Textiles Trip to Eden

Yesterday I took my Year 10 group to the Eden Project as part of their current project.  Wednesday was a gorgeous day, the closest we have got to a lovely balmy day.  As for Thursday......torrential rain and wind!

So off we went and we managed to get from the mini bus to the Biome and as we literally passed through the door the rain came down so hard it was bouncing back up just as fast.

So we started off in the Jungle Biome and it gave the students a chance to do the tasks they were set and for me to get some pictures for next year and to try out my new camera.
It was so hot in there I do hope I lost a few ounces!

This visit I saw flowers and plants that I had not seen on previous occasions.

Love this flower and could see this as a textile piece with wrapped cords and a printed background.

Photographing the signs helps as I can never remember what anything is once I get home.

This leaf is a lovely shape.

Now for some colour.

I have not seen this lovely flower before and it is quite large.  Gorgeous colour and just close enough to take a picture.

This photograph does not do this plant justice at all.  The colours are stunning.

Lots of pictures were taken and lovely drawings were created.
The next stage is to develop everything further with samples in stitch, fabric and fibres to name just a few options.
What did you do today?
xx

I survived!

Well.........it is all over now!

It has taken two years, four sketchbooks, 2 pieces of course work practical and two sets of practical exams totally 20 hours.  Lots of evening class sessions, a few hundered miles driving  ( mostly in the pouring rain), lots of homework tasks, lots and lots of photographs, double sided tape, paint, fabric galore, several thousand words  for written work, numerous now blunt scissors, pritt stick (I need shares in this) and yards of masking tape to name just some of what I have needed to design and make over the past two years.

   However at  approx 4pm this afternoon I officially completed my A level Fine Art textiles course as I handed in my last sketchbook which took 10 weeks and a broken finger to put together plus my practical which took just under 12 hours to make over two days.  Phew!

It sounds really awful but it has in fact been great fun if at times a little over whelming.  I have extended my drawing skills in such a way that I am now able to draw almost anything (almost) and my sketchbooks have already proven to be a very  valuable teaching resource at school.  I have discovered new fibres and fabrics which I will be sharing over the coming weeks, and the combining of materials that I have not attempted before.  Plus I have made three new friends.

I come from a fashion background but my Fine Art Textiles course has taken me in a new direction and I would so love to be able to follow this up with another degree but I am afraid that the mortgage needs paying!

What next?

Well, I really liked learning how to mono print and make collographs so I am looking to do a class on printing, but this time without the exam content............I would like to do it just because..............

As you can imagine I am a little tired. 

Google images and Peg @ Happy in Quilting

 Due to no weekend next week is going to be a little hard going but I have asked our Technician if she could pop over and give me a hand as all my groups are due to complete their own practical work as well.

I have taken pictures of my exam and coursework projects, but I can not able to show you anything until after the results have been issued.

Having looked at my blog I do not think that I ever completely posted about last years work so I shall do that until results day instead.

In two weeks our group is going to meet up for a final session to say good-bye properly as it has been a bit full on this weekend, so that just abut gives me time to sort out a handmade teacher thank you gift and a card.

What has been keeping you busy this weekend?

It is all in the preparation.....

I can not believe that it is Friday already and even though it has been only a four day week it does seem to have been longer in some ways.

Well the title of this post refers to a big event that is taking place this weekend and I mean all weekend..

It is my second year A level practical exam which is 12 hours long and spread over two days.  I have been working on this  course for nearly two years and I had an exam this time last year at the end of the first year, but not as long.

I started preparing for the exam  approx a week before I injured my finger  (February) and it was looking like I might have to pull out but sheer determination and a bit of stubbornness and I have got there.  I am not allowed to show you anything but I thought that after the weekend I would show you work from last year as I do not appear to have blogged about it.  

Since getting home I have dyed some scrim using onion skins, laid out everything that I might need on the kitchen table, and I have managed to fill it!

 I now need a bag big enough to put it all in.

I have been drawing, cutting, sticking, painting, stitching.....well....you get the idea,for weeks which is why not much other crafting has been happening and many of my OPAM projects have been quite small.  I have really enjoyed this course but it will be nice to have some of my free time back.  

Having said that I am looking at doing a much shorter printing class in September without the added commitment of an exam but I wanted the qualification for future career possibilities.

I need to now start loading the car and I do still have a few things to stick in my sketchbook and then an early night is in order as I will need to get up as if it is a work day so that I get there in plenty of time to set up.

My poorly finger will be put to the test but I have packed some pain killers and I am in fact looking foreword to a blissful day of being creative with out any interruptions.

Have a good evening and I shall let you know how I got on.

xx

Le Challenge - October Theme

Many thanks for the large number of visitors and those that left comments for my September Heroes entry for Le Challenge.  We now start all over again.

Our next theme for October Le Challenge is

THRILLER!!

Any suggestions?  I have a few which of course might link in well with Halloween.

x
PS I should be getting my evening class sketchbook back at the end of this month and I will be posting some pages from it.  I have just been to my third class for the new year and I think I have now established what I hope to achieve this year.
My tutor told me that I got 19 out of 20 for each Unit that I submitted work for which is a good average.  Repeating that again this year is going to be really hard to do.
Wish me luck.
xx

My exam result is.........

Coursework practical

Regular readers will know that for the past year I have been attending an evening class in an attempt to gain an AS Level in Art and Design: Textiles.  All started off well but fitting all of the work in and creating it  at a decent standard was not easy.

Peek from my sketchbook

As the year wore on work for the day job increased but my Wednesday evening classes was one of the highlights of my week and I loved seeing my work grow and develop.

I have a background in Fashion but the City and Guilds I followed over a decade ago was the closest thing that I had done before this art based course, so I took on quite a sharp learning curve and I am happy to admit that on a couple of occasions I thought I may have bitten off more than I could chew with a full time job and family.

**************************

Anyway....fast forward to August and I emailed my tutor yesterday to ask how to find my result on the secure website only to be told that I could have collected it on Wednesday and now I would need to wait for the post to arrive on Friday (or maybe Saturday).

Thankfully at 2pm today, there was a light thump on the door mat and there was my envelope.

So........................

For the coursework I got an       A grade

For my exam work                    A grade

Phew!!!!!

Could have gone either way ya know.

So on Monday I shall be ringing up the college to sign up for the second year so that I can gain a full A'Level and lots of ideas to develop for use in my day job.

I then celebrated with a nice cup of tea!  Pity there was no cake in the house but maybe that is just as well.

I should get my work back in October and then I would like to show the work that I created.

I really am pleased and I have a silly grin on my face and it is now late evening!

The rest of the day has been taken up with Sophie having a school friend round for a sleep over so I am only posting this now.

Take care all.

xx

Inside my Sketchbook - Final Piece for Art Textiles

 The last two posts have shown my coursework, which has now been handed in for marking.  The work was   to develop ideas and produce samples along the  theme of Entwined.  I wanted the work to link to organic forms and have a sense of growing and movement.  The above picture shows a close up of my final piece.

Interlocking tendrils "growing " across the work. (But not in a creepy way).

Resulting in a final piece of work that nearly finished me off but was completely worth it.  We also spent two Saturday's st the college with our tutors to give us the uninterrupted time and space to really get stuck into our work.  it helped so much as well.

I am very pleased with the outcome and I hope it gets a good mark but I shall have to wait and see.  For now it is best to forget about it and move on to the next stage which is to start all over again and get prepared for my up coming practical exam at the end of April.

It was my evening class session this evening and I think I have come back feeling better about my idea than I did when I arrived.  I have just completed a mammoth report session so now there will be some me time along with some student marking.

xx

My Sketchbook Peek

13th February was a big day (or evening) as it was the deadline for AS Level Art Textiles coursework for my evening class.

I will not get it back until October so I did manage to take a few pictures before handing it in.

The above picture is a sample that I produced as part of looking at the work of other artists. 

I worked in an A3 hard-backed sketchbook and it went on for page after page after page........

So I am only showing a very small snippet.

This page shows hand made collagraphs for make prints.

Here I printed onto calico and then added wrapped cords to the surface and the sample on the right has been reversed appliqued to give texture and depth.

We had fun melting and weaving plastics.

I even managed in incorporate some simple bits of crochet with a different sample of plastics.  A part of this idea did get as far as being used in my final piece for assessment.

Using an A3 sketchbook meant that I needed make quite a lot of samples and use a fair bit of annotating to fill the pages.  I had been working on this project since the end of October!

The idea was to try out ideas using a range of media and techniques to explore those ideas and develop further.  It is quite normal not to really know where you are going!  This is a little out of my comfort zone as my training and background I need to know what I am designing and making as a client or need is stated in advance.

But I stuck with it.........

I really enjoy annotating the samples and this is where you get quite a few of your marks.

This is all leading up to my designs which run along the theme of Entwined from a list of themes that we were given by our course tutor.

I have a follow up post with more info and where this project took me as it then blend into my main coursework project which is being marked as we speak.

Have a good weekend.

We are off to The Eden Project for lunch and we are taking Sophie and one of her friends.

Take Care

xx

Texture - In search of....

I have been so busy this past week  (or month even)  that I have been very neglectful of my poor blog.  Weekend before last we all went off in search of texture for my Art Textiles evening class in the form of photographs.  here are some of my favourites.....................

Peeling bark.  Love this one!

Lichen absolutely everywhere!!!

Even more tree bark with lovely texture just waiting to be stitched.  Can you tell that i enjoyed this little trip.  I took over 50 pictures and had to really slim down my choices.

The leaves are starting to turn colour and I love Autumn colours.

Felt and machine embroidery perhaps?

Plenty of rain equals plenty of fresh, bright green moss.  Lots of hand stitching for this one I think.

I have printed off what i consider to be the best and I shall be adding them to my sketchbook which at the moment is with the course tutor for a bit of assessing.  I had my written piece of work marked last week and I got an A+!!   Did not think that after these years something as simple as getting a good grade for a bit of writing could feel so good!

Tonight I have printed it out properly on some nice cream card and with then present it on my sketchbook this coming evening class.

So it is back to the work table as i now need to start another sample by painting and then stitching into it. I have one that I completed yesterday but I now need to take some pictures so that I can post it here.  That will have to wait until another time.

Take care all and I hope to post more this week.....hopefully.

xx



Sketchbook Started

I was lucky enough to have much of Sunday afternoon to work on my homework for my evening class.  I am off again tomorrow but thought I would show you what I have been working on since last week.

Above is another poppy seed head using a more colourful background and ripped edges.

Our other task was to start to think about how are sketchbook would look.  So I ripped the first front pages and put it over on the right using a masking tape hinge and them added colour across the two pages.  I made my own printing block for my lesson as school and used that.  Hope that is ok but much of it will be covered anyway.  Just trying out ideas really.

My printing block as diluted coffee.

This picture has tilted on its side but you can see the front page and the hinged ripped pages over lapping.  Something will be seen through the gap making you want to turn the page. (Hopefully!)

 

We then need to do some more bigger drawings so I used a lotus flower seed pod which I have had for years.  I draw the whole thing then moved on to doing a close up drawing.

Blendable pencils and black pen.

I really need to do another one so once I have done some tasks for the day job this evening I shall see what I can come up with.  I thought maybe the inside of an orange.

xx