EXP: Naming my Colours May Vary OOO pieces.

Today we got asked about what we were going to name our pieces, as the exhibition is called Out Of Order, some people have got names going along with that, other people have repurposed previous work pieces.

I chose to name my embroidery series "Ius Naturale" because it is latin for "Natural Law".

As Ive been creating my work Ive been thinking about how nature is beautiful but how Humans harness that beauty and see themselves as ruling over nature. By creating pieces where technology is absent (or being strangled by nature) I wanted to show that we need to respect the natural order (linking in with out of order, as if, the human race is out of order).

I'm not sure it inherently comes across in my work, but by putting it here (and on my portfolio blog.. eventually) hopefully it will have a deeper meaning for those who buy it.

FMP: The wonders of paper

After I spoke to Patrick, he suggested Layout paper. I've never used it before but oh boy is it working some wonders. Patrick suggested using layout paper to help me with designing what the characters would wear but primarily for how they would move.

I watched a few still life people videos on youtube so I could get a feel for drawing people in different positions,

I also went on pinterest just because it's good for finding out techniques (yes I still use the profile we got told to make in first year, it's actually very very useful). I have a whole folder dedicated to drawing practice which is helpful especially now.

This really helped me in molding the main character, as she is a fairy I need to think about how wings will play into each position and also how I can use them to my advantage to show expression. 

This is one of the tips I picked up from Hotel Translyvania, when i was reading through the concept art book it mentioned how they used his cape to their advantage and changing the collar points was a way of expressing mood. This is something I'm going to try and take forward with my creating characters. 

EXP: Decision to embroider

So I got a lot of positive feedback on the embroidery I posted to my instagram (which is my only real creative outlet to the world, I still don't have a portfolio OR any other social media sites for my work so yeah MAYBE I SHOULD DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT SOON)

I decided to explore the magical site of etsy to see what's there/does it sell/ how much for and here is my summary. People love embroidered stuff, some of the prices for these are shocking, I don't understand. I looked on even some of the dodgier lazy embroider's etsy shops and they all have at least 10 sales. They also are priced quite high which is kind of promising because I know CMV takes 40% commission and I want to make some money at the exhibition!

My decision to embroider based of etsy is that, people on etsy are willing to pay more for individuality and that the clientele are very similar at colours may vary, they don't mind paying a little bit extra if it is a limited edition and with embroidery it will be one of a kind.

For example this on the surface looks like a very basic embroidery but the woman who does it has done a lot of contextal research ABOUT the moth she embroidered. 

Where as another person embroidered some text and sold it for £27, they are paying purely for the talent to embroider not all of the research thats gone into it. 

EXP: More Valentines Day

After creating the cards I made some design boards with proposed outcomes on them, as I didn't have the luxury of buying really nice envelopes at the time I didn't really get the chance to photograph them nicely. So because I missed out on that, I decided to mock up the cards as if they had been sent and opened. I did actually make confetti for the two couple ones so the mock up i used was actually very representative of what the client actually got.
As for the "loveheart" valentines card, I didn't mention this one in the main brief section because I wasn't paid for this one, this was one that got sent to a friend as they were single for valentines day. There weren't really any requirements with this one other than to just have fun and create something that would make my friend laugh. I probably enjoyed making this one the most because I could play with the colours and just have fun with it.

I also  forgot to mention in my last post about my decision to put a small logo on the back. As I haven't done my online portfolio yet (or made a logo that I'm 100% happy with) I did a makeshift logo to put on the back of these cards. It just adds to the professional effect, and to leave the back blank felt weird! I hand wrote my name on the back and then just added "design" in a neat font. This is by no means going to be my logo, but it will do for this brief at least!

EXP: Final Major Project initial ideas ft Feedback Form

After talking to Teresa 2 weeks ago I now definitely have a clearer idea of what I'm heading towards, at the moment I am proposing 6 landscapes, 6 character designs and 6 storyboards for a proposed comic book about magical beings. 
I've made a start on drawing one of the characters but after a tutorial with Patrick today I realised I've been working far too small creating the characters. I had been mostly focusing on character heads which is fine for defining features but not how I should be starting out (should start out as the whole). 

I also got told about layout paper today and had never heard about it before, so I've invested in that and we will see how it goes. 

I was also advised to keep it small character design wise so that I will be able to explore their movements in a lot of detail. I am still thinking of keeping an original 4 strong characters and keeping 2 spaces for bad guys perhaps. 


At the moment I am behind schedule due to a complete dud week where everything I made I hated, so now I'm going to move on with better materials and a clearer image of what I want from final 

EXP: Valentines Day

Making of Valentines Day card's is something I have done every year, I have always made them for free and up until this Feb I had always hand made them, this is mostly down to me wanting to make them for people who don't have other halves as it's a hard time of year. 

However this year when I announced to my family and friends that my Valentines Card making services were open, I got asked by 2 girls on my facebook if I could make cards for their boyfriends and better yet, they wanted to pay for them! 
It definitely added pressure as I now was making them for someone who wasn't close to me and I couldn't just wing it. 




Both girls were happy for me to have creative control, but both had specifics they wanted from the card. The first girl Verity wanted a card that embraced their love of food and adventure, she also requested that my characters me as close to them as possible. 
For this to happen I was sent photos of them both and i found it pretty hard to get their personalities across in my style, hard but not impossible. After I had cracked that, the rest was reasonably easy. She sent me a list of foods they loved and left me to set the scene. 
I decided on cute/cheesy phrase "lifes a picnic with you" because although it was a little cheesy it wasn't a play on the word love and it didn't necessarily scream valentines day (she didn't want mushy). 
I was fairly pleased with that card although I do wish I'd practiced more figure drawing before drawing the couple as I had to redraw them so much during the colouring. 

The second card I had greater creative control over, the client Milli wanted something that involved her boyfriends love for batman and movies and her love for unicorns. She also mentioned that she was a florist and that they both loved superhero films. This lead me to initially drawing them both as their own super heros. I sent this draft over before colouring and she was pleased with the faces etc but felt that it was a little too sexy for her and emphasised that her boyfriend would prefer something with something a little silly involved. I took this on board and changed their superhero costumes to onsies. 
I was really pleased with this card because I think the colours worked well and the client was really pleased also. 

I had never thought about creating cards professionally or for money at all before but I really enjoyed the process so it's something I'm thinking about doing more in the future. 

EXP: Out Of Order Promo Team

T E A M  P L A Y E R 

I haven't being a massive part of any exhibitions before, mostly just clean up teams so I thought this time I would mix it up and jump on the promo team. 
As the roles were handed out I volunteered to email out to local businesses and agencies. I tried to mix up the paragraph as much as possible and edit it to sound person to each business (here is an example of one sent out).

F A C E B O O K    S Q U A D 

It was easiest for us to all make a facebook group, just because it was easier to transfer images across to facebook than whatsapp (as thats a purely mobile app). 

When we were designing our promo material, everyone in the promo team got asked to make a quick piece of work to promote the show. My contribution was okay, but it wasnt as developed as some of the others. I was thinking purely in a make a gif kind of way. 
Facebook was useful here because we could equate likes into what was most popular for us. In the end Mad's and amy's designs got the most so we merged them together to create the promo material. 







Apart from this, Facebook was mostly useful for me, when I was contacting people and needed to know an answer from the group collectively I could just post in the group and get some feedback. It made things easier to arrange and to get everyone to agree too. 

P R O M O  P A C K 

Ian created the promo pack for us and the banner one worked best for me as it loaded the fastest on a mobile (and was still in proportion) via mobile. 
I've had a few responses, we were replied to by one newspaper about advertising but it was above our budget, however they did still offer to pass it over to their editorial team so that they could come and (possibly) write about the exhibition which still might be nice. 
I had 2 back from agencies saying that they'd put it in their calendars but so far I think that flyering and actually seeing/pestering those people in person is probably the best way to go about creating a buzz. 

We did start early with the promo but it seemed better to have people thinking about it rather than them thinking it was a last minute invite (cause come on who wants to go to something as an afterthought). 

C O N F I D E N C E   B O O S T E R 

I hadn't previously sent out emails to anyone, I know for part of PPP sending out emails to practitioners and getting in touch with them is something that's encouraged but I find it really awkward and I feel like Im pestering but when I'm sending emails about exhibitions I feel i can hide behind that a little bit. 

EXP: Stitch 'n' B*tch

A N   U P D A T E 

So my embroidery has gone down well with everyone I've spoken too, so I've decided that for this brief I will produce 5 or 7 Hoops for the exhibition (hopefully 7 but it depends on how fast I can stitch n bitch). It fits in well with CMV's image of unique work and I still feel that it fits in well with the theme (if my mum can look at my work and get what it's about.. that's generally a good signifier). 

The only thing I have to worry about now is pricing. We know already that CMV takes 40% commission but it's a high reaching shop so that's kind of justified. My only worry is people not wanting to pay loads for an embroidery. I think this line of thought mostly comes from the whole "embroidery isn't art" thing but it is making a come back. 

Hanecdote (instagram) is an hand embroidery artist, her work is so stand alone that bigger corporations such as doc martens and a few artists have asked her to make work for them. 



Other instagrammers I found such as UsedThreads (desert landscape pic) sell their work for high prices and demand in something that is completely unique. Even if that work is made again, they will never hand stitch it exactly in the same way. 

I'm trying to look for more embroidery artists to see how they mark up their work. My stuff is no where near as intricate but it still took time, but I am worried about over/ under pricing my work. 

EXP: Statement Of Intent (newest)

This is my updated Statement Of Intent, I changed it a little to what the template was because I felt like I was repeating myself but all the action plan and things are there. My FMP is also mentioned in quite a lot of detail. 

EXP: Out Of Order, Initial Ideas

We decided on Out Of Order as the theme for our exhibition at colours may vary. I wasn't very sure on the theme as I would have preferred something more specific so everyones work tied in better together, however it left me with lots of ideas of things to trial out! 

My very first thought for out of order was to create drawings or linocuts of buildings that had gone array. Thinking along the lines of viral infection/non existence of humans ect. 

This lead me to look at game art work for The Last Of Us which focus' heavily on surroundings being overgrown and decrepit.

I made a few sketches and wasn't sure that this was what I wanted to do. I trialled a few mediums but nothing was standing out to me. I didn't want to make work for the sake of making work. 


I tried a few other ideas, one idea was that the grim reaper was taking the day off and the world was going crazy around him. I liked the idea but i've been trying to keep in mind the kind of people that shop at Colours May Vary. I wanted something that really stood out and I'd really like if my work could actually sell there. 


I often work on embroidery in my own time, mostly for personal gifts. I was getting so frustrated with what wasn't working for this project that I thought I'd give sewing the image a chance. I actually liked how it turned out and now plan on making more of these to see if this wasn't just a one off. 

EXP: Scoping out Colors May Vary

Last weekend I went down to Colours May Vary to scope it out (I didn't take photos so this one from their site will have to do) as we know that we are going to have an exhibition down there, a lot of people are planning on just making prints but I'm not sure that's the direction I 100% want to go in. I went to look at the actual shop to see the space but also to see what stuff they do stock and if theres anything that they are lacking.

I thought about making a book, they do have a lot of magazines and books in stock but with the nature of people that shop there, they are the kind that would appreciate a limited edition book. If not, Colours May Vary don't have too many ceramics or physical things so i was thinking maybe could make some bowls that related in some way to the theme (which hasn't been decided yet so I guess that very much depends on what the theme is) or maybe some fabric banners, embroidery hoops? something that isn't a print really, maybe a print on fabric?

I just know that whatever I make I want it to stand out, prints will get lost in a sea of prints so I'm hoping to avoid that (maybe).

FMP: First ideas

I hadn't really thought too much into what I wanted to make for my FMP but just lately I've been having really vivid really strange nightmares and all I've wanted to do is illustrate those places and create a story around the short dream I had in my head.

The main one that sticks out in my mind is a dream I had about an old woman finding a fairy who was orphaned and taking her back to her village to safe guard her. In another dream I went back to that same place and it was under threat from a monster.
Although it's a very basic premisis I feel like it could be built on, I'd like to create something around this, maybe a set of proposed characters and scenes that would be made into a graphic novel with a few exert pages?

I've started drawing these characters anyways and the next tutorial I have hopefully I can bring it up and ask for some more advice on what I should do with them??
All I know is that I definetly want my FMP to be character based/narrative based as that's really where I feel like im headed with my work right now.

EXP: Tutorial Feedback Form

Today I spoke to Teresa a little bit about my Final Major Project, She spoke about how my FMP should really reflect what I want to do after this course. I've thought about this and blogged it briefly on my PPP but not really on this blog. I'm really interested in having something to do with Character design, comic creation and editorial. Out of the three, Teresa suggested I focus on character development for my FMP just because it was the one I have worked most over my EXP module so it's the natural progression. 

I've been reading Marina Warner's "from the Beast to the Blonde" text which explores different archetypes in folklore, I started reading this towards the end of my cop which was a shame because it really gave me an insight into fairytales and I want to use FMP to explore that interest further. I spoke about this to Teresa and she suggested I looked at FolkloreThursday on twitter, it's a fast way to learn folklore and different character designers share stuff over there. After I spoke I looked up folklore thursday on twitter and there was lots of small snippets, everything from werewolves to fairy. As I'm mainly focusing on fairies for my FMP, I just picked a few from that feed to show on here! 

This is all the kind of research I need to be doing to be creating a different world, at the moment I know my main character is going to be a fairy but I need to figure out why and what her story is! I need to really start to define the brief at the moment so that my next tutorial I have something clearer to talk about.