Photoshop - Digital Print

Today we had a day of Photoshop which was really interesting and informative. However, it was a very long day as we sat in front of the computer for the whole day. I was surprised that I did actually know most of the tools and how to work them from teaching myself. I was worried that I was really inexperienced with Photoshop as I thought I knew a couple of things but it turns out that my knowledge was the basic to most of the things we did in class.

The main task of the day was to learn how to make digital prints. I liked learning the types of print and also about the history of print design. I also enjoyed how to clone and airbrush images to make them look better. I was surprised how you could clone and change the background of things to make them look whole even if half the picture was chopped off e.g. the clouds task.

These are some notes I made in class:

These are the tester prints I made in the class:

These are some screen grabs I manage to collect of things I did not no how to do prior to the lesson:

There were other things I didn't no but I didn't mange to screen grab them all as I was to encased in Photoshop 

Styling - Planning Photoshot

Our finished project for this styling day is to create a editorial that is due for next Wednesday. In today's class we had to plan our photo shoot by creating 5  quick simple mood boards which include Location, Hair & Make up, Styling, Mood/Lighting and Poses. The point of creating these mood boards is to learn how professional editorials are planned.

These are some notes I wrote before searching images on the internet

These are my final visual mood boards fro my storyboard:

The styling in my photo shoot is going to be very floral but with a added masculine touch with loose shirts and oversized jackets.

The location of my shoot is mainly going to be in my bedroom as I think it will add the touch of a personal space. I'm going to use paintings and magazine clipping in the background to add to my scene.

I want my make- up to be simple; winged eyeliner and nude or dark lips. I want my hair to be straight with an extreme side parting as I think it is quite a sports/masculine look to add to the masculine side of my look. I also want to do some crown plaits to other photos as I think the style is more feminine and link with the traditional painting style.

For my poses I want them to be in a portrait style as I want the mood of a figure having a still posture, one that may look as if they are having themselves painted. I'm going to have a mix between relax and wooden poses.

The mood/lighting for my shoot is going to either be a high exposed black and white photograph or a dreamy, disposable camera photograph look. I want all my photos to have a retro photograph look as I think it gives photographs a still, "captured in the moment" ambiance. 

Styling (Edited Photos)

I deiced to play around with photos we took today on Photoshop. I edited most of the pictures in my previous blog but I just added slight edits like the colour and brightness. In the edits I added backgounds to match the outfits ect.

STYLE'ATHON

Today we did styling which I really enjoyed as I love mixing things together and creating styles with interesting textures and colours.

First we were shown a presentation on famous photographers and stylist from well know magazines. Magazines we were shown were I.D., Dansk, The Face, Wonderland, USED and Vogue. We were also shown how editorials are made and what they consist of. For example how set designs are created and that they don't need to be big permanent structures.

Here are my notes from the presentation:

 After the presentation we had to present our photo booth photos to the class. To be honest I'm not to sure what the point of the task was but I think it was to show our style and what our photos consisted of i.e. the background and what we decided to include in our photo.

 These were my photos, I just used my camera to take the photos and then used a website that transforms your photos into a photo booth style print.

The next task of the day was to do some styling. First we had to lay all the clothing, accessories and props we had to collect prior to the lesson. I brought in items that match my style and mood board. My items consisted of a velvet crop top, a floral shirt, sunglasses, glasses, jewellery and headphones.

We had to then get into a small group and style each other with our items. This is my styled look that Charlotte modeled fro me:

These are photos from Charlotte and Stephanie's styling. I was the model for both:

Charlottle's styling. I inserted a picture of the painting, The Girl with the Pearl Earring as I thought the whole outfit especially the head tie reminded me of the painting.

This was Stephanie's styling

After we had to mix all three of our items together and style them. This was our overall look, this is one of my favourites as I really like the mix of fur, glitter and floral. This look definitely matches my mood board and my style.

After we finished using each others items we had to swap with a different groups items in the class. Our group got swapped with a boys group which was fun as we could do a masculine, boyfriend look. We decided to make the look vibrant with knitted and slouchy items. Charlotte and Stephanie were the model for this look and decided to make the poses fun and relaxed:

Knitting

Today we learnt how to use a knitting machine. It was interesting to learn how many clothes that I wear are made. I found today's task a bit challenging as there was loads of tedious steps but I think with more practice I will get the hang of it. Most of the samples I made end up having a hole in them but I tried to work with them. I did have a video of how to thread the knitting machine but it won't load to this blog post (I will try and reload later)

Notes from class

Here are the sample I managed to make in class. I tried to match my wool to my mood board, there wasn't a wide variety of colours so I just used cream and orange.:

This was just a plain knit, which was simple to do.

Plain

This was my stripe and honeycomb sample, really just like the cleanses of the horizontal lines and the gathering at the to.. This was my neatest sample and my favourite techniques.

Stipe and Honeycomb 

This sample was the lace hole, I also liked this style but I found it a bit difficult to do but I'm sure with more practice it would look a bit better. I like lace hole as I really like lace, mesh and chiffon and was interested in how they were made.

Lace hole

This was the orange peel sample. This is probably my worst sample, the technique was difficult to do. I don't really like this style as I think it doesn't look clean and neat.

Orange Peel

At the end of the day we had to make a A4 sample of our favourite styles of knit, which also had to be inspired from something from our mood boards. I chose to do the honey comb knit as it resembles the wrinkles of an old man in mood and some pleats on a ladies dress (picture below). I didn't manage to complete a whole A4 sample as I was in a pair and we didn't have enough time to do a whole one each, so we just did half. For my overall sample I was going to add a vertical honeycomb to my horizontal honey comb to represent the horizontal wrinkles and the vertical pleats.

My finished sample

These are my two favourite samples of today.

Moodboard

The first task of Fashion & Textiles was to crate a mood board on things that inspire me in fashion. I created my mood board on Photoshop as I recently downloaded it and wanted to mess around with it. I also chose to use Photoshop as it was easier to transport my photos from my Tumblr. 

My mood board has two sides to it, one being a black, Gothic, tough side and the other being the floral pastels. In fashion I really like textures like mesh, lace,velvet and silk, i'm also really into floral designs. While I was making my mood board I was thinking why I like these specific textures and patterns and I realised it's from my love of traditional paintings, many that I learned from A Level History of Art. I added some of these paintings and architecture into my mood board. Paintings such as The Lady of Shallot, The Vision of Faust and Lady Agnew of Lochnaw and art movements like Art Nouveau, The Pre Raphaelites and The Renaissance affect my fashion. Paintings like these inspire my fashion as they symbolise pureness and nature to me through the scenery and the sublime figures. I think traditional paintings more so influence my pastel side and I think Gothic and Baroque styled architecture influence the darker side. Overall I think my fashion is inspire by traditional art and architecture.

The Lady of Shalott, 1888, Joh William Waterhouse

Lady Agnew of Lochnaw, 1892, John Singer Sargent 

The Vision of Faust, 1878, Luis Ricardo Falero

Reflective Summary

Overall I have really enjoyed these past six week. I have made new friends and I feel I have learnt a number of new things that I will use in the future. I have also recapped on certain things (like drawing) I did not actually think I would be doing on this Design and Media Foundation but I am glad that I did as I would have missed doing them. I feel that I have gained familiarity on the different career paths I could choose for each skill and how I can apply certain skill to future projects and jobs. Plus I have really appreciated incorpating recyclable materials in my work over the weeks as it is something I am keen about and think it is the way forward in design. I will finish this unit by choosing one of my favourite works from each week and summarising the week.

Graphics - I really enjoyed Graphics as I have always enjoyed Graphics as a whole. My favourite day was the first day where we got to do experimental drawings. It was really fun and got the class to break the glass we each other. In this week I learned that I like experimenting with ideas and work. I also learnt that typography is my weak skill in Graphics and that week has helped me to reflect on this for future reference.

Lens Based Media - In Lens Based Media I enjoyed analysing and reducing film storyboards to show what the key element a good story need how long or short. I also enjoyed the illustration side and creating a story by combining my illustrations with other peoples illustrations. This week showed me that having a variety of characters, locations and stories and mixing them together really helps to develop ideas. This is something I will also use in the future.

Fashion & Textiles - In Fashion & Textiles my favorite day was the second day where we made paper manipulations. This day made me discover what direction in my future degree and career I really want to take as I am really interested in the visual communication side of fashion and didn't think Graphics was 100% the right choice fore me. I loved creating new designs solely by tearing and cutting into the paper.

3D - In the 3D week I really liked making the seat. I loved the mathematical side of having to measure and count my parts to construct a flat pack product, which was surprising. I have always enjoyed organising and calculating things and I definitely noticed these skill when I made my chair, spaghetti holder and the bridge. In the 3D week I have also identified the power of photography and using miniature models to emphasise my work. I will definitely buy some of these model and try and incorporate them in future work as I love the effect it gives my work. In this week I have learnt that team work is key to getting a great outcome and that work can be developed from literally anything if you want it to.

Life Drawings

Today I did life drawings which was a new experience for me but I really enjoyed it because I love drawing and painting especially portraits. The teacher stated to us that we needed life drawing evidence and skills no matter what pathway we took to show our future employers that we can illustrate an idea clearly, which was a good point. I used a range of skills like drawing with my opposite hand, using a long stick to draw with and only using vertical and horizontal lines to draw the figure. I also used different materials like a graphite stick, charcoal and marker pens. I managed to do over 20 drawings but I just selected a few to upload in the blog.