Hello! ....And also goodbye a bit..

I have traveled to the shiny (and a bit complicated) world of Wordpress and have a brand new blog to show for it, still under construction (I need better photos) and also figuring out how to work widgets etc. So I'll no longer be using this blogger at the moment! If you want to keep up with whats happening in my final semester and what I'm up to at the moment, the address is: www.earmourdesignermaker.wordpress.com :) Please have a look!

Birnam walk in the woods

Mold making and silicone rubber..

So I tried my best at hot rubber mold-making again, this time casting a material I'd never used before - silicone rubber. I imagined it would be a rubbery yet smooth texture. However I'm actually really not keen on the feeling of it! If this is the way it always turns out, including translucent silicone which I would have to buy myself....I don't think I'll be using this in the future! It's is something I've tried and tested though, so it's a learning curve. I might have a few more goes at it- one adding bubbles to it to create a more organic effect, and one go putting the liquid silicone in a vacuum to take all the bubbles out. Oh well, I hope I have a better making day tomorrow!

'sciencey' things...

Off to the woods we gooo...took a wander up round the castle estate to find some mushrooms, squishy things, lycan, etc. Thought i'd slice some fungi up and take a look at it under the microscope. As you can see from the picture, this is a VERY old microscope! My dad's, originally my great grandpa's. You have to have a torch/lamp placed where the mirror is and adjust it so that the light shines up towards the slides, there's no fancy internal light within this thing! It's really cool that it's a piece of family history.
I wiped the dust off it and the slide that i last used years ago was STILL sitting on the plinth, must have been looking at spores because an orange dust-pattern was stuck to the glass slide.

Anywho! I got the best photos that i could out of this. Last time i tried looking down the lens, then drawing what i saw..quite tricky. So i focused my camera down the lens.


The light isn't too great but i didn't think i'd even be able to get pictures in the first place so i'm quite pleased! And i like that the photos are the lens and black background :)

The coven of witches..

A funny mossy collection of lumps which is sitting up a hill near the Maltlands on the Castle Estate in Inveraray..I've walked passed them so many times and thought they looked like a group of witches huddling together or whispering! I'm sort of waiting for them to pop out of the undergrowth one day..

Hmmm...silicone eh..

Whoopie cakes! (or pies)

Decided to make these today, having never tried these wee treats, or made them before...

...leading up to the ultimate question: Are they better than the good old cupcake?!

I can't decide myself, was a good excuse to try them all the same!

A lot have been munched already due to my brother and his pal diving into them.

Orkney

The end of term

I haven't posted for quite a long time, about two months. Finally the semester is over, we've all passed and are heading towards scary 4th year! It will be all worth it to see our shiny degree show though :)
However I can't help but think that this year was a little bit of a downer on the course for me, I enjoyed it so so so much in 2nd year, 3rd year I felt was a bit of a flop. The excitement had gone from the previous term, getting stuck into something I'm interested in, I think maybe what held me back apart from unfortunate circumstances, is that it wasn't 2nd year anymore, 3rd year seemed so much more serious that I shrivelled up a little bit, I wasn't quite as free as I wanted to be. I'd experiment with lots of different materials but nothing ever came to a 'spectacular ending' like I'd planned in my head. They came out more like samples.
For 4th year I'm aiming to bring the excitement back, not hold back and be brave, but at the same time I want to create something that looks more like a finished piece, well executed and with great skill. In order to do that I think I'm going to have to think about the way I work more, and learn about the materials I want to use really well.
I'm hoping for a better year next year, one where I feel much more comfortable in college and just get stuck in. Apart from aiming to get most of my dissertation done over the summer, and having to earn lots of money...I aim to have a good break! :)

Sake, should have posted this up aaaages ago..

My Domestic Paradise project finished!

Everything is beginning to thaw....

Hopefully to much brighter times :)

Spoons and knives :)

So for our Domestic Paradise project I have so far made a giant rubber spoon, and an acrylic knife (which im not sure what im going to do with yet) for my collection of unusable tableware objects. Next I would LOVE to make a giant porcelain cracked egg, soft looking and brilliant white and then flock the inside, AND a large copper bowl with texturized details at the bottom. Who knows when im going to make them though...onward to Munich this week..!

'Domestic Paradise'

Hmmmm.....spooooons...

Just some rings :)

Two rings I made in the workshop this week, for myself, while I had the time!

That's a SWEET piece of jewellery you're wearing

Baking, baking, baking and a little bit of cooking is mostly what I've been doing in the holidays, which is what I love doing to relax and it keeps me making things outside of college too when there's no access to a workshop.
In 2nd year when I wasn't quite so confident about doing some crazy ideas, I considered making edible jewellery..now this of course could be modelled on a kind of food and made out of plastics/different materials etc, or completely edible..or both.
I like the idea of bringing something like cake-decorating off the cake and transfering it onto the body to make a wearable sweet sculpture!
Jewellery which lasts can be beautiful and is treasured by the owner obviously for a long time, but just for a bit of fun, some edible jewellery which can be enjoyed for a short time and also offer a tasty treat- how can you refuse? :P

Ana Crisan's Sugar Creation "Art is there to be consumed, so please start nibbling as so as it's out in the open!"

Christmas baking so far!!

So every holiday I go back and think, what else is there to do in the middle of nowhere, but bake things for family and friends! I go a bit crazy otherwise.. :D
(I'm so proud of the cupcakes, they look so professional, hehe!)

A tactile, magnetic ear piece, that you might not necessarily want to touch...

This is my final piece so far for my research project, a lot of thought was put into how it would fit onto the ear..
The piece is still in progress, but the concept is basically a tactile piece which you may not want to touch (the sphere shapes are made from latex, rather squishy and odd) and I decided to put it in an unexpected or 'hidden' place on the body. I chose behind the ear because that is a habit of my own, to rub behind my ears, I don't notice I'm doing it. If i forgot I was wearing this, I'd get a fright feeling some sort of weird rubbery texture there!
Anyway, I have set magnets in the copper and into the latex so it fits anywhere around the ear (very strong magnets!) and can be moved around. I have not yet flocked the inside of the spheres (added texture) or added chains and more spheres to hang off the piece. It will also be silver plated.

Some wee porcelain samples for your viewing pleasure

A couple of weeks ago Georgia kindly arranged a porcelain workshop for us in the general workshop which was fun and a nice break from other stresses in our owm workshop and design studies! Here's a few wee glazed samples:

Have calmed down a little bit...

After verging on....a week and a half to two weeks, I have been fairly stressed about my dissertation subject. Basically, what I began with was 'The relationship between Europe and Japan, why we are influenced by Eastern Culture.' Now this needs narrowing down a lot, so I began reading more into it..and thought about basing it around cities, perhaps urbanisation...then i came across craft. A friend suggested to me: How East Asian craft has affect that of the UK, using Japan as a case study. Still needs some fair narrowing...however I have begun delving into the world of craft, and the arts and crafts movement which clearly links with Japanese craft. (Mengei theory)

.......why am I so adamant on basing my dissertation on Japan? I am interested in Eastern Culture, particularly Japan because it seems like such an 'alien' country to me, I have been exposed to Japanese artwork, print and paintings since I was fairly young, it's been around my house, have come across works amongst artists I'm fond of...
From what I learnt last year it has a very low crime rate, an organised transport system (bullet train) a polite society, I just loved learning all these facts and some figures about a completely different culture from my own. So in turn thought I'd investigate into why Europe, or even just the UK, is inspired by an Eastern culture, and vice versa. Globalisation could factor into this a lot, but from what I've learnt so far it's the need we have to learn about another way of living, a cross cultural knowledge is sought after.
So...really I think I'll just have to keep reading to narrow it down :S I'm not sure if I'd like to write about craft just yet...transport is another option, could make it a service design type discussion..who knows just yet. The first proposal is coming up and I think I'm just going to have to do with what knowledge i have a the moment. I would be so much less stressed if i definitely knew what I was doing, but there you go! I hear a lot of other folks are in the same position but pretty much everyone I've spoken to seems to know what they're doing...
On the upside of things, the research project is going really well! Yay! A blog to follow that coming up :)

Ooooh boy....I'm going to have fun with this project..

Sooooo, this morning we got a new brief, Sandra took us through it explaining the Research Project. We have to research into a jeweller/designer which has been picked out for us according to our own styles/interests, which lead up to a 10 minute presentation of the designer's work. We also have to design and make a piece which uses either a technique, material, inspiration or concept etc that they use. The line between using their work as inspiration and plagiarising their work shouldn't be crossed.
I had a feeling I would maybe get a designer who uses plastics, is inspired by organic forms, pattern, or texture..I was almost right, and I do like her work!
Zoe Robertson, is a contemporary jeweller who is interested in unusual materials, plastics, rubber and currently flocking are used to create her designs.
Bold, colourful, tactile and industrial yet sensual are all keywords to describing her work...however..
I did quite a lot of research this afternoon and found 2 videos of her giving a lecture about her work at Birmingham Institute of art and design, where she teaches as a lecturer on the jewellery and silversmith course.
Her earlier work as she describes, was inspired by a mixture of her love of creating, and her social life.. The market she aimed to sell her jewellery at before she started teaching was to the Rubber and PVC Fetish market! This was a big part of her life when she was younger, and having researched into fetish clothing companies and knowing that particular area of style, she noticed that nobody was doing jewellery in this line of fashion! So this is where her career took off....

Her work is quirky, very tactile looking, and a lot of fun.

Well, I'd never have guessed it from more recent designs...


Oh and I will post some of my final samples for the colour project up here but I haven't shipped them back to my flat yet.