I feel this week is gonna be good

It was a very good day today.
Good beginning of the week!

First of all, a weaving workshop has started from today, and I really enjoyed it, although I didn't think that I need to use brain to weave—even if the pattern has already been made. To be honest, weaving was less interesting one in 4 disciplines (weave, print, knit, embroidery) for me, but I quite liked it.

The next is, I saw the first-year textiles tutor and technician by chance. I hardly see them after I became the 2nd year, and I have been missing them so much.  Yet I could talk to them only few words, I'm happy with seeing them.

Thirdly, my Japanese friend who is working in glasgow after graduated GSA architecture came my flat and give me & my flatmate home-baked sweets.

The last one is that I've got less regret for my day today. It makes happiness twice.

As I have more energy than usual, I uploaded photos which were taken in the south of England in the summer holiday.
I would like to show you some of them.

wire knitting appears on a street

each colourful flag is knitted 

If I could work at a studio like here, it'd be wonderful.

I think I still like lamp and street views in twilight. 

about the past

About 3 weeks is being past after the 2nd year started.

Although there is much work to do, I'm not stressed very much at the moment. For me, to have many things to do is by far better than just being blind and struggling.

Recently, when I am woking in the studio or walking to the Skypark, I often try to remember what I am doing and thinking now in the last year, and then I always realise that the last year was essential for me, at last. 

Before I came here, I didn't like designing but love stitching despite I was in textile 'design' course, but I'm sure that I began to like designing during the 1st year in GSA. About cut-work, especially, I had hardly ever done it before, but now the major part of my studio work is cut work, and I'm enjoying that.

colour analysation

just started

My bad mood is getting better

After the last tutorial, I was quite depressed, but after that I'm sure that my drawing style has changed slightly. Before the review, my drawings were not like drawings but more design.

I tried to work apart from patterns, and did drawings related to texture and colours in photo.

Maybe that idea was quite useful, so I could find many kinds of interesting surface texture.

At first I worried what to do, but now I quite enjoy working in this way.

Before coming to GSA, I've never thought of drawing very much before making patterns, and often wondered where designers get inspiration from. Now I knew that there is a very long way before making actual patterns. That is an exciting journey, but sometimes tough.

Restart

AH, everything I've done was wrong!

I had the second review today, and found out that I need to start over again. I feel like I caught a dozen of moths instead of butterflies.

Even I made mistakes many times by misunderstanding of briefs in the last year,  I did it agin :(

one good thing is, there's nothing can be mistaken anymore.

explored far away and lost.

now it's time to get on the trail.

Stop the motion

My drawing works are going well at the moment, at least better than struggling days in the last week.

I am enjoying drawing and quite happy with them which I have done. 

Sometimes, or often I believe in my own sense rather than design theory, although I know I shouldn't. I cannot understand the theory until I face to it during an actual work. It happened today.

When I was doing stencils from a photo, I wondered whether I put brown bricks pattern in rectangles or out of them, and then I decided to do both by dividing paper in half.

Although the rectangles are allocated same, they look different. One seems to be stopped the motion and settled in each place, but another is not.

I thought it is interesting, and remembered that I read about this in sometime before, at the sometime.

I have learnt that I need to think of not only patterns themselves, but also arrangement of them.

puzzle

Today, I worked with my photos that I took on Friday.

Before the first review, I have been doing line drawings in random colours chosen by my sense. Although it was fun to play with colours, (and I think drawings are visibly not bad) it confused me very much when I look into shapes. Actually the photos I have chosen first are quite colorful, so I think it may also be cause of the confusion.

At this time, I'm trying to not to use much colour, and chose photos that have got good contrast of scales, less colours, and different surface texture.

I think it works well, so far. My drawing styles has not changed very much, but I could get more geometric shapes and patterns. 

Those photos below are the series of patterns that I found interesting.  There might be dozens of ways to combine them, so it shows many different kinds of patterns, although the each piece only has simple one.

the 2nd year started

on this monday.
Now we're working on the first project, and had the first internal review today/yesterday.
The project, geometrically inspired, seemed to be really nice to me, because I quite like geometric patterns with textile materials, but actually, or might be obviously it's hard to make them.

In the last year, I was made aware of how much I was not following the project brief at every review, and had to change directions. It was good for me to know what was correct or incorrect before handing final ones rather than making effort on something that tutors were not expected.
Before I came to GSA, I hate internal reviews, because I wanted to surprise tutors and classmates by working by myself in isolated places, but it isn't always successful. Now I found sharing ideas valuable,  and enjoy it very much. I think I'm so lucky in being in this class now.

The review in this morning was really helpful, as always. If I started talking about how much I got depressed by myself, it would take much time, but I stopped thinking about those pessimistic thoughts, and need to take a new step forward.

Luckily, very luckily, it's sunny all day today in Glasgow, was best for going out for taking photos.
There're photos below I took in this afternoon.
I'm quite happy that I could get different series of inspiring shapes to the first ones.
It was not a productive day, but I've got motivation toward the next step.

quiet weeks

Basically I'm not an active person, then I'm spending time on walking around neighbourhood or staying at home, rather than going to the city centre and hunting some hot stuff at department stores' clearance sale in this summer. sigh! I'm a such loser! neither wanna be a girl devoting herself to big-name brands' stuff though. how economical 20-year-old girl I am.

For some reasons, recently I have been doing embroidery for my friend.
As it wasn't a school project, I decided the design freely and less considerately, as usual, but I found something out later. Although I haven't got any colour palette nor rough sketches, the colour and some other elements are obviously influenced by photos that I took within the last few weeks.
Colour combinations and other elements that I found interesting might remain in my brain and reflected to my design.
I knew that is important to look for anything interesting and beautiful at anytime in anywhere, so that it helps me in some future.

turn on a light

I found the heartwarming TV CM of the LED light bulbs from Toshiba. The CM got a prize of one of Japanese advertisement contests.