Professional Practice - Learning Photoshop

This mornings lesson in professional practice was an introduction to the textile specialist mac suite. After having an introduction and a little chat about health and safety in the mac suite, I got to have my first ever play around with photoshop using a Wacom which I was super excited about, It felt really professional (hence the name of the module.) The reason to learning how to use photo shop with the Wacom is to get us used to the standard of the industry for our placement year. 

Using our observational drawings from the sculpture park to take inspiration from we set of to using a simple brush to recreate our observational drawing virtually, This seemed weird at first as I was not used to using the Wacom. I had 5 minutes to quickly draw the observational drawing inspired piece. I chose to use this picture for inspiration...

Picture by me (Yorkshire Sculpture Park)

5 min drawing (photoshop using Wacom)

This is what my 5 minute drawing came out like, I decided to use purple as it is my favourite colour. I am happy with the outcome of this piece of work and after I had completed this 5 minute piece of work I already started feeling more comfortable with the Wacom.

The next task was to do a 15 minute piece of work, exploring and experimenting with different brushes. Using the same colour but different tones of it. I took advantage of this and attempted to try create some texture and shading.

I am so pleased with the outcome of this, Although I did not complete the task. I really enjoyed experimenting with different brushes to get different textures which I tried to keep relevant to the picture I chose to draw from.  If I was to do this task again I would try to finish it on time and also erase the outlines which I used as a guideline.

The next task was a final 5 minute task, I had to fill my foreground with a colour - I stuck with purple and use the eraser to take away the colour rather than drawing on the colour, and to also experiment with the lines and shading.

This task was my least favourite as I could not get used to the pressure sensitive Wacom to create shading and lighter/darker lines. This is something I will practice more in future lessons and hopefully if I get my own mini Wacom.

I really enjoyed todays Professional Practise lesson. To improve for next lesson i need to: Manage my time when given timed task's and Improve on my shading and pressure sensitivity skills.

Thank you for reading!

The Start Of My Final Major Project

My final major project is here! It's come around so quickly. Officially it started 3 week ago, the past three week have been crazy busy with university interviews and mind maps and proposals. So I shall talk you through it in this blog post, Firstly I was instructed to create a mind map of different theme/topic's I could use for my final major project, then a mind map that focus's on the theme you would most like to do, It is vital that the chosen theme was broad enough to do plenty of research and that I could get a lot of primary research. At first I chose to base my FMP (final major project) on the theme travel but after looking into it I decided I would not have enough primary research and I struggled to find artist research. I was stuck and did not know what theme to chose. Trying to forget about this problem, I attended my textiles with surface design interview and Huddersfield University and was informed I would be in a group interview with my friend Thea who is in my class at college, but we would be the last ones to be interviewed. After hearing this news we decided to go have a look around and ask some questions to the students who were in the classes, whilst doing this I saw the most amazing work which captured my eye instantly. A big pin board of inspiration for one students work was filled with pictures of science based patterns, such as bacterial petri dishes, different fabrics cut into circles which she had tried to recreate the petri dish patterns with dye. This instantly inspired me and I knew from then I wanted to base my fmp on science. After my interview (which went amazingly good) I went home and wrote up a mind map on science and what I wanted to research into. 

During the past three weeks I have also been writing up drafts of my proposal for my project as this will get sent off and marked also. In my proposal I explained what my project is going to be about, what I shall be focusing on, What techniques I plan to use, Where my primary research shall come from, What inspired me to do this topic and how I plan to evaluate and get feedback from my work.

To keep track of my progress for my final major project, I shall be updating my blog frequently so keep a look out!

Thankyou for reading.

Huddersfield Uni - Final Major Project Inspiration

During my time at Huddersfield University which I went to attend one of my interview's, I had a look around at the work people were currently working on. As I am currently in the process of making mind maps of themes and my proposal for my final major project it gave me a lot of inspiration and idea's. Here are a few pictures.

The section of work in these photo's inspire me to use colour and more specialised materials in my work. The shapes and colour are really inspiring.

This section of work looked really interesting, the patterns really inspired me. Although this section of work did not inspire me for my final major project, It was interesting to look at.

This section of work was what inspired me most. Still not knowing what I wanted to do as my topic for my final major project I was waiting to go in the studio for my interview and I spotted this section of work, at first I thought it was eye catching because of the colours and I was trying to think of a topic/theme where I could do something similar to this, The I spotted the chart at the side of this work, and it was cells. This inspired me a lot and will be playing a big part in my final major project. The section of work next to this also inspired me, you can only see a bit of it on this photo and I sadly could not get a photo of this section of work as I was called in to my interview but it's science based, featuring holographic's. 

I really enjoyed my time at Huddersfield University on this day, it was lovely to have more of an independent look around whilst I was waiting for my interview and I am thrilled to have got a conditional offer for both textiles and textiles with surface design.

Thanks for reading.