Claude Heath

In this final project, I felt as if my drawings had become a little stale and 'safe'. After being recommended to look at the work of Claude Heath (shown below), I was really impressed. His 'blind' experimental approach has resulted in energetic, lively, descriptive drawings. He has undertaken a method in which one hand travels over the given object whilst the other one records the 'journey' on paper, all whilst blindfolded. I have begun to apply a new, 'blind' approach to my own work, layering drawings with different densities of mark and stitch, adding different qualities of line and colour. I now feel like I have begun to make a break through.

Tropical Greenery

These are a few photos that I've taken on my travels that demonstrate the types of plant forms that I find appealing and want to include within my design work for this project.

Artists Books

The image above is a cover of one of my mini tea-bag sized books from the Artists Book project. After deciding to study 'tea' as my Objet Trouvet I looked at various ways of illustrating it, from typography regarding tea connotations to images of the actual tea bags themselves. After using the printing press to attain prints of actual tea bags I was amazed at the clarity of them, and developed a series of different shape/sized tea bags in both singular prints and repeats. It was a simple idea and technique, yet I feel that this project was one of my most successful this year. For the Contemporary Artists' Book Fair held in Leeds, I produced a series of ten miniature books with reduced size prints and a series of larger prints, packaged in A4 printed envelopes.

Whilst browsing the stands at the Book Fair, I purchased a book by Ciara Healy based upon Birds as I was drawn to it due to its bright, canary-yellow cover. The image below is taken from the website http://www.ignition.ie/, from which some of her work can be purchased. I also bought a smaller book called 'Honey Darling's Old Clothes', as the vivid colour of the lobster again caught my eye. Within the book are four progressive images of a pet lobster shown to be growing in size throughout her lifespan. As I discovered through our personal project and with many of the books at the Book Fair, the best ideas are often relatively simple yet when communicated effectively and clearly, make for the best artists books.

Nick Morley

I've recently finished my Print Elective, and whilst doing research for contemporary printmakers, I came across Nick Morley, an illustrator and printmaker based in London. I really like how he effectively and realistically portrays his subjects through print. He works in series', recently producing a quirky collection of prints based upon bearded men.

'Going Green'

Within this month's Elle Decoration, there was a feature called 'Going Green', showing the desire for bright, tropical prints this season for interiors. The fabric print below is by Poimulehti for Marimekko. I like both the design and the fact that it has been transferred onto various objects within a series. I think that this is something I'd like to achieve within my final project. As we have 6 weeks instead of the usual 4, I'm going to push my design work forward and apply my designs to different surfaces. The images below of Orla Kiely's work show the application of her graphic prints to various items.

Last Project - Year One

For the Final Project, I have decided to study tropical plants and leaves in order to produce lush wallcoverings. In conjunction with this I hope to print onto wood veneers and tabletops along with tiles, possibly intended for flooring as I feel there is a gap in the market for pattern on such surfaces.

At the minute however, I am collecting drawings and visual research through using the sewing machine and stitching free-hand. It's loosening up my drawing style and adding a different style of drawing.