Summer 2013

Towards the end of year 1, we visited the Uclan Degree show. I was deeply interested and intrigued in the a - level quality of work. There was an exciting variety of themes shared within the exhibition, more of which appealed to me on a very personal level. There was lots of pink stripes, sweetshop pink, stripy straws and the cutest of jam jars! I more than enjoyed myself.

Once the first year was over, Summer of 2013 was to become a visual journey within our sketchbooks. For the duration of 12 weeks we had to record, explore and develop everything and anything. My sketchbook of course maintained a very personal, feminine theme of teacups, cupcakes, camper vans and the odd bunting. And of course, a lot of PINK.

Jenny Arnott. UK textile artist of embroidery, surface pattern, design print and stitch. This is my first artist research. I was initially drawn to Jenny's work because of her love and passion for feminine design. Her use of pattern, print, colour and development into textiles is a strong influence into my work. She uses her methods and techniques within her own style, to create products such as badges, greeting cards, wall art, cushions etc which she then sells to her target audiences. 

By looking at Jenny's work, medias and techniques and the way she uses them is something I liked to work in, and experiment with in my own style, but with her influence. She's more than an inspiration to my work and exploration into Textiles.

Priscilla Jones was another aspiring artist that I was deeply attracted too from the first impression. Her use of very feminine design of strawberries, jam jars and tea cups, along with embroidery, stitching and pastel colours, this style of work was something I'd like to look further into. 

Well the Summer of 2013 began with the exclusive summer edition of Mocha Coockie Crumble Frappucino from Starbucks. It was something that I felt was an essential aspect of the beginning of a long 12 weeks off, and therefore decided to share this with you. I used tea to drip onto the background of my page to influence the theme of the unique yet wonderful, iced cold drink. I even included the cup holder onto my page.

During the month of June, we visited the Uclan Degree show at Preston. We visited the different aspects of the show, including all areas in art and design. As I was particularly interested in Textiles, as this was my choice for the second year, I visited this area most. Many of the objects I found, I honestly was really intrigued by. As an individual, my main attraction is feminine, pink, cute or vintage themes. One of my favourites was the retro gum ball machine, so I decided to record this in my visual diary. I used soft tones of pencil crayon to highlight the shadows and tones within my recording. This, complimented by a retro spiral of pink acrylic paint, and text.

Also at the degree show at Uclan, there was a series of jam jars, with different demonstrations of textiles. They contained objects such as paper flowers, ribbons, threads and buttons, all accompanied by a delicious candy stripe background, and a graceful presence of a doily. The stripes and doily alone, is the single aspect that developed throughout the duration of my summer project. They became an iconic symbol of my feminine designs.

Following more of my love and passion for feminine, pink and pretty drawings, I decided to create a still life set up. From this I observed and recorded a primary drawing, which I then adapted to and gave it the theme of 'Time for Tea'. Featuring doily's, a tea cup, tea pot, cupcake, spoon and the inevitable bunting. I really enjoyed creating this page, I used tissue paper as a background, and raised my bunting and cupcake up by using sticky tabs underneath to give the page form.

This page I tried to add that element of 'fun' by making it into a slight adventure. This is a 2D flat image of a picnic box, however underneath the lid is string, which then lifts away from the book, to provide the hint of a 3 - dimensional lid. Underneath is the contents and inside of the picnic box. I really like this idea, but I believe I could have developed it in a better way by maybe adding instructions, or hints or more detail.

Soap and Glory is a important highlight in my lifestyle. Therefore I decided to recreate a style of advertisement for the products, as inspired from an exhibit I viewed at Uclan Degree show. I tried to demonstrate this in a Soap and Glory style, but slightly more of my own interpretation. 

I have a big love for TOPSHOP. Again another inspiration from the Uclan Degree show, but also an influence from my own life too. I have always admired the advertisement, merchandising and whole company image of topshop, so I picked up the Topshop magazine. Here I have created a TOPSHOP style of displaying their statement and reflection into fashion. I used photos and also business cards that I collected from the degree show and their leaflets. 

Considering I thoroughly enjoyed the Uclan Degree show, I decided to construct a double page spread, containing imagery and my findings I entailed upon the visit. To encourage the theme, I painting candy pink stripes, buttons, stars, and of course paper flowers.

I developed a love and interest in camper vans over the summer. I believe they are an important, iconic part of a summer journey. This is a secondary drawing that I completed from a photo on my travels over the summer. I decided the best media to use was watercolour, it's light, gentle and it allowed me to work the the tones and highlights of the drawing. 

Converse. Experimentation with string, tracing paper and watercolour. My main intention was for the tracing paper to show through the text from the background. This has worked in some aspect, but not in all areas. I like the free will of the string that spells out converse, as it does remind me of the converse laces.

In the first year I remember taking a certain interest into stamps during my British Culture project. I looked at the different variety of stamps that there are and how this is a strong statement for Britain. So over the holidays I decided to start a little collection within my book. I wasn't necessarily sure where I could take this, but I figured that I might experiment and develop later on with the design and typography, maybe recreating one of my own designs for a British stamp.

Of course, no summer is complete without a trip to the beach. I visited Formby beach, on a particularly hot day. Despite returning home extremely sunburnt, I recorded this day in a polaroid style within my book. I used soft pencil crayon to introduce colour, and even gave them captions.I do like this page, however I believe that my drawing could have been slightly stronger, maybe to gain better results. 

For a strange reason one day, whilst pegging out my laundry outside, I decided to record it. This page I tried to encourage as a sort of diary entry, recording my thoughts, findings and feelings upon this particular day. To add a more fun way to display items in my book, I used a string to demonstrate a washing line, and then used little pegs to clip my paper shirts onto. Using watercolour, I included some quick, gestural flowers in the background, which feature in my very garden.

Experimenting within a Textiles discipline, I tried to demonstrate an interactive page. The 'I love sewing' illustration was taking as an inspiration from the Uclan degree show. I added textile aspects to my drawings,by hand stitching into them and even stitching into the page with a ribbon, this gives a verbal reference to the title; 'Sew this page'. 

These are 2 of my favourite pages. Although It doesn't necessarily tell us much, it's more of an experimentation with imagery. On my travels over the summer I took several photos, all of which I have attached onto a piece of string at the top of my page, like a time travelling journey. My background media's are collaged imagery from leaflets and anything that I could find. I included some doodles and train tickets to influence the theme of travelling.

On several occasions over summer I visited one of my favourite places in Warrington, Scoop Ice Cream Cafe. My reasons as for recording these illustrations is taken from their very own upholstery. Inside the dining areas are printed illustrations, patterns and pictures on the wall, they really inspired me and I liked the cartoon, child like experimentation. So therefore I had to record this, as I knew this was something I could very much play around with and enjoy developing later on,

Thinking about development in later stages, I decided that I needed something strong to work from. Patterns. This drawing is actually half of a blazer that not only did I purchase over summer, but I enjoyed as a colourful pattern. It was quite difficult to record, as it's a very tight, busy composition of abstract shapes and colours. The colours and shapes remind me of the 1960's, a sort of hippy era. This would relate very well with the camper vans that I have also recorded.

This is definitely my favourite page. Looking back at my themes of my primary and secondary drawings, I took a particular interest to a sweet shop theme. This is influenced from the Uclan degree show, with the sweetshop jars, candy stripes and textile equipment. So I took some primary drawings, layered onto candy pink sweetshop stripes, sweets illustrations, a camper van, sweet shop jars and a bunting. This page definitely demonstrates my taste in art and textiles as a person. I enjoyed creating this page, I believe it works rather well, with the medias I have used, which is mainly acrylic paint and pencil crayon.

This is a rather random collection of recordings within my entire book. It features a daisy chain bracelet, one of my favourite shoes, and a water can with flowers taken from my Grandma's kitchen. All of these are just 'Pretty little things' which is also the title of this page. My reasons for choosing these items in particular, is because I felt I could develop from these drawings later on, the love of spots, daisies, tulips and the bow off my shoe. It was also because they were highly fun to draw.

Over the summer I also visited one of my favourite places ever. Llandudno in North Wales. I used to visit here as a child at the age of about 3/4, I had not returned until the day, and it was everything I expected. It really is a beautiful place in the United Kingdom. I took a lot of photos on this day, but decided to just share this one recorded drawing. It's a secondary drawing of the fairground rides on the pier, taken from this angle. As a person, I have a strong passion for colour. I love colour and anything colourful. So this particular snapshot really experiments with colour. For this I used pencil crayon, as it has a soft but strong contrast of colour onto the page. I also used small amounts of acrylic paint, because it's also a bold injection of colour, however it didn't work onto the paper as well as I'd of hoped.

As you can probably tell, this was a highlight of my entire summer. As it was such a happy memory for me of Summer 2013, I had to record this in my book. My fellow Textile friend, Beth Hunt had her 17th birthday, so obviously this is a exploration of collaged imagery. I've tried to display it in a birthday themed way, but also with Beth's personality as an interpretation. My reason for pastel colours, pink balloons, a bunting and cupcakes, is all inspired from Beth as a person. I really enjoyed creating these pages, as it has an exploration with pastel colours, something I could the further develop later on.

:)

Once I had a strong body of drawings and recordings in my book, I had to then develop and create 12 x a5 postcards. Which basically would be a composition of different elements and aspects from within my book, and show a strong development with different experimentation with media's. The media's I would use had to be within the discipline I had selected for the second year. As this was Textiles, I had to use techniques like hand stitching, machine stitch, appliqué, reverse appliqué and embroidery.

Collaged wallpaper, machine stitched felt balloons, embroidery threads for strings, doilies, image, clear plastic and embellished with silk flowers.

Watercolour background, acrylic white painted clouds, typography and an acrylic painted camper van and bunting.

Acrylic painted birdcage ornament, plain calico, hand painted doves and embellished silk flowers.

Collaged materials and paper background, doilies, appliquéd teapot, text and embellished with buttons,

Acrylic painted candy pink stripes, appliquéd bunting, machine stitched appliquéd milkshake, lollipops and ice creams, embellished with buttons.

Plain calico, collaged paper backgrounds, appliquéd paper watering can and flowers, cotton tulips, embroidery text, appliquéd ladybirds and silk flower embellishment.

White cotton, acrylic painted and handwritten text.

Lavender cotton, collaged printed text background, appliquéd scissors, embroidery stitching, appliquéd hand stitched text and word, cross stitch, zig-zag stitch and a button embellishment.

Lavender cotton, appliquéd white cotton clouds, hand stitched shirts, little pegs attached onto 'washing line' inspired string, crochet and button embellishment.

Yellow cotton background, appliquéd felt strawberries with appliquéd paper 'leaves', appliquéd ladybirds, machine stitching.

White cotton, appliquéd teacup, spoon and saucer, reverse appliquéd teapot, button embellishment and machine stitched text.

Acrylic paint candy stripe swirl background, appliquéd felt, hand stitch with metallic silver threads, button embellishment and hand stitched gum balls with cotton threads.

Yellow cotton, appliquéd paper pattern design, appliquéd felt lollipops, machine stitch, embellished buttons.

Yellow cotton, embroidery thread hand stitching, appliquéd printed pattern ribbon.

Acrylic painted candy stripes, appliquéd calico sweetshop jar designs with acrylic paint for detail, paper flower and button embellishment.

Lavender cotton, appliquéd felt pattern beach huts and bunting, layered felt fabric and hand stitching.

After completing the a5 postcards over summer, we then had to create 2 x a4 pieces that basically sum up the entire summer project. They can be elements taken from my postcards or a completely fresh design with some inspiration from the summer of 2013.

Layered fabrics, appliquéd clouds, lace appliquéd saucer, cup, machine stitched text, hand stitched handle inspired from gum ball machine, machine stitch 'happiness is a cup of tea' and crochet embellishment.

Screen printed pink candy stripes, appliquéd machine stitched sweet shop jars, acrylic painted detail, appliquéd fabric bunting, machine stitched text.