New Edinburgh drawings

This week I am home from university as it's Easter week and all the workshops aren't open anyway! I am also doing some work experience which I will post about separately! 

I went to the range - love that place - and bought some lovely papers and inks and paints and brushes and all sorts! Spend about £40! Why to easy. Here are some of my new drawings. I enjoy doing a base layer in a watercolour basic detail and then waiting for it to dry, and going over areas in pen or ink. I enjoy going outside the lines and different ways of drawing, for example blind drawing or continuous line.

This is a drawing I made from my own photograph of the scot monument, from the ground. The composition isn't quite right, the colour isn't there either and you can just see way to much emphasis on the interior detailing which is essentially the underneath of the monument, but I still love the technique.

Here is part of the piece close up. You can see the texture of the paper in the brush strokes and also the pen lines.. I used a continuous line method which simply means I didn't take my pen off the paper for the whole drawing. My wrist ached so much! And some lines are thicker and more saturated than others.. Lines meet, which shouldn't, but it gives it a bit more life :) 

A blind drawing of a small part of the scot monument, I love blind drawing because you can't fake them really!

I love blind drawing! Here is a gravestone which was beautifully adorned with concrete curves and William Morris style vines kind of..! 

A busy week!

A very busy week both at university and at home!

I organised all my fabrics and went through what i avtually need. I had a mini tutorial on monday with my textiles tutor to sort out my colour palette. i am having serious SERIOUS colour palette issues.. i just dont know whats going on and i dont know how to get these colours into my designs, decide on a final palette and make ti all look lovely!

We had a pizza party in our Dec Arts 3 studio, with a little help from out biggest glass kilns. Well it is afterall just a huge oven! 

I also came home as sadly we lost my Nanna Richardson this week and it was her funeral. It was very sad, but good to see family!

Ive also been commissioned to make a bunch of babywipe holders for the local ceramics cafe. My friend works in there and came up with the idea for the kids partys.. And theyre gonna pay me in vouchers which is perfect as my little brothers love it there! Im also going there this week to paint a teapot - got a voucher for my birthday :) So that should be good!

Some of my current fabrics!

Packing for homecoming... two weeks off uni and ive secured a work experience placement so im taking everything back! Using this lovely Ted Baker tin for sewing essentials :)

Potential fabrics for local ceramics cafe - 'Crafty Coffee'

Won this cuuuuuuute lino brooch from Kayleigh o'mara!!! Love it :)

Colour - I have been told to play alot more with colour and whether thats thread, paint, pencil, pen, fabric, ink etc. so i have decided to play with each individually. I have made one palette from kona solids, one from ink and the other in dulux sample pots specially mixed for me, so that i can play in three different ways!

One of my colour palettes has come to life with Robert Kaufman Kona Solids.

Making a mess, creating one palette in inks in the screenprinting rooms, NTU.

I have made these colour story boards which present colours on velcro so i can move them about, potential prints and fabrics, as well as physical fabric samples. Love being this organised!

And finally.. our studio.. closed for the evening! I run the CREO instagram page :)

Eight Weeks to Go

not joking. eight weeks to go until my degree collection is finished and up on display for my graduate show!!!!! HELP!! okay i think i will be okay but heres a quick update from the last 6 weeks!!

I did a fabric shop in London.. well its got to be done hasnt it!

My business plan is handed in.. that a 150 page report of research and final written plan!

Colours im working with at the moment. some changes to be made

Organisation :(

Well i visited my favourite fabric shop in the world :(

some drawings

In the print room again! - printing onto my digital prints with gold.. YUM!

Surface Design Competition

This month i am taking part in a surface design competition for a famous ceramics company. There are only a handful of people from my university who have put ourselves forward but i know there is so much talent and i would be proud if one of us won!! Of course i would love to win - but it would just be awesome to have this in my portfolio.

We are currently in the photoshop stage. The competition only requires you to submit a jpeg, but we are going to create ceramic transfers and create our own actual plates/bowls/mugs which i think is awesome. You can also create complimentary accessories, so thankyou to everyone who took my recent survey, as i have chosen the three top accessories. These will be printed and made. Again, not to be submitted but looking great in the portfolio, and the tutors are happy to mark it as park of our practical degree work.

Here are my initial designs. you must stay true to your design values so of course im using ink lines that arnt quite straight,and offset colour! I havnt included the entire design as we havnt submitted them yet - you never know who is googling!

Mug & Small plate from my favourite collection so far.

colours!