After my tutorial with Nick I thought I would speak to Neil about fax paper drawing as I have been told he has done this previously. He gave me some fax paper and I have started drawing on it with a soldering iron, heated nails/screws and an iron. I thought that If I could heat up a variety of shapes I could build up a design on the thermal paper- I tried this with some left over wooden shapes (as they get super hot in the heat press and stay hot for a while) but this was unsuccessful. For the fax paper to react, it has to be ridiculously hot and the shapes were just not hot enough. I could possibly create some sort of resist or heat up other objects to transfer onto the paper??

I have experimented drawing from some primary images of walls and graffiti and am really impressed with the results. The roll of paper is quite slim so they dont seem big enough to be a "drawing" but I will convert these onto screens or scan them into use in my digital drawings. I really love how the marks made are unique and are markings that you cannot get with any other technique. I like how you can combine the materials used on the paper, for example I have used thick black markers as well as pencil, coloured posca pens and oil pastels.

Today I have spent about 10 hours using AVA and creating my wallpaper designs which are suitable for the IDOTT competition and will also create a collection/body of work for a mini brief.
I feel that I spent a lot of time today just getting to grips with AVA and understanding what I wanted my wallpaper to look like.I feel that spending this time is valuable and helpful as It is a useful tool for the future.

After yesterdays tutorial I felt positive to start designing my wallpaper digitally. Photographing my larger pieces with a DSLR meant that I could use my bigger drawings/wallpaper tests in my digital designs. I wanted to ensure that the texture remained as I feel that this is a strong part of my work which makes it successful. I aim to complete the wallpaper designs by Thursday evening or Friday morning so that I can hand them in to be printed on Friday. I aim to have a collection of wallpapers with potentially some complementary wallpapers or prints along side- not sure whether this would work? I think I will test some simpler, complementary prints to answer that question.

There was various things to discuss with Nick today and I feel that it was really helpful and positive. For my wallpaper, I was unsure whether to hand print it after creating a kodatrace with he cut through, which would be time consuming. Or whether I should get it digitally printed over in Guntons. I was also unsure whether to choose the larger scale dimensions (180x120cm) and if i did- would i need the physical copy of the entry too? How would this work??? I have emailed them to see. I think continuing working to the 52x64cm dimensions is a good scale to work too anyway and it would work printing it digitally in Guntons on the 300gsm paper.

I have been experimenting more with cut through repeats today so that I can complete this mini brief and competition entry by the end of the week. I want to be able to work back on to fabric and develop and create final designs (1 metre maybe?) so I am anxious to get this completed. Because I am not particularly confident and experienced in repeats, I am finding this slightly difficult. The scale and the size is unnerving me- I am finding it hard to understand and get my head around the IDOTT brief and its requirements.
I want to work large scale in the 52x64 cm dimensions but I find that I keep repeating myself in terms of size of shapes in these dimensions.
Today I used colour in my cut throughs to see if this could help. After colour testing for the morning with procion and pigment binders, I used paper stencils with open screens to build up a design of cut out shapes and markings.
Because I'm working on paper, the procion paste doesn't sit particularly well and tends to bubble up at the edges, meaning the shapes aren't crisp and sharp like they are in my drawings. Working with binder on paper sits better but it hasn't got the translucency like procion has. Overlaying the procion means I can create darker and lighter areas with the same colours.
When testing the colours, I tested them on paper as well as plain cotton so that I have the procion on cotton for potential future printing. The colour on paper turns out lighter than on the fabric, but when printed through the screen, the colour on paper is slightly darker than when just tested straight onto paper.
After initially wanting to use warm tones and colours that I have not necessarily used previously, I played around with colour combinations further and managed to create a fresh, in trend palette. I created lots of different colour combos yesterday but found that a lot of them felt too earthy and dull. I wanted to create something fresh and inviting which also came from some of my primary imagery. I finalised my colours with a dark navy, a royal blue/navy, a peach/light pink, a burnt orange rust OR a scarlet coral pink and a light grey. I think these colours can still be developed and potentially narrowed down so that there are more neutrals, meaning the palette is balanced and versatile.
I am ensure whether to translate these into kodatraces or digitally print them on to acetate to then put them onto screens and hand print. Or would it be easier and more time effective if I could just digitally print it onto wallpaper in Guntons?? This is something I will discuss with Nick tomorrow in my tutorial.

before cut through

after cut through

complete design

complete design

Using colours from emerging interior trends I have created various colour palettes for project #4 which will be used in my cut out style wallpaper and wall pieces. 

From the trends and my imagery from street art, I have used warm shades of yellow/reds and browns as well as some pinks and olive greens. I wanted to try and use colours that I hadn't used before in my other projects but are suitable for a large scale wallpaper.

Tomorrow I will be back in the print room and need to continue to plan and figure out how I could create a repeat length for my last project and the idott competition. I want it to be based upon the cut out, simple shapes and minimal lines, using various artists and trends to influence me. In a way this is a development of my previous work from the other projects but I am finding a way to be selective in the way that I work and work to a brief.

The brief asks for a repeat wallpaper 52 by 64 cm which has to repeat in both width and height. I want to create a large scale wall covering so that the repeat can be barely seeing in length. There is an option on the brief which says that you can opt for bigger dimensions- which may be a possibility for me.

I have already began creating compositions and drawing for this project (before easter) using lining paper to help me understand the width I am working to. Tomorrow I will continue to do this and consider options for scale.

I have quickly tried repeating my cut out shapes to see how they could flow together when repeating in width and length and I think this could work.

I am going to attempt to do similar designs using paper stencils tomorrow.

I have been organising and sorting out my multiple projects within this body of work. I aim to name each project and every final piece/design, meaning I have a narrative for my work, which will enable me to have a disccuion surrounding it. 

I feel that this week as been so successful for me- finally screen printing onto cotton (fairly large) has meant that I have found even more confidence in being bold with my shapes lines and colour choices. Using the screens has enabled me to turn my small A3/A2 drawings into larger, more design like pieces.