Friday 3 October 2014

If you dislike cows, I'd step away now.



Now if you have a phobia or just really dislike cows, this one probably isn't for you aha! 
Another slightly odd post but last week I went over to Rodwell Farm to take some pictures for some new postcards I'm designing. I of course went a little snap happy and so edited a few of my favourites and thought I'd upload them here. I have to say, Iona's cows are very friendly and loved being in front of the camera and I'd be lying if I didn't say I was pretty happy about photographing one of my favourite animals. Weird I know, but enjoy!

Wednesday 24 September 2014

The Workshop.


In a bid to get some experience on set building and design, over the past couple of months I have been volunteering with my local theatrical group and helping them to get ready for their latest performance of The Match Girls. 

In the last few months of university I think I finally realised what direction of work I wanted to go in, Art direction, set/prop design, something along those lines. I know last few months? But I see it as better late than never. Anyway I thought it would be a good idea to try and get some first hand experience in that field, after a little pub trip and some exchanging of numbers I was introduced to a man called Peter and his team and began helping out. 

Every Wednesday they meet in a barn not too far from where I live and basically build the set/backdrop/probs etc, its honestly been such a great experience, as soon as I got there I was told what was going on and thrown into it, which at first was terrifying but also really encouraging. 
With 2 handymen in the family I've always grown up around tools/equipment and my dad and granddad building anything from tables, shelves, sheds everything so I've always been quite interested in being able to build things. 

Thursday 18 September 2014

We Are Ramblers.


This is going to be a minimal word post and more of an appreciation for the great outdoors. If you know me, you know I love to go one long walks and anything that involves the woods, forests tress and I absolutely love taking photographs of it. Anyway these are a bunch of pictures from a couple of rambles myself and Sam went on whilst we were still in Sheffield, they've been sitting on my computer for so long and thought was about time I posted them. The first set are from a crazy 12 mile walk we did back in April and the second from June. Enjoy!

Tuesday 16 September 2014

Exhibition Pit-Stop Pt3


And here we are again, this exhibition was actually the last exhibition in Sheffield I managed to see before moving back home and one that I really enjoyed. 

Site Gallery; 'E-Vapor-8 is a group exhibition, curated by writer, editor and curator Francesca Gavin, looking at the influence and relationship between contemporary art and rave music from the early 1990s. It traces a fascination with rave culture and happy hardcore by young British and American artists, many of whom are absorbing and re-appropriating a cultural moment they were too young to participate in. The exhibition, named after a 1992 single by the band Altern 8, touches on how the hedonism and cultural upheaval of rave has passed. Ideas around intellectual and physical freedom, rebellion and myth-making are all at play.
Participating artists are: Fatima Al Qadiri and Sophia Al-Maria, Harry Burden, Rhys Coren, Petra Cortright, Jeremy Deller, Adham Faramawy, Alexandra Gorczynski, Marisa Olson, Hannah Perry, Christian J. Petersen, Travess Smalley, Lucy Stokton, and Daniel Swan.'
From what I can remember, walking into the exhibition room was like walking into my own personal rave room. At the time it was only myself and Nikita in the room, the 90s rave was playing and we were almost blinded by the bright, flashing lights that filled the room. I'm pretty sure at one point I stopped to have a little dance whilst no one was around, because I really got sucked into the experience. Thats something which was really great about this exhibit and actually most of the exhibits at the site gallery, not only do they showcase interesting pieces, but they consider the atmosphere for the viewer, making it almost feel like you are apart of the piece itself. 

Sunday 14 September 2014

Ready, Steady, Cookbook!



I am quite excited to share this with you all as this has been a project that myself and Sue, (client/family friend) have been working hard on for the past few months and this week just launched.

Exhibition Pit-Stops Pt2


Another exhibition which really stuck out for me was the Wu Chi-Tsung Dust exhibit at the Site Gallery, Sheffield. As you can see (april to may) this was something that I visited a very long time ago, but never the less I wanted to include it because it was a really nice experience and worth sharing.

From the website; 'Wu Chi-Tsung uses everyday materials in elegant and inventive ways to create meditative, dream-like environments. Dust captures the shadows of minute, usually invisible dust particles, as they spiral around the audience to make a mesmerising abstract projection.
Crystal City 003, a newly-commissioned installation, invites the audience to witness a shifting cityscape. Filling the space with moving light and shadow, the installation draws playful parallels with the pace of urban development in Asia today.'
When we entered the room, behind a curtain, everything was silent, dark and all you could see were the flickering shadows of the dust resting on the projector. For me it was a somewhat calming and pleasant experience and probably the first and only time that I have ever seen dust as something beautiful.  The next room we entered was the shadowing city scape, and I kid you not, myself and Gemma probably stayed in there for about half an hour just watching it pass from side to side. Again this was something we found so simple but fascinating and so damn calming. During this time we were taking a break from a very stressful few months of prep-ing for the end of final year, so all the calming vibes were very welcomed! 


Site Gallery Archive page for Dust. 

Wednesday 10 September 2014

Out & About || 24 Hours in London. || Pt 2.



Hello again, here with part 2 and final part of the London Getaway posts. I won't blabber this time, let get to it..

After hitting the museum Iona mentioned that whilst she had been living in London, one of the things that she really wanted to try out and go see were the Emirates Cable Cars over the Thames, I'm always one for admiring a good view so I we jumped on the tube and headed over.  Being inside the little pod felt sort of like a holiday activity but was really lovely. A little video and voice over played as glided over the Thames and the view was just lovely, the sun shine definitely made everything look much prettier and I was amazed at how much of London you could see. I always think its so lovely to be able to see a city from a high vantage point. I imagine this would be great to see at sunset.

Monday 8 September 2014

Out & About || 24 Hours in London. || Pt 1.


This wasn't scheduled in but I wanted to get this post up before it all leaves my brain and months have pasted by because lets be honest, I'm terrible and it probably would have. 
This will be a 2 part post as I may have gone a little snap happy and didn't want to cram everything into one super long post! I hope you enjoy and lets get started!

Tuesday 15 July 2014

Reading List



This is a post that I've been wanting to for quite a while now, I am as; you may or may not know a magazine/book addict, not for just any magazines/books but art/design/interior etc. Any spare money I have will most likely be spent on buying the new issues and new books that I've had sitting in my wish lists for months. Being someone who follows a lot of blogs, its not often that I see reading lists of good design magazines/books and thought it might be a nice idea to share some of mine with you. I'm not trying to force my opinions on anyone or been asked to do this, I just thought it might be helpful to anyone, like me looking for some recommendations.

Thursday 10 July 2014

Final Yeah Projects Pt4 // National Gardening Week Campaign


(Warning, this might be quite a long one)!. 

National Gardening Week is an organisation help by the Royal Horticultural Society which happens once a week, every year and aims to get people of all ages and professions involved with gardening and helping out in the community. Despite this being their aim, there is very little advertising and promotion for the cause, meaning that this isn't always met.
As someone who has always had a bit of an interest in gardening and in recent years gardening interiors, I found out the event whilst looking around the web at groups, workshops and organisation aimed at young adults/ adults with this interest. After doing a little research on the RHS and NGW I soon realised that promotion was something they were lacking and thought this would be a great project to just and work on.


Wednesday 2 July 2014

Final Year Projects pt3 // The Art Of Sci & Tech


This was a little brief set by Human Studios to re design the poster for their Sci & Tech exhibition which was to be held in Barcelona next year. Originally myself and Gemma started working on a 3D piece, constructing the words Sci & Tech out of found objects such a nuts, bolts, pins etc seen below. We loved this idea as it gave us the chance to mess around with  3D elements and then later worked up on photoshop. Sadly it ended up getting quite complicated and although we loved the outcome of the photographs, we found it incredibly difficult to apply it because of its shape and state. 

Saturday 28 June 2014

Exhibition Pit-Stops Pt1


To split up the final year project posts I thought I would talk about a few exhibitions I've been to over the few months. Living in Sheffield for three years really allowed me to explore a lot more of the art and design scene with the amazing range of galleries and all within about 10/20 minute walk from my house which; on days where you just need a bit of inspiration, is just perfect.
So lets get to it! The first exhibition was held in the B&B Gallery and as the photo suggests, was called Inside / Outside, a site specific installations by Zosen & Mina Hamada (ES).   Barcelona-Tokyo based visual artists.  (taken from the website) 

"Their passion for colours and free forms has led to a seemingly endless series of collaborative murals from Paris to Miami, Mexico to Japan - all incorporating their signature style of enigmatic shapes within vibrant compositions of harmonious dreamscapes." 

Myself and a couple of friends went down for the opening and the atmosphere was buzzing with creatives, the exhibition to sum up in a few words would be vibrant, creative and most definitely fun. The exhibition ranged from brightly illustrated prints to 3D installations of hand painted tin cans and wooden planks and was just a really enjoyable experience. 
I managed to get a few not so great quality photos on my phone, but I thought I would share them with you anyway.  I would of course have suggested visiting the exhibition if it were still on but I shall link there tumblr below which showcases more of their works and a few more images from the Sheffield exhibition. 




Tuesday 24 June 2014

Final Year Projects Pt2 // The Big Draw


A bit of background on the The Big Draw;  running every years from about October to November, the big draw  bring together designers, artists and illustrators from around the world and connecting them in a big event to show and share their talents. Website link here 
This years campaign bought Simon Spilsbury, an illustrator known for his spontaneous and energetic work to our university to work with us on it. The project was only a one/two day deal and despite being very skeptical of the workshop, actually turned out to be useful as well as fun. The theme we were given was Future Sheffield, now as someone who doesn't have the strongest illustrative skills, I was very apprehensive about this until Simon suggested other forms of illustration.

Sunday 22 June 2014

Final Year Projects Pt1 // Everything About One Thing


This is going to be quite a short post but; If you've been reading my blog for a while, you may have seen me do a couple of posts about this project before which I will link here & here Where I talked through my idea generations, design processes and what my final outcome was going to look like. Well since then both the booklets have been printed and so I thought instead of repeating myself about the project, I would show you the finished product and talk about my thoughts on it and my improvements.
So here we go, these are a few photographs of the first book "The Wonderful World Of The Brain". Printed colour, double sided on I believe it was 160gm paper. I was really happy with the stock, the image quality really popped on the paper and with a shine sheen, the book wasn't too shiny and cheap looking.

Saturday 21 June 2014

Back To Business


Well this feels weird... I haven't sat down and took to the blog in such a long time, I feel almost like I have no idea what to say anymore, But I guess I'll just jump straight into it. I have been terrible at keeping this updated, but for good reason. The past couple of months have been absolutely mental as I have been and have now completed my final year of university. WOW that came around quickly.  My time had pretty much just been spent work, work, working and trying to complete all my projects to the best of my ability. That sounds kinda cheesy but thats pretty much how it went. 
I thought a good way of starting this blog back up would be to just give you a brief update on whats been happening and whats going to going on with this blog. 

Deadlines:  I think I can without hesitation say that it was probably the most stressful and mental few months of my life. There were laughs, tears, breakdowns and triumphs as I'm sure most final year students can back me up on. I'm not saying this to scare anyone who might not be there yet, but honestly Its better to be prepared for these things. I always knew that it wasn't going to be easy but my lord, I didn't think it would hit me as hard as it did. Luckily I had a great support system of friends, family and housemates by my side to sort of slap it out of me and get me going again. I don't mind saying that I was definitely one of those people who on the last 2 weeks broke. I cried more than I think I ever have before because I felt like I couldn't do it, that I was rubbish and everything was going to go horrible wrong but after talking to my parents and friends I realised that this wasn't the be all and end all and as long as I gave it my all and tried my hardest, what else was there for me to do. There's no point wasting time crying when I could be getting more work done, so thats what I did. I worked my butt off and hopefully when my results come, they will have all paid off. If not, yeah I'll be disappointed, but then I'll pick myself up, carry on and improve. 

Degree Show & Portfolio: As well as getting together my work for my deadlines I also had my portfolio to perfect for the degree show, again another slightly stressful time but I'll be going into more detail in another post. 

What's Next For Me?: In terms of myself, I've moved back home to Suffolk with the parents and am on the look out for a job, internships and experience as well as carrying on with my own and hopefully come collaborative projects. It's going to be insanely weird coming back home after living with my friends and without adult supervision for 3 years but I guess its just something that I'm going to have to get used to and just try and fill my time up to make it go faster. I'd be lying if I said I was completely happy to be back in sleepy Suffolk but I'm looking at it as a just another step to getting where I actually want to be and doing what I want to be doing.  

What's Next For This Blog?: One of my main aims is to improve and work on this blog; I started this with the intention as using it as a platform to showcase my work, but now I want to do more with it. I want to try and upload more regularly and to make good worthy content, not just for whoever reads it but also for myself. Blogging is something that I've really enjoyed doing and something that I want to make more of a part of my life. I'm aware that probably sounds "totally lame" or whatever but thats just how I feel. With this said I've structured up the next few posts, in which I'm going to take you though my final year projects, taking you through the processes and outcomes and breaking those posts up with some exhibitions and adventures that I've attend and haven't had the time to tell you all about. I'm looking forward to finally having the time to get back on track with this and hopefully I have a blog to be proud of. 






Sunday 13 April 2014

Interested? // Terrariums // Project


A while ago I made a post about making my own terrarium, which I loved doing. 
We have been cleaning out my grandad's sheds and gardens and which means I've found some really cool containers/jars/etc which I think would be great to make into some more.  
I'm just wondering, If I used some of them and made some more terrariums, would anyone be interested in buying them? 

I thought it might be a nice little project thing to do over the summer, I loved making this one and want to make more for others!  
Let me know please as its something I'd really love to do but I don't want to end up with too many aha! 

Thursday 3 April 2014

Ordered Chaos // Reviews



So I did mention it a few posts back about having our Ordered Chaos exhibition review in Toast Magazine, well today our friend Jack sent us the link to his review of the event for Chic Lifestyle Magazine! We are so grateful and really happy with it! I shall leave a link to the Chic review below and Links to Jack's twitter/blog so you can go and check him out too. 

The Chic Review  pages 46,47  

Jack Greenwell:  Twitter // Blog 

Photography 1968


I am definitely one of those people who loves a good bargin and rummaging around old junk, especially when I find them in the charity shops. A couple of weeks ago now I was wandering around in town and decided to have a little look in the charity shops around for some books for collaging and stumbled across these little beauties. Photography magazines/annuals from the 60s. 
Now I'm not going even going to pretend like I'm a photographer or know all about the subject but as someone who likes to dabble in it, I was really happy when I found these. 




The magazines are filled with 60s advertising, articles and wide array of photographs from different artists. A lot of the photographs are printed in black and white and on lovely paper stock, which might sound completely nerdy and just look so beautiful. I'm a really big fan of film photography and this is what is mainly shown in the magazines. The gain of the photographs I think is just lovely and really brings an extra depth to the photographs. Although one of the magazines is in french its still a great piece flick through and great just look at for inspiration. 

I thought I'd take a few pictures of my favourite images. 



Monday 31 March 2014

Ordered Chaos Needs Your Help!


We need your help, as part of our graduation project Ordered Chaos is putting together a magazine on the future. We want to include all areas such as fashion, film, science, product design, transport, life anything and we need your help. We want to hear about your thoughts and insights and this gives you the opportunity to be featured in magazine and to be credited of course.
We also have a survey HERE that you can fill in instead, it all helps us out! 

If this sounds like something you would love to do or know of someone who would be perfect for this, send us am email and we will fill you in with the details. 

We would very much appreciate it. 
Thank you! 

Thursday 27 March 2014

Back Track // Ordered Chaos // Exhibition


Whilst I'm still recovering at home from being ill, its given me a little more time to do some blogging and means that I can finally get around to doing some posts I've had noting down for weeks. One of which is about the exhibition that Ordered Chaos (myself & Gemma) put together. It seems like such a long time ago since we did it, but back in January/February we put together an exhibition for our final year project. I did do a little post about it a while back Here about the event but I thought now was a good time to finally upload some of the photographs of the night. I know its very late and if you follow any of social medias such as tumblr, twitter or facebook you might have already seen some of these but I though I needed a little post on here about it. 


So we managed to get the space by simply asking, we got an email about some available space and without even thinking we would get it, applied and within a week got a reply telling us the space was ours and that we would have the space for a week. This was a complete surprise but with this started working on exhibition, branding it and getting our name out there. We made posters and leaflets, put them up around Sheffield and got to building our project. I won't go into complete detail about the premise of the project as that can all be found here but we basically asked a bunch of very talented illustrators to produce there thoughts and ideas of the future for us to make and create into 3D models and sets. We got a brilliant response, some brilliant illustrations and got to work. 
The trickiest thing I think about putting together the whole exhibition was the fact we branding it, got out illustrations, build everything and put it all together in a week. A very stressful but fun week. 











 We got a really great response from the exhibition and we're hoping to put together another nearer the end of the project. There are more photos and behind the sense stuff of course on our Blog and any updates on our social media's. It was so much fun to put together and to see everything come together at the end, definitely something I would do again.
Sorry its taken me so long to get this up but I hope you enjoyed it!

Wednesday 26 March 2014

Quick Craft // Boredom




As well as making a huge mess today, I decided to try out some pompom makers my mum bought me, raiding her wool collection and ended up with this pompom garland I suppose you would call it. I completely blame it on having no human contact for the past week (I've been back home ill)  and getting rather bored; but hey, now I have something on my bedroom door to brighten it up a bit.

Print Making or Mess Making?



Today I started working on some mark-making and printing on to fabric, this was more of a tester than anything, testing out paints and inks, and by using some already made shapes to create simple and basic designs.  This is obviously something that needs work and a little more tweaking with media and patterns but hopefully this will lead to some cool designs.