Evaluation

Annie Baker - Original Design 

Within the project I feel as though I have shown my skills as a designer, the past projects over the years have really helped me gain the experience I needed to grow as an interior designer.

I feel like I have challenged myself during this unit, experimented with different media and techniques, finding new surfaces, textures and shapes that I never have before. I have learned that being more playful and expressing myself really does help when drawing and also when being a designer.

Starting off by using found objects from the home to create individual drawings; capturing surface and texture has been my aim throughout the projects I have been given over the years. With this project my aim was to add more pattern and shape into my drawings doing this would add more depth and dimension.

Whilst drawing and printing I started doing some wallpaper deigns to help me see how some of my drawings looked when I repeated them, some of these were successful and others I had to go back into my drawings and change them as they didn’t look quite right as designs.

Researching wallpaper collections also helped me along the way as I could see how differently companies did their own repeats and how they created surface and texture in their designs.

Along the way I could see I needed to be more critical of my own work and so I would sit down and think of good and bad points to help me gain my own understanding of how and what works best, I did this mostly when I brought colour into my work it became a big part of project. I used it to try and create depth into my designs, creating different shadows and different shades of one colour, doing this helped me with the offset in Photoshop so I could see where and which colours would go where.

Time keeping with this project was very important to me, as I have learnt my lessons over the years that it is a huge part of being a designer and I finally think I have found how keep up with all my designs and daily life. Having my own issues at home with this project I found that turning to designing kept me going, as it’s what I do best and what I enjoy.   

I feel that my designs are very unusual and not uniformed were as 90% of the wallpapers out there today are very structured, mine show my more playful side.  

I have gotten better at techniques needed when designing broadening my skills, I feel like I can take these with me after graduating from university to become a great wallpaper designer.

I am looking forward to the degree show, being able to showcase my work and have other professionals from the industry come and see it. Exhibiting for me will be a new thing which gives me great excitement and will help me gain even more experience within the design world.

Designing is my happy place and makes me feel alive; I enjoy printing with found objects and tools to make my own bolder, creative prints. Manchester Metropolitan has helped me become an individual wallpaper designer and helped me gain all the skills I need for what will hopefully be a very bright, successful career.  

Desiging

Throughout the project I have been continuously designing with the drawings I have been doing trying to use my colour way to add more dimension into some of my designs;  

Here are two images from the collections I have been working on, the first image being from my more textured and surface collection which I will be including the more delicate surface images inspired by the patterns on the New Harlequin Range with more intricate patterns. 

My second image is one design from my second collection which definitely has more bold, blocked shapes and patterns. These images show the different feels and moods my collections will show and how different I can portray the same chosen colour pallet and make it look different in different designs.








With all designs I will be making them all into different colour ways and printing before deciding for definite which colours I will choose for the final design. I think this way is much more professional as I have learnt from this in the past as colours from Photoshop don't always print out the way you see them on the screen so I have time to prepare myself for changing some different colours. 

Mark Making

For this project my aim is to add shape into my surface and textured drawings, being inspired by my photographs and previous mark making in the Practise Unit I decided to make marks using a brush strokes with a ruler so I could still get the ruff edge and messiness with adding the straight abstract edge with the ruler. 
The straight line at the edge of the paper adds another element to the drawing rather than it being just a simple brush stroke on a page.

I really think this technique has worked, I can see all the small grains of the brush stroke and then with the straight line I like how it has made it into more of a shape than just a simple brush stroke. I did this mark by moving the brush to the left, I also want to try moving the brush up and down. I am going to carry on with this technique making more bigger marks and also smaller marks to see the difference and compare them.

The second image is me trying to trap the brush stroke and I think this is really effective, again it isn't like any other simple brush mark. By creating a simple square shape with tape I have created a completely different mark, with this I am also adding shape into my mark making drawings.

Evaluation

At the start of the project I was very certain with what theme/route I wanted to take. Surface and texture have always been a part of my work so I took the opportunity as I could when being able to write my Learning Agreement.

I started by taking my own inspirational photographs from around my own area and from Fletcher Moss Gardens. I was very pleased with them and wanted to look at them throughout the project to pull surface from them and also manipulate them in Photoshop.

Exploring surface really took off when I started my drawings, I used all different types of media such as, and pallet knifes sponges, stencils, paint brushes and different types of pens. I also done all my drawings in black and white so I could give myself time to really research my colour pallets. I wanted two collections showing neutral and bold designs and I really think my final collection show that.

My live project was Pattern Mash, Marbelous Malfunction. I decided to take a different route rather than a digital wallpaper design and designed my own marbled coasters, I designed a range of 6 and I really enjoyed doing this and am considering doing something like this for unit x.

Overall I am really pleased with how I have managed my time keeping and I’m also pleased with the work I have produced. I am proud to put to put my designs in my portfolio for future references. 

Final Collection - Naturally Quiet

I am very proud of my final designs, I am very proud of them and a lot of hard work has gone into them. 

I think the collection flows throughout and I also think I have picked the right colour way for them. They show both surface and floral themes and trying to connect them was a challenge but I love the end results of my final designs. 

Designing

I have been progressing with designing and my designs are looking very floral and the colours are also looking very neutral. I didn't think I wanted a floral kind of theme throughout my work I was kind of steering away from that look, but as I am designing I am seeing myself producing this theme and I am enjoying designing them.

Here is one floral design I have chosen to show, it shows the neutral and floral theme that is almost continuous throughout the early designs.  

Here are two other designs I'm working on what show more of a textural look, I thought of trying some more designs that show my surface in the collection would really connect things together. 

Having floral designs would show that I maybe my brief is only floral and that's what I intended when it is not, taking a step back and looking at what I had produced I wanted to add some more textural designs. 

Development on Designing

I have recently been putting my photographs into Photoshop so I can start designing. Picking out the shapes so I can see them in different colours from my colour pallet is really helping me to see how my colours look and work within different shapes. 

Doing this before getting straight into designing I can see how big or small I want the shapes and also the colour. This process is even helping me discard of any shapes within the photographs that I don't think suit the look I am going for, which is Natural and subtle shapes. 

Reflective Post

 'digital drawings'

Firstly I went on a walk around my area and was looking for surface inspiration, something different to my Fletcher and Moss garden photographs which I had been working from and I thought instead of photographing I would collect surface inspiration. This would be a different way for me to get visual surface inspiration and would challenge me as I have never thought about surface when collecting things before. 

My normal photographs of the collected things were not really showing surface to me, I wasn't inspired by them and then I thought of the Threshold technique on Photoshop and I loved the results:

                                    

The effect changed the 3D object to a flat surface image. This is the effect I like, that inspires me and also gives me development ideas: Can I do some screen printing? Would I find that I do enjoy screen printing to see the effect? Lightbox - pulling the marks out of the photograph.

The Threshold technique was so useful to me that I thought I would put some of my Fletcher and Moss photographs into it:

I have put this technique to good use this week and I can also keep on developing from it.

Mattie Iverson

Mattie Iverson is a artist who uses layering in her work, she layers and layers small paint compositions first of all and then they eventually grow into bigger ones. 

She also only uses a pallet knife, which intrigued me as I have never explored pallet knifes in my work before. 

I could see her paintings as wallpapers, with a modern rustic look.

Iverson has helped me gain some new surface inspiration, showing how even small drawings can be turned into a huge one off, individual piece. 

Mattie Iverson

Mattie Iverson Inspirational Drawings.

Here are my Mattie Iverson inspired drawings/prints. 

These drawings I have done from her inspiring me are some of my favourite ones, I think there really unique and individual, I can create a whole new surface within a surface.

I created these drawings by using my Fletcher Moss Garden photographs as a inspiration and using a single pallet knife dipping it in paint and printing with is as many times as possible before the paint ran out to get more stronger and weaker patterns from it.

Reflective Post

 I decided this week it was now time to start my bigger scale work because I do want to show that I am trying new ways of working. 

I also needed some new materials to draw with because in my tutorial I had only explored the squeegy, I came across Artists Sponges. They were different in sizes and had small and bigger holes in them so I picked some up and thought they would be really great for capturing all of the smaller details in the photographs but on a bigger scale. 

Here are the sponges and as you can see they all have different shapes and bubbles in them to create different effects on the page:

Thumbnail drawings:

Each sponge created a different mark and I thought the thumbnail method of showing this was really helpful as I could see what was happening with every sponge. I now felt confident 
to get into my bigger A2 drawings:

I have really enjoyed exploring with the sponges but still think I need to explore more in depth with them to show off their full potential. 

 I now know to draw for a purpose, not to just draw because I need more drawings, every drawing needs to have a purpose.  

Fletcher Moss Gardens

As Sally thought it would really help me, I took a visit to Fletcher Moss Gardens. It was really nice to have a little day out to a completely strange place and see all the different new surfaces and I loved taking photographs there:

I love every single photograph I have taken, their such good quality and I can really start to develop my drawings from them. 

Also whilst at the Gardens I had taken a A3 Sketchbook some black and white paint and a Squeegee one that people clean windows with, so I could make some surfaces whilst sat at the park looking at all the inspiration. 

Here are the examples of the surface drawings that I did, I really love them. Each one is so different showing the different qualities that the squeegy can make. 

Although I am wondering how to develop them further?