Linoleum Block Printing - Getting Started

I have became very fond of lino printing recently so i have been searching YouTube for different tutorials. This tutorial i found really interesting and her designs are lovely!

funding for degree show

I cant believe how quickly it has came around, were now talking degree show plans...crazy.

After all of the roles were handed out in preparation for this we were also told each student has to pay £100 towards the show. Therefore, i decided to come up with a way to fund raise this money as it all helps. With it being the most festive time of year what better time than to make Christmas decorations!

I want to thank everybody who bought a decoration from me, because of you i have managed to raise an amazing £86.00! Along with some very generous donations this totals to £96.00 which is amazing. 

'We're all mad in here'

Its finally here, my last year of university at CCAD which means one thing...final major project. 

After loads of hair tugging moments, tantrums and the feeling of absolute failure i finally came up with 'We're all mad in here'. Alice in wonderland fans will recognize this quote from the book and this is one of the things that got the ball rolling. 

explanation 

Everything we see with our eyes each day can be very familiar to us or new, But what about when we close our eyes? Even though technically our eyes have a barrier our brain still creates imagination through dreaming which allows us to experience a range of sounds, sensations and sometimes scenarios that in real life would never happen. These are the experiences I will focus my concept around, I want to focus on a world where everything is so familiar yet so muddled and disorientated at the same time.

I intend to keep a diary of dreams i have and note down what objects, sensations and scenarios that happen. I don't know about anyone else but from a young age i have had some very odd dreams, i think i just always wanted to be Alice!

this will hopefully be very diverse and give me an individual approach to my final major project. 

  

This is my concept board/book i thought it would be a good idea to super glue the two boards together with hinges to make it look like a book, more imaginative than just a board. I also tried to make it more dimensional by using little wooden pegs to hold images, sticks, ribbon anything i could get my hands on. 

main Inspirations for my concept

• Alice in wonderland
• Freuds theory of the uncanny 
• surrealism movements (Dada)
• Sandra diekman, www.sandradieckmann.com
• Conor culver,www.conorculver.com
• 
  

Next i will move onto presenting my colour scheme on boards, but this time i don't want to use typical mount board. So i will rattle my creative brain to find some other way...

life under a microscope

i discovered this link awhile ago and even though looking at some of these creepers made me feel abit scratchy i thought this was the most amazing thing ever!
http://www.the-open-mind.com/16-unbelievable-images-from-under-the-microscope/#moaOPOyw08eiZ3YC.01

like the page on Facebook also, there is so many interesting things, much more interesting than the constant selfies 24/7.

Final year blogging...better late than never!

So basically throughout my second year I had ridiculous amounts of laptop malfunctions and every other electrical device problems you could think of, therefore blogging without gaining major anger issues was impossible.

However, the problems (touch wood) have been resolved and I am back on track with everything electrical and such! Therefore my third and final year at university will be blogged throughout and I am very excited to start this new journey. I have even bought myself a snazzy HD camera, which I need to buy a strap for before it goes bouncing down a flight of stairs and the device malfunctions occur again.

Samsung WB350F

this makes me very excited and cant wait to use it, i was like a big kid on christmas in toys'r'us looking at the latest Barbie...but in currys eyeing up cameras. Quite frankly i knew alot more about barbies...but the kind man in Currys helped me out and i came home with this!

x

Drawing set!

Now that my theme is chosen I realise that the vintage fairground has been done before therefore I wanted to take a different approach to it. In the summer holidays I went to Bowes musueum and seen the Tim Walker exhibition which was brilliant. I remember specifically liking the photographs where items were hanging from trees. This inspired me to incorporate this into my theme and create my drawing set. 

This was attempt number one which was successful for about 2 hours then just kept falling over. I also think this against my research was making it look lost therefore I decided to take things bigger and better! But just at home where I had more room, items and space. 

I bought this apple crate ages ago but never got round to actually using it so I decided to paint it in a colour from my palette to be apart of my drawing set. 

First I made a good backdrop to incorporate the theme a little better. Then it was time for the tricky part...

But after a good few attempts, lots of sand and string I got it up and steady. Well for a good few hours, then it collapsed. On the plus side I got plenty of photos to draw from and really liked the outcome. 

Mood board

I love doing mood boards so I was happy to be doing one for this project unlike last year when we just did drawing sheets and had the research in a sketchbook. I feel it gives me more inspiration about my concept all there on one piece of card. So after nearly slicing my fingers off several times with my craft knife I'm happy with the final outcome.