My Work Space and Where I blog?

It might just be me that's a little weird but I love looking at work spaces and where people sit when they are blogging at home or doing work at home and I have a full pinterest board full with tones of living and space idea's, You should check it out by clicking here. With this project being my last project before I move to Huddersfield and go to university I thought I would make my desk space a little more prettier so I would like to sit at it more to blog and do some work in my sketchbook as I think my bedding has taken a little bit too much paint to it and it's time I actually do my work out of my bed and on a desk! So what does my desk look like?

So here is a picture of a birds eyed view of my desk. It's pretty simple and not many thing's on  it, only my laptop and printer (which you can not see), a lamp, a jar of pens and brushes and a few books. So why do I have these things on my desk? Well my laptop is pretty obvious I use it for research, blogging, pinning on pinterest, emailing and tumblring!

 I think it's really great to keep a few books on hard on your desk to read when having a break from doing work or to reference back to. My personal faves which are on my desk right now are Alexa Chung 'IT', Graffiti Planet and Victoria Beckham 'That extra half an inch and of course my final major project diary which I keep all my to do list's in.

As I am studying textile's I like to do a lot of tactile thing's in my sketchbook so I keep a jar of pens and paint brushes on my desk for when I am doing work in my sketchbook, With this I can use watercolours and paint's, I also have a few berol fine liners in my jar which I can draw with then use water to make a really nice blurry effect. I really like using jar's to keep my pens and brushes in rather than something bought as I think it is more arty, I also like to use jars to fill with water when I am using watercolour's.

I also like to keep candles on my desk, Right now I only have one candle but I think the smell of them (the one I've got now is pomegranate and grape) can really relax me when I'm blogging, stressed is the last thing I would like to be!

Now you might be wondering what's the deal with the wall full of magazine cut out's all about? Well I decided because I am going to be sat here the majority of the time when I'm doing college work I would like to look at something interesting, So I got together all my old magazines which all seemed to be company magazine and ripped out all the pages that inspired me in anyway at all, some fashion, some hair inspo, some print and makeup inspo it's all on there! I think it's great to have some inspiration around your work place as I've been sat here many of time's thinking what can I blog about or what can I do today? So hopefully 'The Wall' will help me alot! 

I hope you have all enjoyed this blog post, Make sure to check out my pinterest page and you can also now follow me on bloglovin by clicking here.

Thankyou for reading guys.. Becca x

S/S14 Print and Colour Trends

As part of my research for the Moo designs live project i am currently doing, I am researching into Spring/Summer 14 colour and pattern trends. This will help me with my visual sheets and my colour theme as the garment needs to be on trend. Using pinterest i found pictures of forecasted S/S14 trends. 

Monochrome is on trend for spring/summer this year. In the brief of my project it states that colour scheme has to be monochrome with one other colour which can be used as little or as often as i desire. My focus is to research colours on trend for s/s14 and see which i can relate to most via my mood board's, to develop after my visual sheets.

I can relate to warm tones in my work, as coral, shells and some jelly fish have warm tones in them.
My personal favorite out of this picture are the pastel pinks.

 Pinks are on trend for S/S14. From pastel blush pinks to hot pinks, everyone seems to be loving them! I can easily relate this to my work, as you can see to the left the picture of pink shells and pink and orange beautiful jellyfish. I could choose pink to be my contrasting colour in my colour scheme but i would have to think about the shade of pink and what would look best. I can experiment this on my visual sheets.

The jellyfish and its texture is very inspiring, the texture and shape of the tentacles could easily be created with fabric manipulation.  I do not know if this is something i would like to do for this project but it is certainly inspiring for future projects.

 A pattern trend forecast for spring/summer 14 is a jungle/tropical themed print, These prints include a lot of green which can be related to my project by sea weed, the idea of monochrome and green does not appeal to me and i think i will be staying away from that combination. 

It also looks like floral is coming back in! The colours in this picture are amazing, the orange, yellow and pink dress shows all the on trend colours and patterns in one. The dress on the lower right is my biggest inspiration, using colours from the jungle/tropical theme yet still keeping a few warm tones and floral in there too! I like the idea of using orange as a contrasting colour with the monochrome, i think that could look good. But yet again same as the pink i would have to test this out.

Pastels have been in fashion a while now, but they are not going anywhere. Pastels are on trend for S/S14.

In conclusion to this blog post, i will experiment with the colours i have researched. I will use them for my visual sheets as they almost all relate to my project. I am enjoying balancing fashion, print and colour trends with my surface design studies very much and i really enjoy doing these kind of blog posts that i have to research into.

What next?

My next blog post will be an in depth post about how i did my visual sheets and the colour i will develop to use as the contrasting colour to go with the monochrome. 

Thanks for Reading.

Print Room - Sample's

To create my samples i cut out a4 and a3 sizes of lining paper. I need to do my samples on the same material i plan to do my final piece on so i know exactly how the colours will turn out. As i wanted to recreate the development sheet that i think was my strongest for my final piece, i created the backgrounds for my samples before i went into the print room. I did it the same as my development sheet, to do this i used a fine liner to draw a dragonfly wing then went over it with a wet brush so it gives it a smudged effect, once that is dry i used water colours to colour around and inside the wing. Even though i wanted my final piece to be pinks and purples i also tried orange and yellow watercolours aswell.

This is my very first sample, it has a blank background as i wanted to see how my repeat print lined up, and how good my colour scheme looked too. This is an a3 sheet which is folded up into a4, although you can not see it on this picture, this is printed using my first screen which did not expose very well and there are slight lines that run throughout my sample. 

The pigments i used to create this sample are - black SN-G             Yellow - Yellow 2G and
- orange OL                              Orange OL
-Pink 5BTL
As this was my first sample and first time i saw my print actually printed i was proud of it although my final piece has to be to the highest quality it can be and this isnt, although with this at the front of my technical folder it shows development as the samples get better quality as you go on.

The sample on the right on this picture is my second sample. This is printed using the same screen which did not expose properly, here you can clearly see the lines that the screen has left through out my sample.

If the lines was not there i would like this sample as the back ground is not too busy and the colours compliment each other nicely.

The pigments i used to create this sample are - black SN-G             Yellow - Yellow 2G and 
- orange OL                              Orange OL
-Pink 5BTL

The sample on the left on this picture is my 3rd sample, as in my second sample i used watercolours to colour the inside of the dragonfly wing on the background, on this third sample i just decided to colour the outside of the wing so you can see more of the print and colours. This was printed using the same screen which did not expose very well and you can see the lines throughout my sample yet again. Over all i am not happy with any of my samples up to now, but this is because of the screen which did not expose very well, all my other 3 screens work very nicely and line up perfectly.

 The pigments i used to create this sample are

 - black SN-G             Yellow - Yellow 2G and 

- orange OL                              Orange OL
-Pink 5BTL

The sample on the right of this picture is my 4th sample, it is a3 size but folded up to fit into my technical folder. Whilst i was doing my previous samples with the first screen that did not expose very well, the print technician was exposing me another screen, this 4th sample shows that screen, using Black SN-G i printed the second screen to be exposed for the first time, sadly this did not work either as the lines on the insect wings did not come through at all. I was very disappointed as i knew this would be a disadvantage in the design meeting only a day after these samples. But i did not give up and came into use the print room on my day off to expose my screen yet again and hopefully create some nice samples with a screen that works. Third time lucky as they say!! As i had put the time and effort into these samples the print technician let me help her expose my own screen, and it worked. As my 4th sample looked really poor quality i went over it in a turquoise 4G pigment with my newly exposed screen to give the sample some depth and with it being layered on top this looked quite good.

The pigments i used to create this sample are

 - black SN-G             Yellow - Yellow 2G and 
- orange OL                              Orange OL
-Pink 5BTL                 Turquoise 4G

The sample on the right of the picture is my 5th sample, i used pink and purple watercolours to create the background aswell as fine liner and water. This is the first sample which is of a good high quality, with every screen in working order. It is lined up perfectly and the other screens are lined up too. The only down side to this screen is that the background is too much as the print is a busy print aswell, Although it makes me love it even more aswell as making me think it is too busy. If this sample was taken into production and manufactured and sold in stores such as dunelm mill or b&q i do not think it would sell as it is a very busy print with a busy background and it is not usually the colours people would chose for there home. If this sample does not get chosen in my design meeting to be recreated as a final piece i think i will use my time management skills wisely and recreate this print aswell as the chosen one from my design meeting, as a personal preference i really enjoy looking at this sample and think it would look great as a feature wall.

The pigments i used to create this sample are

- black SN-G             Yellow - Yellow 2G and 
- orange OL                              Orange OL
-Pink 5BTL

The sample on the left of this picture is my 6th sample, to create this sample i used yellow and orange watercolours and fine liner and water for the background.The pigments i used to create this sample are

 - black SN-G             Yellow - Yellow 2G and 

- orange OL                              Orange OL
-Pink 5BTL

I feel the colours in this sample background over take the colours in the print and do not make the print stand out. This would be my least favourite sample.

On the right of the picture above is my 7th sample. To create this i dyed my lining paper with ost red brusho ink and waited for it to dry, once dry i drew flowers onto my lining paper using batik. Once the batik had dried i then used a colbalt blue and ost blue brusho inks to go over the whole of my lining paper this turned my lining paper a nice purple colour and left the flowers a bright red, this is because of the batik. After it was dry i then ironed off the wax from the batik and printed only my first screen using Black SN-G on top. I think this would look nice as a feature wall in a bedroom, although the colours did not really go with my colour scheme and i feel the sample is too dark as all my previous work is really bright. 

This is my 8th sample, i really like this sample although you can not see the pink pigment very well as the background is light pink. Its a pale neutral version of my preferred print and i think it looks really good. If i had time to recreate this sample too i would do. If this doesnt get chosen in my design meeting, this sample will be on par with sample 5 to be recreated if i have enough time.

The pigments i used to create this sample are - black SN-G             Yellow - Yellow 2G and 
- orange OL                              Orange OL
-Pink 5BTL

During printing my samples i stuck with similar colours and backgrounds. I wanted to create a sample a bit different, just to experiment with a different colour outline to see how it would look. So here is a picture of my 9th sample, it is a3 size and you can not see it all on this picture but it i feel like turquoise outline looks good and gives my print a whole new life. I did not do a background on this sample as the colours look quite delicate with blue as the outline colour and i did not want it to get lost in the background. I really like this sample but i do not feel like it shows my strengths as a surface printer. 

The pigments i used to create this sample are

 - Turquoise 4G           Yellow - Yellow 2G and 

- orange OL                              Orange OL

-Pink 5BTL 

In conclusion to my time in the print room creating the samples before my design meeting i feel like the amount of samples i created is poor, although this is due to problems with my screens not exposing and having four screens it takes longer to create one sample compared to having just one or two screens. Although i am not worried about this taking effect on my overall grade as i put the time and effect in, coming in on my days off and staying behind to make sure i get my samples done in time for the design meeting.