Monday 17/05/21 - Studio Day

What I did:

We first had a presentation by Chris and Victoria, explaining the planning for the next 3 weeks, and telling us that we don't have much time left, I listened, took notes and planned mentally what I need to urgently do and ticking off mentally what I already have achieved.
I then collected relevant imagery from my research for the design development with Chris - I really looked into my natural elements, and trying to combine elements from each of my word association - synthesis of my Ideas and research elements
The design development project was based on function, and creating a template that is relevant to our theme, thinking of muse, position, drawing technique etc
Being at the early stages of design development, I decided to follow the class but apply Chris' Advices to my level.
Chris helped me, and taught me that I should extract images from my research at a large scale, be experimental, extract shapes and forms and combine them on the body
When I talked with him, my initial idea and drawing of my template was a quite classic position, and I wanted to create a head of medusa, he taught me to be more experimental, really think of my muse, of goddesses of nature- reach in my research to find a position that would be representative of my project, and that depicts the adequate mood
I decided to represent the giantess lying down (that comes back recurrently in my research) I decided draw the bodies as if I saw them lying down from above. For that I first created some primary imagery by asking my friend Ranaya to lie down on the floor and took pictures of her

After that I had a tutorial with Victoria to whom I showed her my reflections and asked her for advise
What came out was that I might be writing a bit too much, that I should go straight to the point
structure more my reflections
highlight key phrases that show my progress, what I have learned and that are relevant to the reflection
We then discussed my textile development, we looked at which ones were successful, which ones I could explore more, and she told me to be even more experimental, to try to create textiles related to pregnancy, etc..

I then went back and worked on my design development pages, and I talked with Chris on how I can transform such voluminous shapes on 3D on the body and he gave me multiple Ideas for my final garment:
- I could create structures in cartoon or paper, and place my textiles that way
- create a plastic structure
- thinking of creating structure
I continued extracting shapes and colors from my research, trying to be the more cohesive possible in my collages on the body, and bringing my key words of research all together

After class I went to the yarn shop near Oxford Street, where I looked for yarns of my color palette and of different thickness
It was a lengthy selection process, and I was a bit stressed because they didn't have thick enough yarns so Crocheting my final textiles will take me more time.

Came back worked on responding to collages for luxurious natural fertile creativity (Verve Puissante) - looking at colors and texture
Started the collage process for monstrous children - bringing my image data base of close up insects with more research on monstrous children
Researched and looked at ceremonial masks all around the world (Romania, Congo, india) - links to children of the monsters , heads of demons (in mythology are often children of evil) , masks are also often based on animalistic elements and appearances - Scary ceremonial masks
Inspired by natural world

Evaluation:

Chris design development:
- I feel like initially I struggled a bit, my template was not very interesting and a bit basic
- with Chris advice, really brought my project into the template, creating meaningful muses and drawings (the lying giantess, the green of the natural world, reference to sleeping, and Medusa)
- initial design process, I found quite successful - colors and textures work well, shapes are interesting, and reflects well my research
- I am fascinated by the forms I have extracted and how they work well together
- I particularly like my first design development initial stage as I feel it reflects well the mood of my project and it brings every key words association in it.
- NEXT STEPS:
  - create a design development sheet for one selected shapes-
  - extract shape, overall, and then develop it, add images of my textiles in sections, add colors, explore really the design development, then create a final one exploring function
  - and one other final one where you tweak slightly your design in different ways to create a sort of collection
Yarns Selection Process:
- successful, and reflects well my developed color palette - brought amber, blue, greenish tones
- I wish I found thicker yarns but I can manage with what I got
Collage Response Verve Puissante
- This as a bit more complicated, as I was tired of the long day
- I feel like in the response I created, instead on focusing on one aspect in each response (one for texture, one for color, one for shape) I did a bit of everything and makes it loose its importance and clarity
- My response for my second collage was more success full as I really focused on textures and colors and it really highlights the focal point of my research
- NEXT STEPS:
  - continue this process for every word association
  - Maybe do a few more for Verve Puissante (but I have to manage my time well)
Selection of Image and research/Collage Monstrous Children:
- found interesting image basis for ceremonial masks - tomorrow look at other databases to find interesting ceremonial masks
- research was prolific
- the initial response though for monstrous children I feel is a not very good, the color I chose don't fit well in my projects, and my drawing with thick marker clashes with the rest
- What I like is the symmetrical shapes I extracted from patterns in close up insects --> need to explore that more

Reflection

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