Little Surprise For Me!

Well, the other day I was playing around with my camera (this tends to be something I do when it comes to Technology because I like to now everything it does, and how to do everything on it). Anyway, there I was flicking through the settings and trying different styles when I found this BEAUTIFUL setting!

I absolutely love it, and it was such a great surprise!! I think I'll use it every so often to capture tiny little details! But it doesn't work too well for certain things so it'll just have to be a special setting for me until I figure out how to use it properly! The camera is an Olympus X-940, which I bought in February, and although it is a bit temperamental it is a pretty good camera. Look below for some more lovely photos using the same style:

Have you found any interesting features on your camera?

Top image is from here and the rest are from my camera.

Designed with Purpose

A little while ago, I received an email about a website called Goodfibres... I wasn't really sure what it was about however since then the site has opened and I think it's a nifty little idea!

So, what is Goodfibres? The website (you'll find a link below) states in it's mission that:

"Goodfibres is building a community for artists, and those who appreciate art, to share their tastes and talent to promote cool designs for a good cause. We believe that the individual spirit of many can be used to collectively inspire, and directly impact many people’s lives. We hope to build a unique relationship between our artists and our customers by providing a venue for artists to showcase their other projects and by allowing customers to voice their support and feedback on new designs. Additionally, we hope to create a forum where users can discuss causes that they feel strongly about and collectively choose the future recipients for our clothing donations (and hopefully soon other items like art supplies, medicine and drinking water)."

Goodfibres allows just about everyone, to design a t-shirt that is then showcased and voted for by people who actually want to buy it. Once it has received enough positive feedback, the t-shirt is then made (sustainably and ethically!) and for each one that is sold, Goodfibres will donate a t-shirt to someone less fortunate! The good news for the designer is that they hold all rights to their artwork/design and they receive some of the royalties. Therefore the designer is rewarded for their work, and they're helping someone less fortunate in the process of selling their designs. I've included some examples of artwork that you can vote for online, just some that caught my eye.

 Anyone can get involved in this cause, whether it is designing a t-shirt or simply just purchasing one!! Simply go to www.goodfibres.com to see what you think!

All images were taken from the Goodfibres website.

Running Away to Liverpool

In February, I found out I'd won some money in a competition so me and my boyfriend Nathan decided we'd run away to somewhere for the weekend and have some spontaneous fun!

Liverpool was my first choice with so much culture, and I knew Nathan would enjoy it because of the city's links to the Beatles. I'd definitely recommend the Tate Liverpool, the Maritime Museum, spotting the "Lambananas" and also heading to the Hard Days Night Hotel and looking around in the nearby Beatles' shops. It was definitely a weekend to remember and

I've added some photos below to show our weekend away, which was so much fun I wish I had the money to run away every week!

Photos are from my camera you can see the full album here.

Thanks to Nathan Whitehouse for allowing me to post the pictures with him in!

Inspired

When I got my new laptop, it has Photoshop Elements already installed on it. As an Illustrator fan, with some knowledge of Photoshop, I decided to play around with it and see what it could do. I had a photo of my boyfriend Nathan and decided to see if I could make an Andy Warhol inspired picture. The results are below:

Firstly I duplicated the original photo and arranged in the four quarters. I then draw 4 identical squares as the background of each quarter. Next I changed the style of the photo to an artistic style called "cutout". I coloured in the square backgrounds and I used the Smartbrush to change the faces to match the colours of each background.

I feel that this worked well and although not exactly like the Marylin Monroe portraits created by Warhol himself, I feel I've achieved a similar effect.

Image taken from my camera and edited by myself.

A Level Art - Using Fabrics to Create a Picture

The image of the work above is one of my A Level pieces that I constructed with fabric. First I laid out some fabrics and placed a shiny, reflective vase in the centre and painted the composition. Next I redrew the picture but more simply onto some calico fabric and used the key colours from the fabrics to recreate it. As I had previously painted it, it was quite simple to portray it with fabrics, using the painting to give me the reflections in the vase. I attached the fabrics in an applique style with a zig-zag stitch around the outer edge, preventing the fabrics from fraying. I then used organza over the vase part to give the vase its shiny appearance. This worked well because the organza is translucent so you could still see the other fabrics underneath. To finish the piece off I embellished some sections of the fabrics (the ones that were patterned) with beading.

Image from my own camera.

Edgar Mueller

I remember seeing some of the street art by this artist in the newspaper a while back, and I still enjoy looking at his work now.

Edgar Mueller creates a 2D painting on the street, which from a perception point looks 3D. This is a great skill and is truly inspiring. The scale of the artworks are huge, often taking up most of the road or path, using it as his own personal gallery.

Mueller has worked in the UK, Germany and Slovenia, creating caves, waterfalls, lava and ice crevices. Each one is just as breath-taking as the others.

 

People have reacted in different ways to each of these, often believing them to begin with, and even taking part in photos making them more "realistic".

I would love to see one down Briggate in Leeds!

All images are from here.

A Level Art

In my A level art classes, instead of drawing and painting in the conventional way, I used my talent from textiles, sewing. I enjoyed this so much more, I found my work to be unique and completely different to what everyone else was doing.

I took some inspiration from Gustav Klimt's painting called "The Kiss" for one of my pieces. The colours and All Seeing Eye seen throughout this painting inspired my piece.

First I embroidered an eye using different shades of green and blue on silk. I then stitched some gold fabric with red swirls and twists in different ways. The eye was then attached to this and I embroidered the golden and red swirls with beads. The piece was designed to look luxurious, which was achieved by the intricate detail in the eye, the golden fabric and the beading.

Image of the painting is from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gustav_Klimt_016.jpg and the image of my work is from my own camera

Tell me your secrets...

"In November 2004, I printed 3,000 postcards inviting people to share a secret with me: something that was true, something they had never told anyone. I handed out these cards at subway stations, I left them in art galleries, and I slipped them between the pages of library books. Then, slowly, the secrets began to find their way to my mailbox.
After several weeks i stopped passing out postcards but secrets kept coming. Homemade postcards made from cardboard, old photographs, wedding invitations, and other personal items carefully decorated arrived from all over the world. Some of the secrets were written in Portuguese, French, German, Hebrew and even Braille."

This is the beginning of the introduction to the PostSecret book. This book is just one of many books produced by "accidental artist" Frank Warren. 5 years ago, he invited others to share their deepest, darkest secrets with him. He encouraged those who were hiding something to speak out, but he allowed them to do this anonymously. From all over the world, people send Frank postcards containing their secrets, he is then welcome to read them, post them on his blog, or even get them published into his books. Frank gives people an outlet for their hopes, fears, confessions and memories (whether happy or painful) and allows them to share them with the whole world.

I haven't sent in a secret yet but every week, after Sunday, I go to the blog and I read each secret for that week. Sometimes I can relate to them, and this is what most followers of PostSecret like about it as it can make them feel less alone with their secrets. What I love about PostSecret is how everyone is invited to post in their secrets, regardless of religion, age or race; and also the design element of the postcards. Every postcard is unique, and is normally designed with the secret in mind. People draw, print, type, write, collage, paint on their postcards, they're given the freedom to tell their secret exactly how they want to, visually or with words. Sometimes postcards are hidden inside an envelope, this shows they want to share their secret but they're not quite ready to, this can give someone peace of mind just as much as sharing their secret. People have proposed, confessed their love and thanked friends and family all through this website and the books. Below are some examples of the secrets in the book and visit http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ for more secrets and information.

Quote and images are taken from the PostSecret book by Frank Warren. All images are from my camera.

Wood and Textiles

When I did art at A level, I didn't paint and draw like most people, I used sewing machines, silks, feathers, beads, threads and calico and tested and played around until I was happy with an idea. I would then develop this idea and create a final piece on this. Ever since doing this I have always been very interested in this style of textiles art. When we were given full access to WGSN at the start of this university year I planned on reading it more and gaining more knowledge about the industry I am in.

One of the first articles I read about was Wood Threads inspiration, techniques and application. Ella Robinson's Wood Textiles exhibition has inspired those as WGSN for different elements in forthcoming trends. Her work can be seen here and shows her work in different galleries. I found her work inspiring as she used both natural pieces of wood, mostly driftwood on the beach, but she also used mass produced blocks of wood. The driftwood helped her to create completely unique pieces whereas the mass produced wood gave her work a different style and could give more regular patterning. The wood is drilled and treads are wound around and through the wood to create stripes, patterns and pictures. Her work is quoted to be:

"Inspired by the bright and bold colours of urban environment - graffiti and street art for instance - alongside the calm and tranquillity of the British coastline, the resulting collection of objects is beautiful and precious."

Below are some examples of her work:




Images and quote from http://0-www.wgsn.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/members/materials/features/mt2009sep29_089162.