Clare Tough

I recently dicovered British textiles designer Clare Tough. She is considered as a visionary in constructed textiles. Her collections are recognised by the combiation of oversized over the top shapes and stremlined silhouettes embellished with clever details.

 I love how she uses a variety of different knitting techniques to bring together and fuse wool yarn with other materials, heavy ones such as metal and chain, and also more light weight fabrics like georgette.

As a keen knitter myself I would love to have a go at creating some of my own variations on her designs.

Run Run as fast as you can, you can't catch me i'm the Gingerbread Man.....

I heard this song by Devlin and it just really hit a chord with me......
take a listen :)

 Devlin- Runaway

The human canvas.

So I got bored of drawing on paper and decided to try something different........

I got thinking about a film we had watched at Uni, 'The Pillow Book' using the idea of writing a story on the body I thought I would try using the body as a blank page.....

I had a look about and considered all the different ways the body can be drawn on, Body Paints, Mehndi, Tattoos.....

I had a go at a few different ways.....

I really enjoyed experimenting with body paints and mehndi.
I think I would like to explore using the body as a canvas again. :)

Get up, get over it, get on with it.....

I have been ill so didn’t have anything for show and tell. I will need to catch up with some drawings from The Pitt Rivers, and just try to do a bit more toward my sketch book on self directed study days.

Since starting the workshops and being ill I haven’t gotten round to doing any. I feel quite annoyed actually. I said at first that I didn’t really like doing the drawings but today I feel like that’s all I’ve wanted to do.

Being ill has made me feel really out of the loop. I missed the last dye and print workshop, so didn’t get to do the shibori and I’ve missed the first mixed media workshop. I’m worried I am going to fall behind.

I had a look at some samples from the stitch workshop. I’m excited about getting in there now; it’s definitely more my thing. I really enjoyed stitch when I did my last project.

How 'free' is free writing??

I am finding it really hard, having to write this reflective journal. I sit down planning on writing lots about my day and the work I have done or produced or new things I have discovered in the workshops or lectures and still I write nothing down. I guess I’m still uncertain about what is relevant to reflect and what’s just nonsense. 

I’m trying to do the 10 minutes free writing thing now but I guess I’ve reached the point where i can do no more. Maybe I should come up with a set of questions which I can refer to each time as a basis for my reflection.

I am not feeling 100% at the moment, maybe I have flu developing..... It is also raining out and I think I am stressing over this reflective journal business, also with settling in and my money troubles.

I am annoyed that my dye samples from yesterday transferred on to each other. Hopefully they will be ok when they are mounted properly.

Late nights and early mornings......

I found a Professor Green video.....

http://www.youtube.com/doritosuk

The whole idea of a 360 degrees interactive video is amazing....

and the video is just as good when laid flat....
I don't think anything like this has been made before and it really shows what technical advances are arising in all aspects of the artistic industry.....
Check out the Doritos UK youtube site for the excluisve 360 video and the unwrapped version.....

there is also an insight into the making of the video :)

Birim

Having already explored Cardiff quite a few times before, I decided to head down to the bay as I wanted to check out a few of the galleries down there. I decided to go into the castle gallery. 

There were a lot of awe inspiring pieces in there and I was particularly drawn to some paintings by a Turkish born artist Birim who is a PH Dr. in Veterinary Medicine. 

He has a love of horses and this creates a basis for his paintings.  He feels that as he paints the horses ‘he is living their feelings, joys and passions and thrills with them.’ 

I especially like the paintings which I viewed in the gallery. The way the horses look as though they are galloping is shown through the blended colours and fading which creates the idea of speed as they pass the viewer.