Rug Tufting

All presented work had to be left in our work spaces for a week which meant that we were unable to work at our desks until the following week. I therfore felt very smug about having booked myself in to use a rug tufting frame. I had previously learnt rug tufting in my first year and created a small doormat sized rug. Therefore this year I hoped to create a larger piece. I worked directly from my images of burns. My first rug only used a quarter of the frame space. In this design I used up to three colours at a time throught the nozzle. This created a speckled effect which worked well with my imagery and the blending of colours.

For my next rug I used a long thin strip from a grayscale photocopy. This rug was significantly larger. I tried to match my colours to those in the photocopy, however I struggled to find the exact colours within the supply uni has. I found that the dark grey had a hint of khaki, the palest grey had a hint of cream and there was no bleached white which led to me using silk. Silk was really awkward to use. It kept slipping through the nozzle and entwining itself around the blade. It was also quite a strong yarn and did not cut cleanly. I persevered with the silk as once tufted it gave a lovely irridescent and soft finish... even if there was a hint of pink within there...

Photograph taken from the top

Photograph taken from the bottom

Here my rug is modelled by my friend Emily! I took this photograph to allow a feeling of size.

 As always, all comments appreciated.

Assessment week

Over the past few weeks I have been slaving away over my new uni project. Over the summer we were asked to create a book of drawings - a 5 minute drawing every day until we returned to uni. In my book I had drawn a lot of people. I had drawn family, work colleagues, and models in magazines. The drawing I was most inspired to develop was a coloured sketch of a half melted candle. Combining these two components in a group tutorial led to a discussion into burns on skin. I was unsure on how to approach this topic as I am quite squeamish and was unsure on where I would be able to stomach any visuals. I eventually braved the library medical section and photocopied images from some books specific to burn injuries. I also enlarged these images by a considerable amount so that they focused on skin surface and not the victims in pain. At first I felt very uncomfortable using these images but after some time I became anaethetised to them and saw them purely as surface pattern. I used my previous ecru work and these images to develop braids that reflected the bulbus and bubbled surfaces of te skin. My assessment area at half way is shown below. I was very proud of my time management skills and had my work presented three days early!

All feedback is appreciated!
  

Halloween Pumpkin

In true halloween spirit I carved out a pumpkin! I found this design on the internet and I think it was originally taken from the animation "the nightmare before christmas". It took me around an hour to carve the whole design and make the edges neat but I am very pleased with the finished product and recieved many compliments from the Trick or Treater's parents.

Who knew Dads were so useful?

Take a nosey at what my Dad brought home from Homesense... he knows me well!

Blackpool sunset

A few weeks ago I went on a family weekend away to Blackpool. Whilst there I actually managed to take some rather beautiful photographs which I feel contrast against the more commonly portrayed image of Blackpool being tacky.