Writing isn't my strongest trait but I luckily am extremely interested in the topic I have chosen to explore. The session with Jill on Tuesday was handy, especially now being grouped with two other students writing their report on a similar topic, we shared ideas and created a whatsapp group to discuss more ideas when we aren't together. We have emailed Sebastian Owen about Brainchild and further meetings we can have with him as I have heard he is so willing to help! Tuesday was a wake up call and made me realise I need to get my self organised as I cannot afford to fall behind. 

Meeting up with my other 3 friends on the course has helped me further extend my initial ideas form yesterday session. We discussed our ideas individually and gave feedback to one another. I explained how I wanted my design to be in a functional context and have a purpose. I showed my mini mood board of colourful buildings and it was suggested that I explored the theory of colour, thinking about mood in relation to colour. We discussed hostels, hospitals, children's bedrooms, sensory rooms and hospices. I like the thought of applying my work to a public area that can affect a variety of different people.

I have been thinking about what I want to make/do/design/draw in third year all summer. I have been to London, visiting the exhibitions and museums with my housemate who studies fashion. We particularly gained lots of inspiration from the Missoni exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum, studying the colour combinations and history. I have also begun exploring abandoned areas and urban architecture, photographing colour and shape as well as recording using drawing line over collaged backgrounds. I want to further work on this using recycled papers and materials. 

Today we presented our boxes to the rest of our peers. When completing the box yesterday, we inserted the mask into the back of the box, and suspended our samples in front, layering the colours and textures of the materials. This means that our box is interactive, enabling our peers to look through the mask, seeing the layered hanging samples. This links well with the idea of identity, covering the face and eyes, removing identity. We also created a shelf for the side of the box, for the larger sampling which wasn't transparent enough for the suspending. We thought of the idea of having a "create your own skin kit", making it even more interactive, for our peers to actually pick out the sampling they preferred the most. We named our skin after combining the names of our group members together. We researched in to the layers of skin we have, realising they have names, like the epidermis etc. So we named it Nimaloje.
I was worried that our concept wasn't being put across well, maybe we should have had more text, explaining the story of the future events, which influenced our materials and designs. We transferred parts of our moodboard on to parts of our box to try to tell the story as much a we could.

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I have just got back from a long day meeting my Stagecoach group then spending time with my Fashion collab group to produce samples in the print room. I popped to the shops on my lunch break earlier to source and gather materials to to use in the print room this afternoon/evening. We agreed that I would take all the photographs on my DSLR camera to document our process and then I would share these with the rest of the group later on this evening.

We initially experimented with a mesh bought from Anglia Fashion Fabrics and fused it with an anti-slip material which melted together under the heat press to create a more skin like fabric. We experimented with melting and fusing in various ways, adding clear PVC, melting two fabrics together then going back in again and trapping them in PVC etc. We liked the idea of covering the hand, face, mouth and eyes for our concept so we thought we could try out best to make a hand covering or glove out of the fabrics we were creating. Unfortunately the fabric wasn't stretchy enough and we had trouble turning the glove inside out to the right way after sewing it together. Nina then started using the dye kitchen wondering if she could dye some of the latex gloves. She had an array of skin tones bubbling away and we all spontaneously dipped materials in, like the anti-slip material, tights, PVC, the mesh from Anglia and some textured wallpaper. We continued to combine process and managed to build up a good selection of material tests and samples which I photographed, layering and changing composition.

Initial melting of the two fabrics

Experiemtning with the idea of identity in the future, covering the mouth and encasing the mask in nude tights

A peachy coloured plastic poncho that we used to replicate our concept for the future

Sampling with the antislip fabric and PVC

Dyeing the anti-slip fabric

Dyeing the latex gloves

Dyeing vinyl fabric- too orange maybe?

Our work space! Taking over the table!!!

Dyed latex glove

A selection of my favourite samples

Layering similar samples

Layering and playing with composition

I had bought some white silicone in a tube from pound land earlier on so i played around with it, applying it on to PVC and onto fabrics. It dried fairly quickly and did exactly what we hoped!!! It created a skin type texture and quality so I planned to go home and add some gouache to add colour and then continue to apply this to materials.

Experimenting with the silicone

Applying silicone to tights, plastic and PVC. I made texture using the mesh and anti slip fabrics by pushing it through the holes with a spatula.

Now that I am home, I will continue to play around with PVA glue and UHU all purpose glue to create a transparent resin like material. I want to trap in colour and trap texture in to further replicate our concept of a second skin.

I have been unsure about my ability to write a business plan and explore problems about a business in  my research report. I am finding it hard to think about viable ideas and not too many that my report is jumbled and not coherent.
I will continue to add to my proposal and keep hunting for references by searching through books. I have been really enjoying reading, The Art of Shouting Quietly but Pete Mosley, who I met at the Castle Museum last year at a small creative business lecture.

Due to the time constraints and the unusual theme of our Fashion Collaboration Project I have been having difficulty with drawing. Searching through pinterest and referring to our group moodboard I have experimenting with imprints of materials. I have used printing inks to create a peachy nude tone, rolling them onto lino to making interesting mono prints. I varied the thickness of the inks in some areas to get an uneven texture, scraping the ink off and laying it back down again, smearing it in different directions. Texture is a vital part in our project as there isn't much pattern, this is why "drawing" was initially difficult. I have experienced with transparent materials such as tracing paper, acetate, cellophane, brown tape and melted bubble wrap, layering these with skin colours to replicate our idea.

I have also used our concept of losing identity in 2036 by editing images of peoples faces on photoshop. Smudging and blurring their faces out and pixilating their eyes and mouth. I have layered faces up so different faces with different skin tones are merging together, I managed to do this quite simply by playing around with the lasso tool and the opacity. Playing around with the brushes on photoshop has also allowed to me paint over their eyes and mouth, showing our idea of having to cover eyes and mouth for security and identity reasons. I really like how the paint stroke on the eyes are slightly translucent which is exactly our idea, be able to see through the second skin but not entirely so eye recognition will not work.




I have also used photography as a drawing tool, using the sunlight to cast shadows onto my skin. I used a variety of materials with holes and negative space in, such as, mesh and anti slip material. This  backs up our idea of embedding a brand into the second skin to gain back identity in 2036. I created pattern on my skin and also pushed shapes into my skin leaving an imprint, also demonstrating this idea.






I have really enjoyed replicating our idea for 2036 as I love the concept and ideas behind textiles and design. It feels like my work has a purpose and it explains an idea without using words. I love using photography as  drawing tool, next I will combine the photographs I took of the patterns in my skin with mono printing and other materials .I might even try to print y images out onto acetate and layer them manually instead of using photoshop?



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Our group has been slightly behind at fully deciding on a theme four our Fashion and textiles collaboration project. I have been unwell since Monday evening so I feel like I've missed out on this week completely!!! We met up on Thursday briefly to discuss everybody's research and their favourite ideas. Luckily, our group members are very pro-active and had so many ideas which was brilliant!! Combining ideas of spray on fabric, seamless garments, technology and communication and a "second skin" trend from WGSN we had a loose idea of our theme or "story" for 2036!

Jess talked about how technology and privacy will become corrupt in 20 years as there are already more and more extreme password protection technologies by brand such as Apple and Microsoft, such a finger print and face recognition.
Louise talked about covering of the face and hands like the future trends in WGSN.
Nina showed visuals of imprints into the skin made by zips etc, which we all thought was an interesting idea.
I initially found spray on cloth in a book called Material Matters which, linked well to everybody's ideas!!!
We agreed to look into latex and neutral colours, and further investigate in to a range of skin tones, creating a "second skin".

After having a tutorial with Jill, she said we needed to refine our idea further and it wasn't clear to her exactly what we aimed to do. She said to create  story of what happened in 2036 which made the fashion change, which is a great idea. We sat down afterwards for a while, taking it in turns to explain what idea we liked the best, we managed to combine all of our ideas and made up our story.

In 2036, internet security will corrupt and al personal data will be public, eye, smile and finger print recognition will be everywhere meaning that there is no escape of personal invasion. Every body is rebelling, realising that the internet, and technology is taking over, meaning humans aren't safe anymore. Health risks are high as many infections can no longer be treated with antibiotics and everybody's immune systems are at an all time low. For protection against data invasion and germs and infections, an extra "skin" is worn made from a frosted, translucent (latex like) material which acts as a barrier against fraud data theft and bad bacteria. Everybody looks the same, and person identity is lost as the face is covered, people begin to customise their extra skin embedding objects, creating imprints and manipulating it to be able distinguish one another.

Being able to replicate and demonstrate this idea will be a challenged, especially in less than a week!!! We have began to source materials and have booked into the print room on Monday to experiment with translucent binders and clear foil.

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I had a great opportunity to attend the private view open studios, at the forum yesterday, as Aviva offered to add me as her guest! Hooray! It was so great to see all the wonderful talented artists in and around Norfolk. It was so inspiring to see how their artwork was priced and how it was displayed/presented. I stood back and spectated for a while, taking a real notice on who's art work was looked at and complimented the most. I thought about the positive aspects of the pieces and what was good about them and how I could apply this to my work. I would love to feature in the open studios one day and I am so pleased that I had the opportunity to see what it is all about!

We were given our brief this morning and put into our groups of 4. In our group there is only one fashion student, Louisa and three textile students, Nina, Jess and me.
We sat down and discussed our interests and our strengths and weaknesses and went off to research materials and further technologies. We plan to meet tomorrow at 3pm, which gives everybody time to come back with some research

I searched the library for books investigating materials and technical/future textiles.
I also looked in to predictions for events happening in 2036 and searched through WGSN looking at trends.
We also thought it would be a great idea to see what people thought would be in trend now, in 1996 (20 years ago) to see what kind of things they thought of and the reasoning behind it.

Initial Ideas