our friendship will never die

   I am afraid of saying such a thing, because I do not know what will be going on after 10 years or later, but sometimes I am confident of the true friendship. 

   Yesterday, I met a friend living in London. She is only one who still keep in touch with over 10 years, and the last time I saw her was about 7years ago in Tokyo. Both of us had never imagined that we would become art students nor would meet in London. As we have hardly known what we were doing these days each other, I thought we might be odd, and she said so did she. The worry was totally needless, and we enjoyed chatting.

   Although the main purpose of the trip was meeting friends, I could go to a couple of exhibitions, one is Ballgowns in V&A museum, and the other is Valentino: Master of Couture at Somerset House. Both exhibition was just amazing. I wish I were the one who embroidered on the dresses.

in the coach, on the way to London

V&A museum collections

My friend told me an interesting photographer. I loved his work.

photos taken by Tim Walker

 

ideals, hard facts and escapism

   Recent days have been not productive, but I feel something fresh with my every drawing. It does not mean that I liked themselves, but I believe that they probably help me at the further stages.

   As it is the end of term now, there are works laid on every student's work desk. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th year are in the same studio, so I could see my senior's work. It was absolutely amazing. I thought I wanted to be like them, and at the same time, skills which would be required in the 3rd and 4th year made me anxious. What I can do is believing myself and doing my best!

   The result of the last project is not very good, and it made me depressed enough. The good thing is, there are plenty of time to rest, good friends and good music that recover me from this bad feeling. 

   I cannot help being conscious about marks, but the most successful design is the one which is able to make myself happy, at last. If someone else liked it, I would be happier. 

   In Japanese, we often call students as eggs. In the case of an art student, he/she is an egg of an artist. I will be born when I graduate the GSA, and will be artis-chick!! YES, I will!!!

grab your paint brush

   I used to do oil painting when I was a school girl, and I had really enjoyed doing it. After a while, I started using needles rather than paint brushes, because I became a textile student as I wished. Of course I am very happy with it, but I am sure that being in one pattern makes nothing but blandness.

I think that is why designers/artists are required various ways of expression, and which is what they always struggle with. 

   I do like the word exploration, because that sounds more exciting than in Japanese '試行錯誤', which sounds complicated and stressful. (it looks professional though!) At the end of any project, I often put pressure on myself, but I hardly do at the beginning, so that I can feel free to try anything, and I can get inspiration from anywhere.

    For this project, I could capture lots of beauty in plants, and I saw more beautiful flowers in my classmates' photos. The funny thing is that the most of people took photos in the same place (the Glasgow botanic gardens) but still flowers look completely different. Especially photos with flush lights are interesting, as there is strong contrast of colour—yellow and black for example— between a flower and the background, and which showed the flower mysteriously.

And, I found hundreds of amazing flower-inspired dresses in designers' collections.

Valentino RST 2013

Christian Dior Fall 2010 CTR

the last 2 weeks in uni

   I had a tutorial in yesterday morning, and reminded that the christmas holiday has not started yet. After I have done massive submissions in this week, I was feeling like I was already on holiday, but actually not. Yes, I need to check the all blank boxes on my things to do list before the end of this term!

Now, I am making colour wraps of 10 selected photos which I am happy with, then I will move on to collage. Although it is very simple work—wrapping threads around the card board—, I enjoy doing it. Colourful threads can make me happy in any way.
   When I am concentrated on shapes and lines of patterns, I am unaware of colours. It always causes unsuccessful work at the end. On the new brief, it says that the ability to research, analyse and translate colour is an essential textile designer's skill. In order to be a good textile-person, I try to be more careful about colour from now on. Flowers will  be happy too, if I can translate their beautiful colours into fabrics. Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are textiles!

I baked cupcakes for the first time in my life. Sugar is of course sweet, and tastes happy!

in the golden afternoon

I have been to the botanic gardens again. There are lots of strange flowers and plants!!

Gloomy blooms

   A new project has began yesterday!

That is called 'Bloom', creation of flower-related design, and as you know, it is completely opposite to the last project. I am very exited at this project—although I am always excited when I am briefed a new project—, because it is nearly the first time to make patterns based on organic stuff. An interesting thing is, tutor told us to do colour research first, and then do the forms/shapes research. I wonder how it is going to be, but anyway, the unusual way simply gives me fun. 

   I have been to the Glasgow botanic gardens this afternoon, so that I can take some photos of flowers. It was absolutely 'Glasgow weather' today, and the daytime is getting shorter these days, so it was already a bit dark by 3pm. I (and my friend) stayed in a greenhouse for almost an hour—I felt much shorter though—, and it was already the time to close. I obviously could not take sufficient numbers of photos, but I quite liked spotlighted flowers/plants in the dark. They looked a little more magical than under the sunlight. However, I do like flowers in nature, so I should go to the garden again in the morning, on sunny day, in this week (if possible!).

   

I saw this fabulous christmas tree on the way home :)

Geometrically Inspired—project end—

   From the beginning of the second year, I have worked on a project called Geometrically Inspired, and it was the hand in day of that project, today. 

   Yet I did structure project in the last year, to get inspiration from architecture was still unfamiliar to me.  That is why I had struggled at the beginning of the project. In particular, it was very hard to apply texture to geometric patterns, because texture is usually exists on organic stuff, and by contrast, artificial stuff is tended to be flat.

At the primary research in September, I focused on shapes/lines of patterns, and less considered about texture/composition and even colours. After a couple of tutorials, I was aware of it, and the problem has been solved, but I still could not totally satisfied with my work. There was still plenty of room for improvement, but I did not did my best for making it better, and I was rather excited about the weave workshop classes. Consequently the first block of the project has finished with little regret. (I did enjoy weaving though.)

   In November—after the reading weak—, the later half of the project had begun. Firstly I thought it is boring to continue the same project over 2 months,  but actually it turned to a chance to do what I could not do at the last time. In addition to it, the next workshop was embroidery, which I had been longing for. In the technical classes at the workshop, I could work more confidently than the last time, because  I was proud of my passion for embroidery as an embroidery lover. Although I was afraid of machine embroidery, I found it fun, because of much more interesting and simple technique than I had imagined. Meanwhile, I spent enough time on drawing and colour analysis, so that I would not make the same mistake again. New colour pallets are not like usual me, and I am happy with it, although it was impossible to get desirable materials.

   As a result, I am pretty sure that I enjoyed this project, especially technical exploration. On the other hand, I still have a problem of relating my work and designers' collection in order to develop my idea, and that will be a subject at the next project. 

Smocking is such a curious technique...

It allows to make both structural and surface patterns

Miu Miu Spring 2010 RTW

Samantha Cole London 

Identity III: A New Dawn