colours and in these photographs the hint of purple makes it look more magical. The soap was actually just photographed in front of a white background so the colours from the soap must have made the slight hint of purple. I love the small shadows some images have. One thing I need to work on with to make sure the circle does not move and is always in the same place, it was difficult doing this with a piece of cardboard so I need to stop it from moving. In my final piece I need to figure out if i want the images to be side by side and a lot of black or if they are all individual cut up and they have a hint of background colour also. I will test out both options. I want a large amount of photographs in my final piece, as I feel this will make more of an impact and from a distance they will all look like floating planets. 

Space Geology

(Earthlike Planets)Surfaces of Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars.

Bruce Murray-Micheal C.Malin-Ronald Greeley

These are images I have found while looking at books on objects found on the Moon, such as rocks, ice and NASA machinery. These images are similar to the ones I want do for my final piece, very close to the floor and like they are on a small robot with a camera on the end. I like how all the rocks seem large, are you actually very big? Alternatively, is it the angel of the camera? One thing I have taken inspiration from by looking at these images is the horizon on them. I have never really thought about this. I will now consider this in my photographs. These images have a lot of depth, which I would like in mine to. Looking at factual books like this has helped me gain knowledge on space and the Moon, also help on my photographs, If i use the rocks as soap it will make this situation look a lot more unusual and strange. Makes the viewer think is this real of not. I like how the colours between the real thing and mine are going to be so different, makes it more interesting.

NASA

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html

Now I have an idea of where i want my final piece to go, with the fisheye lens photographs of my soap, I need to start thinking about how and what I want to photograph. I started looking at the NASA website to look at the images they have, I choose these four as the top two have a nice circle quality within them, which I want in my own work. The last image is the style I am aiming for in my work; with have the black outer ring. The reason I like the fisheye effect is it really has a space effect, it is in a planet shape and it curves like a planet. In my work, I am photographing the soaps, which look unusual and look as if they have just come of the moon. With photography, I can make it look as if they are on the moon. I have put the third image on here to look at as I love the colours, many of my soaps are just green and I need to start looking into my colours. I love the pink and golden colours.

This is my own image, I have tried to make the fish eye lens with lighting, however it is to subtle. I want it to be a lot bolder. I can do this with photoshop of a fish eye lens.
This kind of photography is the way i want to go. With soap on the ground looking unusal, it looks like it could be on the moon. My final piece will be made up on hundreds of images like this.

Brendan Dawes

I went to Brendan Dawes lecture in the second week of Unix X,   The piece I can remember the most seeing was called Cinema Redux. Which is a collection of stills from films. Every second a  finger print from a film is taken. Each line represents 1 minute from the film. I really love the idea, however I am more interested in the lay out of the Cinema Redux. I have now decided to photograph my soap, doing an instillation with the 3d soaps was not working as much as i hoped, the soap was not looking as if it would be in space or on the moon and with photography I can do that. My photography of the soaps is more successful and can portray the space theme even more. I have started photographing the soap with a fish eye lens which is successful, it reminds me of the cameras put on the moon on a robot slowly moving across the moon. I am going to photograph the soap with a fish eye lens and lay the photographs out in a very similar way to Brendan Dawes, I love the way the fingerprints are so small the only way to see what is happening is to look in very close. I am also really interested in scale.

I have included my notes from the lecture, as i found it hugely inspiring, and it shows more of his work.

Circle of Soap.

I have continued using the aluminium rods, but now i have started making them into circle shapes. I much prefer the circle shape compared to the organic line structure.  The ring of soap reminds me of planetary rings, so it really relates to space. However looking at the ring up at Hotspur makes me think if my work will really work well as an instillation. The ring is a really interesting object however when it is floating in space like it is, your attention is not fully on the ring. The eye is distracted by the objects all around it. Photography may be the best way to make each soap sculpture really interesting, also there would be no distractions, unless I wanted that.

3D Soap Sculpture.

I have done something very similar to this already, however it was not as 3D as i would have hoped. I wanted the piece to be more unusual and have more to look at. So the one i made to hang has less to look at against this piece. I got a aluminium rode and shaped it very organically. I then cut up a bar of soap and then put them in the microwave. When the soap was still very hot I threaded them onto the rod. It looks really unusual and goes with my fantasy space like theme very well as it really just looks so strange. As it is so 3d you can move around it and see it in different angles. Each time you look at it, it will most likely be different. I am going to get more rods and develop this idea some more. 

Soap Structure.

I have developed my soap by reconstructing it and playing around with scale. How I did this was by cutting the soap into small section and then putting it in the microwave, They then expand triple it original size, which i then cut it in half again. With the smaller pieces I then connected them all together with a needle and thread. This connection of soap is around 1 meter and a half, however it is only made up by 2 bars of soap. I like the idea of having the soap which is usually small and making it unusually long, and begins to not even resemble soap. As my idea is to make a fantasy land, something nobody has seen before, I thought about having these long strips floating above my soaps on the floor. I am now imagining having a small space inside Hotspur full of strange and magical  objects. This structure to me seems to 2d and I want something more 3d, having more to look at. 

F A C E S

 Last night i went to the Kraak Gallery to see the F A C E S mcr event. As soon as i stepped in to the building i was ask to have my photograph taken, which would mean i could be part of mass living installation with all the faces of Manchester. The part of the night is to bring everyone together and for everyone to be part of something big. I heard about the night from the posters shown all around Hotspur. I am really glad i went, it was full of artist each doing their own thing, which was really inspiring. One artist asked people to put their face into a photocopier and then put the copy on the wall, which was both funny and also looked really good. Live music was also on which made the night a really relaxing. A huge projector was on the wall  which was going threw lots of peoples Facebook profile pictures, which was really cool to see more so  the peoples you don't know, feels like you are spying and looking into someone's life uninvited. The night was really interesting and inspiring, it was good to meet other people in the art community.

Composition of Soap.

Today i have started experimenting with the composition of the soaps on the floor of Hotspur.  The floor contrasting with the dirty damaged floor against the clean bright soap. The dints in the floor remind me about the surface of the moon, which I need to start looking more into as it links so well. In my piece I really want to create an out of this world environment. I now need to start my video of me making bubbles to have projected. I looked back at my work and I was really upset to leave the laughing gas and do nothing with them so i have decided to hang them to record the noises they make. The noise will hopefully sound really unusual and go with the rest of my work. I don't want them to go to waste.

CV

Beth Robinson

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Email Address:

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Skills

I am currently studying Textiles in Practice at Manchester Metropolitan University. I am a highly motivated and hardworking person with a positive attitude. I consistently gain a reputation as an outward going and lively worker with focus on customer service. I am always looking for new challenges and I will be a great asset to your establishment due to my positive attitude and confident people skills.

 

Education

Manchester Metropolitan University- Textiles in Practice: 2011-2014

Newcastle College: 2010-2011

Art & Design Diploma – Merit

Cramlington Sixth Form: 2008-2010

Art & Design-C

Photography-B

Cramlington Community High School: 2005-2008

Art & Design-B

Graphics-B

Awards

2011-I was set a summer project after finishing sixth form to bring to Manchester, The Project was to create a dog. My dog won first prize for being the most outrageous Dog. I was very proud of my Achievements.

Work Experience

Mike Rogerson Estate Agents: 2010- For my work experience I choose to work in my local estate agents. I was trusted with the job of updating the website, marketing and promoting properties for sale, Answering Phone calls and helping customers in the shop. I enjoyed having a different task every day.  I got experience in talking to customers and working within a team.

The Holcombe Inn: 2010- I had a summer job working as a waiter, Chambermaid and bartender. Before I went to work in the hotel, I was inspired by Sophie Calle’s work “The Hotel, Room 46”1986. I took a set of photographs of people’s rooms while they were still staying there and when they left, which were interesting. I gained skills in Time management, Multi-Tasking skills and People skills. I really enjoyed being under pressure; this is when I work best.

Reference

Adeline-Foundation lecturer-  Newcastle College, Rye Hill Campus, Scotswood Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE4 7SA

Telephone Number: 0191 200 4000

Kate Egan-Textiles in practice course leader- Oxford Road, Manchester M15 6BH

Telephone Number- + 44 (0) 161 247 1324

Tutorial.

After having my tutorial I want to look more into rocks and space. The soaps look very out of this world and space like. I am going to record me blowing bubbles and creating a pattern which could be interesting to place on top of the soap. As I am going to look at space and the moon, I think it would be appropriate for me to put my soaps on the floor like they would be found on the moon, with some floating.

I now want my final piece to be out of this world and very strange. It is so contrasting compared to the urban Manchester.

Developing the Soap

I have started to half the soap using a piece of thread. The inside is really interesting as you can see the big and small bubbles.  The green soap when cut in half turned out the most successful, i do not know if this is because it has more surface area or it is because of the kind of soap. Inside the green soap looked very flaky. There were a few really big holes alongside some very small ones, I really like the contrast. The white soap was very different in the middle compared to all the others; It was more spongy than flaky. The green soap was very hard to touch as it would just break to pieces easily; however the white soap is a lot harder. Next I am going to experiment to colour. One thing i really want to do is inject some colour into the soap (pre microwave) and then microwave it and see what happens. I have no clue so such be interesting.

Fantasy Landscape

Today I tried out a fantasy landscape with my soap; I used an image I took of the some bubble I made in a bag. The bubbles acted as a sky, which looks very unusual, very much like a candy floss sky. The green soap was the bright green fields, the soap was good as fields as they have many dints and groves and not many fields and soft and smooth. I slowly started to add some of my smaller white soap samples to use for soft fluffy clouds. The part I think works best is the picture i used for the sky and the white fluffy clouds. I do really like all the colours together, like the bright greens and purples contrasting really well alongside the popping white.

Grated soap experiment.

I took my grated soap to Hot Spur today to film it with a different background, something more subtle. It is good to use soap in such unusual way. Ways people would never even think about when they think about soap. I want the audience not to automatically realise that it is soap so i played around with with and first grated it and then put in it the microwave. I am playing around with things at the moment and try to find something that totally excites me. This at the minute is not fully exciting me.
One thing I got from the footage is that I love the idea of people not even knowing that it is soap. The background is such a contrast to the soap which is so clean, white and fresh compared to the ground is so dirty, old and has a lot of history.

Soap Experiment.

I am trying to use soap in very unusual ways, in the case I grated a bar of soap and put it in the microwave. The little stands of soap expanded but did not stick together which is really cool. I have has the grated soap in a jar for a while and I was really unsure about what to do with it. I have got more and more interested in video so I decided to film an action shot of the soap. My project is on making the ordinary extraordinary and when you think about a bar of soap you think still, white and boring and this film is the total opposite. I will be going to Hotspur tomorrow as i do not like the purple back ground and hotspur have many unusual walls to film this against. I filmed this by pouring the soap on to a fan and tomorrow I may just throw the soap in all different ways. I am experiment a lot to see what looks best.

Karla Black

Since seeing Karla Blacks work I have been hugely inspired. The way the materials are being used just for the way it looks, feels and smells. Karla Black says she does not use these materials for any other reason other than for its substance, So it does not link to feminism or cleanness, purely just because it is always different in each city and it will all be made different. 

What I am interested in with Karla Blacks work is how she uses something so mundane and something we use every day and make it so special. Nigel was telling me to make my soap sculptures into a fantasy landscape and I feel this was maybe too literal and when I look at Karla Blacks work, it is magical. The sculptures are almost like magical landscape, as the colour just floats. The pieces look little floating magical land found in the clouds.  The colour is so important in Karla Blacks work as if the colours were too bright harsh pink it would look completely different and tell a completely different story. With my soap sculptures, that is taking something so every day, making it special, and showing people something new, not many people have seen what happens when you put soap in a microwave. Karla Black uses materials such as bath bombs, toothpaste and face creams, which are all everyday objects, but she turns them into something you would never think these boring objects could be. I love the idea of turning something so dull and every day and making it something so special and something you will never forget as I did with Karla Blacks work.

One thing i have been thinking a lot about is if I want my final piece to be a video.

I want the magical aspect, and I feel it would come across better in a video.

Daniel Wurtzel

I just came across this truly magical piece of work, it is so magical to watch and it really reminds me of the video I watched with the floating clouds of bubbles. I know this is yet another idea but the idea of free-floating objects, wind, and air i am going to stick with. This links in with the first couple of objects that I collected with the Laughing gas. I can look into making a floating cloud. I am excited by this idea and am so motivated to experiment with this. What I like about this is how it pulls you in and cannot take your eyes off it. The lighting is very important in this work and the material. It is so light it move in amazing ways. It is so sensational and seductive. One thing I liked about the soap is how unpredictable it was, you would never know what shape it would turn into, and this is the same thing. I t will make so many different shapes, some good and some not so good. The piece of material almost reminds me of a cloud in the sky as it just floats around and the same as you could watch a cloud for hours you can do the same with this floating piece of material. 

In this work, it is making something so ordinary and dull into something truly amazing and magical. Therefore, this is one thing I can do to link into Manchester I can find something as dull as rubbish and turn it in to something people will love and will want to watch for hours. I like the idea of my work constantly changing.

I am very excited about this and will starting experimenting as soon as possible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP3fYcCtPRQ

Tutorials

Today I had my Tutorial with Nigel; it did not go as well as I hoped. The problem with my work and the way I work is that I do not know how to control my ideas and I get bored of one idea very quickly. Although all my ideas are very different in my opinion they all link, some not in an obvious way, but that is only because they look very different. For example the Laughing gas and the soap in the microwave, I got from one idea to the other by being more interested in the gases in the canisters more than the actual silver object. I became very interested in the idea of creating a bubble that will never pop and when you place a bar of soap in to a microwave, it expands and bubbles. Therefore, they look so different but clearly link. I am worried people will not see this and think my mind is just jumping all around the place.

One thing that was mentioned in the tutorials about my work is it does not seem to have a meaning and it may look good and unusual but so what if it has no meaning. This has really knocked my confidence and I am now trying to think of one. One suggestion was a fantasyland and I understand this as my soap is very cartoon like and seems very magical. However, I am a little worried that this idea has been done too much and I want to do something very fresh and new. However, this could be my mission, to bring the idea of a fantasyland back to life and I do not want my work to be at all cheesy or tacky. I also do not want to be obvious. Manchester is quite obviously not every ones fantasy land, so I need to think if I want to be a grungy fantasy which would fit well with Manchester, or I could do it as a Manchester has little innocence so I’m bringing it here with my work. This could even be done with images and photography and not so literal than the soap and bubbles.

The tutorial helped me ton down my ideas and pick out the best that I have, however it has knocked me a little but I will come back with a lot more interesting ideas. I hope that my next tutorial will go better and excites people even more.

Experiments with soap.

Today i was making some more of my water, paint and washing up liquid and when i started mixing the them, it started doing something very unusual. The more washing up liquid i used the more unusual pattern appeared. The colours are great and has a real marble effect. I really love how this was not expected it, and was pure chance.

My walk around Manchester.

Today i decided to have a deeper look around Manchester and took the free buses all around the city. It was slightly scary not knowing where I would end up and the fear of getting completely lost scared me a lot, however it was a great chance to see things I had never seen before and I would never had done that with out going on the buses. I may try this out again tomorrow and give myself a rule like every 2 stops I get off or   every time the bus turns a corner i get off, today has given me more confidence in getting out in Manchester. Today I seemed to be looking a lot at colour this was totally unintentional and i didn't realise this until I got home and looked at the photographs. The pinks look great next to the dirty greens and the shocking blue is great along side the stone. I did get and idea today while on my walk about maybe bringing my soap experiments out and photographing them on the stone and with the wood from the trees. This walk gave me a lot of inspiration as i was beginning to get stuck in a rut and doing the same things with  my soap and now I am excited to get out and photograph them in more unusual place, place you would not expext to see the soap. The reason I am enjoying doing my experiments with the soap is because i love the fact that i don't know what shape they will turn out in, the fact I have no control really excites me. I will look into different materials I can do with this as i don't want to be stuck doing the same thing with the soap.

Soap Samples.

Soap Experiment 2.

Soap Experiment.

10th April 2012

As i have been looking at bubbles, clouds and gases i have begun to try and make these 3 things however i want to create the shapes and feeling of them. With the bubble i want to make it solid so it is unable to burst and the same with the clouds. I am starting to realise that i am most interested in its shape and form more than its meaning. I want to experiment with all kinds of different materials to see what works best. I currently live with a boy doing science and i have asked him for so ideas and what can help my work. With the work i did today with the soap this was purely just an experiment, i like what happened and the shapes it made, however i want to scale to be a lot bigger and that is where science will help my work. I came up with this idea by searching on the internet and YouTube for inspiration and came across the idea of microwaving a bar of soap and i have tried it with two different kinds of soaps and also cut it and shaved it to see the different results. I now need to experiment with colour more. I did try the same kind of coloured soap one new one and one used one and the two colours are completely different which is very interesting. I also want to develop the scale and if i am unable to make the soap bigger i may look into just playing around with the collection of soaps i have and putting them together.

Flow Mill.

I am not sure if this is going to go on the Group blog or not, but ill soon see. Today in Newcastle i visited a floating building on the River Tyne that generates its own power using a tidal water wheel. The building also houses an electro acoustic musical machinery and instruments which responds to the constantly changing environment of the river. Electronic sensors pick up tunes from the last 12 hours of the tide by storing and playing river water samples. The floating boat was covered in children however i pushed through and videoed some of the water samples that the children were controlling. The videos i took was a small part of a big devise all created to create its own power. The reason i filmed it was a photograph would not really give the true vibe of the place. I really loved the green laser going through the mucky water that is creating big bubbles on its own, This got me thinking about colour and i liked how the green was very striking.I now really want to experiment more with bubble and how far i can take a bubble. This visit was something very new and interesting i have never seen anything like this before and i really enjoyed it.

Brendan Dawes

"Keep things in the cloud"

Brendan Dawes is very experimental, and never tries anything; he strives to achieve a finished product that he is very happy with. Even when his "Papa" Product was set to fail it turned out to be a great success and now even Tom Hanks has one! 

He talked about collecting things from around the world and looked at how each piece is different for example the paper clips and how one from Japan was VERY futuristic and excited him and me a lot. We both share the same view that Japan is in a whole different league and everything they do we will be copying.

He said himself that a lot of his work has only been seen because he put his work up online which was very inspiring and a lot of it is Luck.

I really enjoyed listening to Brendan Dawes talk and give me a lot to think about. He is very creative and strives to achieve something of his own that nobody else has done which is great. 

I was very lucky to get one of his freebes which was a i phone holder. Being part of the small percentage that does not have a i phone i have not much use for it, but it is a great thing to look at.

Origami

I started to make little origami birds to go in my space at Hotspur and they are looking really good. I started making them just to do something with them, but it hit me that i am struggling to connect both my ideas together of the gas, air and space with the laughing gas together with the leaflets but now i think I have got somewhere to take it and i am getting very excited by it. I am not saying this is my final idea and now all i will do is origami but i like how my work is developing. The colours that are coming through are very subtle and look great against the cream walls of Hotspur. It makes a very bland thing like a leaflet beautiful and more interesting to look at. I love the way they just float in the space so elegantly. I got help to make the birds off the Youtube video which was really big help.
I am aiming to make A LOT of these birds and see where it takes me.

See the full gallery on Posterous

Pernilla & Asif

I found the work Kate told me to look at on http://www.wallpaper.com/ i really have been inspired by watching this video of the piece. The video is so magical in itself, i can imagine it being more so in really life and seeing it up and close. This has really inspired me with my laughing gas and i am going to look into gases and space. I am going to put some of my laughing gas tubes up in Hotspur tomorrow. 

Unit x- Old school/New school.

Unit X

This new project is split into groups of Imagining it, Living it, and Wearing it. I am in the Imagining Group. This unit will allow me to get lost in Manchester and find things i would never had seen without this project.

The project is the same across the whole of Manchetser school of arts so it will be interesting to see how so many different people protray this breif.

I will be exploring questions such as...

How can my knowledge of the past and present inform our understanding of the future of Manchester?

What is a place? What can an academic creative community do to impact on the future of a city?

What do i want to be?

A Brand New Beginning...

24th February 2012

As it is the first week of lent, I have decided instead of giving something up and regretting it in 2 weeks’ time I will give myself a challenge of going to the library every night to do both my Blog and research. I believe this will inspire me more to do more work and give me a huge boost. I am excited to see how this affects my work and my attitude. Doing this is not the hardest challenge but it will be very fascinating. My research does need improving and this will help a lot. I intend on doing so muh work and putting 110% into it on my next project. I will let you know how I get on in

40 days…

Liverpool.

23rd February 2012

A collection of my Leaflets and Photographs.

The galleries I visited in Liverpool were Walker Art Gallery, The Tate, International Slavery Museum, and Liverpool World Gallery. I had a great day looking around the galleries and museums; it was great to see such a range of different things. In the Tate Liverpool, I saw the work of Gillian Wearing, Antony Gormley, Richard Long, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Philip Treacy and Jeff Koon’s. It was great to see such contemporary work; I do feel my work is very modern and unique however, I do not feel it is going in the direction I really want it to. The one piece that really caught my attention was the Richard Long piece; I loved the simplicity and scale. I have always loved work that has been hung and suspended from the ceiling; I will try, and do more work on a bigger scale being suspended from the ceiling more.  Richard Long uses very solid materials however make them look as if they are very light and elegant; I love the way he does this

I also visited the Walker Art Gallery, which was very different to my work and was a lot more traditional than what I normally do.  However, when I was walking around the gallery I noticed a very strange piece, which turned out to be a Banksy piece of work.  I really loved the contrast between old and new from both the work and where it was. What Banksy had cut off the front of a bust and placed some tiles, which looked like a face. I liked the contrast between the piece and it being next to some very traditional paintings, it looked some out of place, but it being so out of place it was more shocking.

In the International Slavery Museum, it had a campaign on from the Environmental Justice Foundation, showing people the real cost of cotton. It was interesting seeing where the cotton I may use comes from.  It had many videos playing which showed young children picking the cotton and the conditions in which they live in. It really makes you think about how where your materials come from.

I spent most my day in the Liverpool World Gallery which is not where I thought I would, I loved the huge selection of different things to see. Around the museum were different parts to look at such as the planetarium, aquarium, bughouse, Egyptian mummies and Anglo-Saxon treasures. I went to the planetarium and loved how calm and relaxed it made me feel and it reminded me of some drawings I did and made me want to do much more. The colours from the aquarium were very inspiring with the deep blues and black alongside the shocking bright colours of the fish.

My visit to Liverpool was very successful and has insipid me in ways that have shocked me, it has motivated me to do a lot more work next time and it has allowed me to see a lot more different things such as the Anglo-Saxon treasures and the Planetarium. I have loved visiting a new City and I will defiantly be returning to go to the Gallery I could not attend this time round.

Drawing Workshop.

21st February 2012

This was part of my drawing workshop, what I was asked to do was bring in a collection of objects such as sponges and wire, some sticks and other drawing media. What I brought was the sticks, wire, pastels and a huge roll of paper. We then were told to create our own drawing materials, I do like the idea of this and I did try to create and make my own drawing tool, but I could not really get that stuck into it. As making my own tools was not for chaos, and me I looked more in to my project, as my two opposites are ordered I tried to have a lot less control over what will happen so decided to throw the pastels and the white page, which created a great effect. The pastels began to get smaller and smaller and soon turned into dust, which was very interesting in its self. I photographed the whole process to show the different marks I was making, and how different one throw of the pastel can make to the white paper. The yellow and purple made the biggest impact as it looked more shock and bold. I really enjoyed doing my technique of throwing the pastel, as I had no control over what would happen and where it would go, it was both filthy and very fun.

My Sample of weave.

    18th February 2012

Doing weave has been a great experience, i have loved the many different designs you can do with and the range of different yarns you can choose from.  However as much as i have enjoyed weave i do feel this is not for me. Before weave, i did the hand processes workshop, which I loved as I could do large sculptural pieces and with weave it was very, one-dimensional and it takes a very long time to do and i like the idea of doing many different samples to inspire me. I did really enjoy this workshop and i am happy with every one of my samples. I think the colours i choose have been extremely successful as thy all work so well together. The green and purple have been very good with being so bold and the grey and white really calm the green and purple down and make it less in your face.

My brief

Brief
Beth Robinson

Sampling Project:  Ordered Opposites

The theme of my project is order and chaos, so far in my project I have explored the idea of layering the two opposites, I did this in a range of my samples, one example of my work is a chaotic mess on top of an ordered metal mesh, and the theme of opposites is very subtle. I would like to see where this layering can take me and see how I can incorporate colour into this. I have no colour palette, as I want my project to be very chaotic.

My weave development.

8th February 2012

My weave has gone so far in just one day. To start with my weave was starting to really bore me as there was really not that much to look at. However i found one of my little samples i found for my hand processes workshop and i decided to just add it and it turns out it was so successful and has now gave me a lot of inspiration for the rest of my weave. I love my weave with the beads as it really does look great and it goes so well with my opposites ordered and chaos, with having the beads scattered all around the weave in a chaotic way alongside the ordered lines in the weave, the two opposites look great together. I love how subtle the two opposites are as its not really shouting out to me.

Threading up.

2nd February 2012

Colour Development.

             23rd January 2012

I really struggled with what colours to use as I have so many different samples I did not really know which one to use as a colour pallet.  Therefore, as I was struggling I decided to do as many colour matches as I colour and did this until I found one I was happy with. When I looked at the straws on the mesh there was a great amount of silvers and whites and I liked this so then I wanted a contrast with colours for example the silver with the bold mustard and purple

Blog Task.

19th January 2012

When I initially got the project brief I was excited, as I love producing samples, when it comes to working I love making and doing, I love the idea of something different each time to develop my ideas. I was excited to explore the different colours and materials. As I had hand processes, I was motivated to use a range of different materials and discover new textures. When I first started the project I was excited and was so involved with it, this has not changed, each day I love making something new, and getting all kinds of different ideas, developing in this project is key as you would have no samples and this is what I really love.

Before I started this project I found it hard to understand the idea of opposites, I read the list provided and I had no ideas come to me. I did try to think of my own opposites, I also tried to think of a theme to work around but this also gave me no inspiration, so picking the opposites was the hardest thing for me. However, I started to start producing samples, as I would then fix the opposite around that. I first did the French knots and then the big straw sculpture and then I came to me that my opposite should be ordered and chaos. What I have learnt from this is if I am struggling to think of ideas to just start making as many samples as I can and then work around them. 

The reason I picked hand processes was that I really liked the idea of using new and excited materials. While doing my past workshops I would see people doing hand processes and it would always look so much fun and different. I chose hand processes late on as I wanted to build up my knowledge which I could then incorporate with hand processes, for example my 3d construction I did for my first workshop has helped me so much with making my samples 3d and it has also helped my scale. I also did felt which gave me an understanding of a new material to me. I was given the task of going to pound land and to buy some cheap objects that I could work with. I chose some washing line wire as I liked the colours, I also chose a box of straws I was drawn to them as there were some many of them in a pack, the last object I bought was a metal siz I liked the way I could embellish it.

In this project I have not used my sketch book as much as I would normal, I cannot decided if this is because I am doing hand processes and I am doing my drawings by making or if I just do not know what to draw in my sketchbook. Now I have started to make my samples and can now begin to start drawing them and scanning them and then working into them. I love doing a sketch and now I have come to an idea of were my samples are going I can carry on with my book.  

Sample Develpoment

19th January 2012



 I started to produce these samples, which were very successful on their own. However, i started to play around with the compotation and see if layering the samples on top of each other, which has really improved my samples and made them a lot stronger. The idea of seeing through the metal mesh to the one behind it is so interesting. I have placed all my samples on the window, the idea of the sunlight working alongside my samples is very interesting, the different shapes and pattern created by shadow is so inspiring. My samples are all coming very 3d, i like the idea of being able to get up and close to my work and almost be part of my work.