Gregory Muenzen. Riders reading in the moving subway trains of New York City.

During fine art people watching, I have decided to look into some artists in which I can take inspiration from.

Gregory is one of my favourite fine art artists, these sketches were done on the move, they are quick sketches. During life drawing classes we are also expected to create quick 5 minute sketches and to get as much detail in them as possible. It looks as if he has used the continuous line approach to draw with.

Casting Resin Evaluation.

I have worked with casting resin in a lot of previous projects and it is not one of my favourite type of materials to work with but during this project the castings were very successful. Some of the items I decided to cast was a reel of string taken from a sewing machine an old white palette knife and a tube of white paint, my favourite part of this vacuum forming samples was the reel of string from the sewing machine, you can really see the detail of the string and it showed in the resin cast. One the day of vacuum forming my objects I had forgot to bring them in, so I had to search for the studios for white objects. I only came up with three this later affected my final outcome because I do not think they looked as good in the wooden frame as they did like the others. I wish I had vacuum formed at least 4 objects so that they would of looked much better in the final frame piece.

Graphic Invitation Evaluation.

I really enjoyed creating the graphic invitations because I was able to really interact and created outcomes with my objects. I created relationships with them and this really strengthened my work. Using the scanner to arrange them in different places was interesting because it was almost as if each object was having a conversation with the other, I think the scans and invitations really capture that. I have already worked in adobe Photoshop before so I am no stranger to the effects and how it all works. I enjoyed using the cutting tool which I was new to and really enjoyed playing about with the layers and effects much more than in previous projects. I enjoy working in Photoshop and will continue to use. I think if I had a larger range of objects again the outcomes would be even more successful.

Sgraffito Vessel Evaluation.

My Sgraffito bowl is one of my favourite final outcomes created in this project. The process was something I really enjoyed researching and then practicing. I would love to use the process again in ceramics to create a lot of outcomes. When creating my bowl I wanted to bring in an element of fine art because I have defiantly become stronger in this area this year. I wanted to integrate my objects with something I have been doing in my fine art lessons.

During fine art lessons we have been looking at the body and we have also had a lot of life drawing sessions now that I am in my second year. I decided to look at hands and then place the objects of my collection inside an open hand. I think after drawing up some ideas in my book, which helped me make my decision massively without my planned sketches I would of had no idea were to have took it. I enjoyed using the carving tool and really went to work on the detail. After the piece had been fired I used a green coloured oxide to work with. I used a sponge to work in the detail and this really brought the design out. I really love how my bowl has turned out if I could go back and change anything next time round I would make sure to create a lot more sample pieces and experiment further with different glazes, under-glazes and oxides, I would also make sure that I created a lot more designs because you can never have enough previous planning. During the making of my bowl I only used my spiked end tool, next time I would encourage myself to experiment with a wider range of tools because it could strengthen my outcome.

Textile Sample Evaluation.

I did not initially to create a sample related to my collection in textiles. Originally I wanted to create something in ceramics using my plaster cast mold but because I had thrown the clay part of this out this was not able to be done. In order to hit the distinction criteria it clearly states that I have to work individually to create outcomes, by creating my fabric sample I think I have achieved parts of this. I have not had much previous experience in textiles and hand sewing is not one of my strongest processes simply because I do not have the patience, but I spent over 4 hours on this piece and I think it certainly shows. I took my time hand sewing each of the objects, unstitching and re-stitching in places I did not think it was strong enough. I really enjoyed creating this textile piece because it shows that I do actually can create good outcomes in textiles and that it does come down to concentration and patience. I was very patient with this piece and I would defiantly repeat this process in future projects. I am going to aim many of my projects towards the textile and fashion root after this project have been submitted, so creating hand stitch samples is something I am going to carry on doing and hopefully my outcomes will become much stronger towards the end of the year.

Finished Hand Stitched Piece.

I cut the fabric down using fabric scissors. I placed it on black paper. I am not yet sure how I want to present this piece as a final outcome. Some of my ideas are to mount it onto paper but make sure it has been ironed, another option is to mount it into a hand built 
frame in which I could make in 3d .

Porcelain Nail Vanish.

During ceramics we worked with a new material that I have not ever worked with before. This was porcelain. I had to choose one of the objects to recreate with the porcelain. I decided I wanted to concentrate and try to recreate one of my nail vanishes. I found working with porcelain very difficult first all it was extremely dry and kept cracking and I found it almost impossible to try to create my object, so I went on and added water all the way through the making process because it was continuously drying up. It took over two hours for me to just create this small nail vanish. 

 I am not fond of working with porcelain it wouldn't have been my chosen material I would of much rather of used clay as I find it far easier to mold with. As a final outcome I think this is not as strong as I would have hoped it would be, but after I sanded it for a few minutes I think as a piece it is rather successful.

Textile Sample.

For my individual working piece I wanted to create a load of small molds in ceramics using the clay that we used for the plaster mold, but because I chose not to keep mine which was the worst decision I made, I had no choice but to work on something else.

I decided to do something with textiles and hand stitch my objects.

The equipment I used for this were as follows.

- 1 fabric ring

- 1 piece of fabric

- Needle

- 2 different coloured string

Once I had placed my piece of fabric in the ring I used a pencil to lightly draw on the shape of my objects. I wanted to sew them as negatives and not use too much detail as hand sewing is not one of my strongest areas.

Process.

I really enjoyed creating this hand stitch sample. It took me over 4 hours and a lot of concentration I definitely worked hard and individually when creating this.

I love the composition of this piece. I really considered were I wanted to place everything so that it came together well as a final piece.

I decided to use white fabric and not black with white thread, because my collection is white and I find it more appealing this way.

I went back into my sample using a peach colour thread. I used this for the bottle tops and to add some detail to the palette knife and the cup and the nail vanishes.

Screen Shots. Graphic Invitations.

I created my graphic invitations on Adobe Photoshop. Previous to adding the text each of the backgrounds had already been created also in photoshop. I simply reopened them all and then added the text.

This was just simply adding text onto the previously made background. This is one of my favourite invitations as it really captures the whole white element of it all.

This is an example of how I cut around the original scanning to create the cut below. I then went to formant and copied and pasted it several times into a new file.

I used the magic wand cutting tool to cut around the scanning of my objects. I decided to cut around the medicine seringe for this invitation. I wanted it to be minimal and I like how it looks like it had been cut by hand and scanned in. This was the effect I was going for.

Plaster Mold After Trimming.

This is the finished final outcome of the plaster mould.

As you can see from the previous image, a lot of the objects have been cut off in order to create the rectangle shape and the outcome is a little disappointing. I do love the bottles tops though I think they could be the making of this piece they are definitely the focal point for me.

Final Bowl.

This is my final bowl design. It's definitely one of my strongest ceramic pieces I have created, I have brought a strong element of fine art into the making of this bowl and I love the final outcome of the drawing. If there was anything I would go back and change it would be that maybe I would make the hand a little large and place more objects into the palm of it.

I used a spiked end tool to created the whole design. The lettering detail around the edges works really well its slightly minimal which I like.

Clay Sample Pieces. Experimenting With Glazes.

Before I glazed my final bowl I had to be positive with what glazes and underglazrs I wanted to place on it, its all part of the practise and development to make samples pieces first so that I am certain with what I want to go with.

My final bowl piece has a carved drawing of a open hand containing some of my white objects. I chose this design because I though it was different and during this project I spent a lot of time holding and carrying around my collection so I thought this was a good idea because it showed the relationship I had with my objects.

For the above sample I used a underglaze pen. This was not something I think worked well because it was messy and ruined the outcome. The design was much better when it was minimal and I should of kept it that way. I placed clear glaze over the top which I like. This tester piece would of worked if I didn't use the underglaze pen, so its not something I want to take forward and use on my final piece.

I only used one glaze for this and as you can see its coloured. Its a light purple, I like this design but don't think I will be using the light purple as my chosen colour because I find it far to subtle. I like the words white stuff and I think I will bring that forward for my final design. 

I placed my final sample pieces onto black paper and took several pictures using my Iphone. I placed them upon black paper so it would bring out the colours used and they look far more presentable this way.

Plaster Mold.

This is a picture of the plaster mould I created using clay. I placed the mould onto black paper as a backing before I took this picture. This picture was taken before I had trimmed the plaster down. The disadvantage of trimming the plaster down means that I am going to lose a lot of my objects that have been imprinted into the plaster. This is definitely something to take into consideration if I am ever going to repeat this type of process, next time I will be sure to place my objects a lot closer together so I don't lose a lot of it when it comes to trimming it down. Having to trim it down did give a disappointing result I personally feel because you cant really see the wide range of objects that I used, it is all very limited.