TRACES-Personal Christmas Trace

After photographing the 'personalised' houses down my street, I began to notice the magnified extent of this in the run up to christmas. I was quite amazed at the effort some people went to with their decorations, but also how subtle some were. I documented these with my Canon A1. Of course!

TRACES-Personal Trace

Responding to a brief to explore the notion of the trace. An area I began to explore was the idea of personalisation as a human trace. I have selected a triptych from a series of photos I took, to emphasise the unusual habit of ordering belongings in a particular way.

Alphabuttons

Another example of something that's been in the making for a while. These are little hand embroidered buttons. I bought the buttons from a lovely lady on this website http://stores.coverbuttons.net/StoreFront.bok. They are pretty easy to make, although require quite a bit of force to get the fabric to stay in place. Now I just need to make some simple packaging for them and hope that people buy them!

The Eagle Has Landed

These are something I've been working on for a little while now, but only really got round to making them over the summer holidays. I was inspired while watching Eagle Vs. Shark and some gold shimmery fabric my friend gave me, which I've used for the beak. The feathers are left unsewn at the edges so they have a bit of a fluttery feel. Should be selling these at my next craft stall, whenever that will be!

SUBO

Inspired by my previous cross-stitch portrait I decided to try my hand at making my own pattern. Susan Boyle is a bit of an icon for me and my housemates, so I downloaded a photo of her and created a grid to follow. Some parts of the grid were quite hard to follow as some squares overlapped but I think the overall image is recognizable which is the main thing! Just need to start thinking about who I'm going to stitch next.

Sweet Success

Last week Kirsty & I were offered the chance to help art directors Emma Rios & Cecilia Carey with something they were involved with at London Fashion Week. Of course we were happy to help, but this also gave us the opportunity to have peek at the studio of Bompas & Parr who were also involved with the project.

The task was to create an actual real life, real size sugar cave. Inside the cave, the work of designers such as Tour da Force, House of Flora, Sveda Mutlu and Aase was pedestaled by the sugar formations and the sugar coated floor. Sponsered by Silver Spoon, the cave is a vision of how the surroundings would appear were you to be shrunk to the size of a single grain of standard table sugar (0.3-0.5mm).

Although we didn't get to do much of the creative stuff, it was great to see how Bompas & Parr approach their work, and gave us a real insight into their creative industry. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to install the sugar coated scene, but luckily Emma sent us these photos, which gives a good idea of the impact the installation had. All in all, a grand day out!

Visual Editions Challenge

So I took up a bit of a challenge last week, as i felt like I was on a bit of a role after installing the window display at Oxygen. I was contacted by Anna Gerber from 'Visual Editions' who are book publishers and ambassadors for beautifully crafted books. Take a look at their lovely books here http://www.visual-editions.com/ 

They needed 20 15-page books printed and bound in 2 days. The books were to be sent to all the major glossy magazines to showcase the work they have published and future projects planned. The books had already been designed, all I needed to do was print them out, cut them out, then bind them. Which sounded much easier than it was! Luckily, I did manage to finish them all in time, even though it did involve hand-stitching all the pages ALL the way through the night. I think they look pretty nice though.

KITES & LEAVES

So last month myself and Kirsty were rather excited to be invited back by boutique shop "Oxygen" to redesign their shop window, ready for their Autumn/Winter range. After endless brainstorming of Autumnal icons and designs and then redesigns (no umbrellas allowed due to superstition), we finally all agreed that a whirlwind of leaves and kites would fit beautifully in the window.

We were working to a pretty tight schedule this time, as the window needed to be installed for a shopping event being held at the store, but nevertheless, we managed to ink and paint our way to the finish line!

We were really pleased with the outcome, and may even prefer it to our previous design, although we can't quite decide! The main criteria from the shop owner was that it needed to be Autumnal, but not dreary or gloomy. I think we have definately achieved this, and equally as pleased with all the great feedback from customers and passers-by. Success!

Now to start thinking about what to do for the Christmas display...

meat feast

Responding to the brief titled "Animalism". I decided to explore the notion of the sexualisation of meat, and the erotic connotations associated with meat. I was intrigued by the idea of meat as metaphor. When women are compared to meat, it is "a piece of meat", something to be consumed, whereas a meaty man implies strength and power, something a 'real' man should have. The final piece  became a series of oil pastel drawings, which highlighted the similarities between body building men and cuts of meat, which I presented on meat hooks from the local butcher.

en francais

Family trip to Le Touquet for mine and my dad's birthday. Rubbish weather but gorgeous crepes.

ROONEY

Cross stitch Rooney from the Guardian website. Looks rather good, even if it is Rooney's face.

OXYGEN

Our first client based project! Myself and Kirsty Tizzard were lucky to have been contacted by a boutique owner to redesign their shop window. Naturally we jumped at the chance. The boutique, called Oxygen, is situated just off Oxford Street, and was having trouble getting customers in the shop as it sits alongside lots of wholesalers, so was being mistaken for being one also. This is almost understandable from looking at the uninspiring shop window (above).

After some thinking about what we could do to enhance the window, we decided on the idea of using birds to display the clothes. The shop owner had specified that she didn't want to use manikins in the window, so we wanted to hang the clothes somehow. We then began sketching and came up with the above design, which we settled on.

Once it was approved by the shop owner, we began making!

And it was finished!! The owner was really pleased and has even asked us to come back and help adapt it for Autumn/Winter. Success!

With Love ♥

A card I made the other day for my Godmother. Just to prove I am still being creative, even in the Summer heat.

GLORIOUS GUERNSEY

Luckily for me my boyfriend's parents live in Guernsey, so we get to visit in the holidays. We went on a boat trip around the little caves and islands, so I managed to get a few nice photos in the Summer sun.

Nicey Nicey Zoo Zoo

We went to the zoo a little while ago with uni. It was the first outing for my Christmas camera from my dad, a Cosina CT1G with a big old zoom lens. Rather pleased with the results if I do say so myself.

Dressing Table

Just a set of illustrations I did for my housemate Ashleigh McMorran, who is in her final year at LCF, studying Fashion Journalism. These were used in a piece she wrote about the rivival of the dressing table, and were inspired by a Dior photoshoot.