Armly Mills. Last Session.

Today I went to Armly Mills for the last 'making' session, I painted my paper mache bear head and started to put together my structure - made from willow, where my bear head will be placed. From the willow, i put together a shelf with books, where my bear will sit and as time passes. It will be titled 'There bear that nobody loved', or 'Time stands still', something to that affect.

Despite having a few problems with my strength and cutting into the willow to make my structure, the couple of hours I was there, were fun as ever as always! Everybody there has ended brilliantly and with lovely storied to go with them!

Whilst we were working away, Shari asked me if I would do an interview with her about the whole project to then edit and put in her film piece she's doing that will be projected onto the work in the museum. She asked a number of questions about how I'd found the project as a whole and also about what I expected from the project. A couple of other people did interviews and some had written stories to go with their characters, it was lovely to over-hear some of them written by the older people.

Jodie and I didn't manage to get finished and so we're going to get together with Chris and have a lovely afternoon in the sun finishing them all off for the final exhibition at the Mills in 2 weeks time!

She also spoke to us about the film she's putting together and how each persons character has a story and will be in the film, she said that if we could she would like us to be featured artists within the film, and she wants the work by Friday. So yeah, not very long to do it, 5 days in fact! She's also sent Jodie and I an email describing what the film involves and to post her back any ideas we have or suggestions to put to her.

So for the next few days I am going to be putting together a couple of bear themed wallpapers/patterns... here are a few pen drawings of ideas/awful scans:

Handmade 3/Competitive Cupcakes.

It's got a new name this time round, and should be as exciting as ever, Paul and I are manning a stall, although I don't have anything to really put in/on the stall? It will be a good experience to meet and talk to people.

Although, I'm going to try anyway to produce some work for it, I doubt it will be done in time, but they are ideas I am pretty keen on completing over the next few weeks anyway and possibly taking them to Simon at 'On The Wall':

- My initial Ideas were forming postcards like I did for my exhibition a couple of month ago, but of groups of objects. However the objects won't be just outlined objects cut out, they will all be pattern with no outline, so you have to make out the image, I want the postcard to be a sort of 'mobile picnic', which is has everything laser cut out that you would take to a picnic, here's an example of a mock up design and some items I drew up...to possibly make a collection of them, of collections of items you would take out/or set out for a specific event.

- Also I'm really keen on doing some origami and Had the idea of designing an Origami picnic as well, where the origami is the shape of a heart or another shape (I've yet to re-search the wonderful world of origami properly, only had a brief look) and then you fold out the bits to reveal a picnic and items objects you would find on your picnic blanket. I think this could be really cute...If I don't get any of these Ideas finished for the craft-fair then I still want to make them happen as part of my practice, don't want to have to rush them.

Pocketful Magazine Entry.

Well today I sent my design for Pocketfull Illustration Magazine. I'd emailed the guy a couple of days before to ask when the latest it could be submitted on the thursday was and also saying that what he was doing was wicked! He emailed back and said thankyou and that it didn't matter as he doesn't start work on the magazine for a couple of days anyway.

This is what I sent, with the required formats and also with a paragraph or two about myself and the work, which actually threw me a bit, because I've never had to do that before...It was hard to describe where I am at this moment in time...

Wall Art.

As I'm going to be producing some work for 'On The Wall', in the hope that Simon likes it, I started to look at places online which sell 'home' type stuff, and who have art sections on their website, seeing what type of art people buy for there homes, one of these websites was Habitat - which stand for 'this is my habitat', selling furniture and objects to decorate your house.

http://www.habitat.co.uk/fcp/content/Services-Art_on_demand/content

They have work from photographic looking stuff, to messy/contemporatry painting/mark making...

There's also more intricate line drawings and contemporary colour...

There's also type based images...

It was interesting that on the website there was no repeat pattern design work, is this trying to tell me something? Or is it an opportunity for me?

Pocketful Magazine. Design Work. 2.

Below are designs I'm working on at the moment, only got a couple of days till the deadline though...

On The Wall. Brief.

Today I recieved the brief from Simon, about work he would like for 'On The Wall'...He talks more about the shop and says it's important to come and have a look at what they sell, I've been a couple of times though and also check the website pretty regularly.

Through his email, Simon describes really that the shop is very open-minded however: Their interested in work of a more organic nature is not only based on our own personal tastes and interests but it has also proved to be much more successful in the shop than work of a purely computer based nature. However they are not totally ruling it out.

There was no real theme suggested but he also added that if we felt we'd benefit from some guidance in developing the types of themes that do well in the shop then they can make suggestions to us.

Im thinking of taking my ideas for the Handmade craftfair that I most probably won't get done and having those as the projects I set myself for 'On The Wall'.

I'm hoping to get lots of work together over the next two weeks, to then go and show Simon by the beginning of May? Then produce further and more of what he likes...? I need to discuss ideas and things with Matt though, which I will do at the crit this week.

Pocketful Magazine. Design.

My approach to this is to play on the 'I did it my way' slogan by doing things with an image that don't look right? Or don't conform to the normal ways of even placing bits on an image.

Another idea for a concept I've had to complement the 'I did it my way' theme, is to think about how I go about 'being myself'. This also ties into the aspirational image making idea and the slogans I've been thinking about. Recently I've been thinking a lot about how I sometimes I try to make my work, to what I think people want to see, to an extent this needs to be done, but I want to design and do work that reflects who I am and my thoughts. Things that come to my mind are things like:

- What's worse than ordinary?

- I'd rather be anything but ordinary.

- Slow Down.

- Be Accepting.

- Care - Don't Care Too Much.

- Wait In Line Till We Get Happy.

Other ways I was thinking of working to the theme, was to take something that's normally done a certain way and do it my way, for example taking the idea of pattern, being neat and always perfectly well done, but my way would be producing hand-drawn continuos line drawn pattern, this will give the pattern more personality as well.

Below are notes and ideas in my sketchbook...

Here are some sketches I've been doing over the last few days to start me off...