Uptown, Downtown Competition

Last month I took part in a competition that was part of The Printed Village Company. The brief they gave was called Uptown, Downtown which is a simple enough brief to understand! I took this as a first step in trying to be more productive with my work and with a short deadline really motivated me.  I am probably not the only one who will get lost with long deadlines, due to losing interest very quickly. However when I found this competition through a close friend, with only 2 weeks left to go to create a scarf design, this was a great challenge for me to get the ball rolling. This got me very excited to go out and explore some of the places that are really iconic to me, including the British Museum, Carnaby street and St James Park. I wanted to look more at the patterns and the outlines of these places rather than their great details. My work is very abstract as it is, so anything too detailed isn't my forte. I really enjoyed this brief as it gave me plenty of ideas and confidence to carry on with my personal project. I really do recommend taking part in as many competitions as possible if you are doing anything arty at uni. If you feel uninspired and a bit demotivated this is definitely the way forward. It is also great experience to prepare yourself when you leave uni and want to join the arty industry. Already I feel more confident in myself by taking part in various competitions. It may be overwhelming at first but you won't regret it.

Anyway here are my final designs:

Inspired by Pigeons and Liberty London

Inspired by Liberty London

Inspired by Pigeons in St James Park

Inspired by the British Museum

Here is a design I never submitted, however still wanted to show, as I love the pattern (inspired by the Gurkin)

I hope you enjoyed this post, there will be more to come soon :)

Back In The Game

Right..well it is safe to say I haven't blogged in a while. I could blame this on my majorly busy lifestyle, or just my laziness. However, recently I have been spending most of my days in the print room because of my recent project. I absolutely adore screen-printing no matter how tedious it can get, being the main reason for the many days spent there. I have been working mainly from photographs taken with my Nikon as part of my project. I am going to be totally honest and say it has taken me a long time to get inspired this semester at uni, however after a long talk with my tutors, it was decided that it was best to stick to what I love instead of trying to come up with something that isn't me. I am a pattern enthusiast and a true lover of anything abstract and repetitive so surely this was the route to go down. To get inspiration I have mainly taken photos of abstract textures out and about to get an idea what my newest collection of prints will be. Finally after exploring endless textured surfaces and objects I came up with the idea to revolve my prints around urban decay. This includes photographs of tatty walls, moss, mould and anything rotten or overgrown. These are the sort of things people hate, often overlooking their beauty. When you appreciate these unseen textures it brings along endless possibilities of colours and patterns. From this I have gradually been screen-printing my way through my photographs, testing out different compositions and textures. 

Here are some examples:

Hope you like the prints! There will be more updates of my work soon :)