A Master of Paper...

mattshlian.com

Worth a look if you like paper art. I found this quite inspirational as i'm working with newspaper and shapes within the urban environment.

All i Want for Christmas is wOol... lots and lots of wool...

Making Felt in the textile workshop felt very productive(haha making felt and it felt productive..). I decided to knit the worked wool that i blended with different colors. It looks static in the pictures!

 

                                                                                

I attended the "Knit & Stitch Show" in the RDS Dublin a couple of weekends ago and i'm so glad i made the trip. It opened up my mind to the variety of ways you can creatre and combine. The possibilities are endless and i feel i'm just at the starting line. 

 The first stall that grabbed my attention was the "Toft Alpaca Shop". Adored the big wooden buttons, just sad i didn't purchase two of them.

He's so cool... he's like an ice-cube?...

Check, check, check this out.... work by Brad Downey and its very very urban..

 

My title for this one is: "Love is in the scaffolding"

         

Castles Beneath Cities

"The beginning and the end"

Folding it up, is wrapping it up... now tear me up!

In my sketchbook i've been having the craic experimenting. I like to incorporate a photograph into the page as if its belonged there to start with. I'm still primarily focusing on shapes but i've also become attracted to the colors of the urban environment, that is all the colors that make up what one views as the urban landscape. I can't but not find appealing the murky blues, cool greys and muddy browns..  who wouldn't, i ask?..

Speaking of cool greys, i found  Caroline Pambakian's Royal College of Art MA collection very impressive and intricate. I need not write anymore, i'll let the images speak for themselves:

Oh Lord, I have such an urge to Knit a jumper!!

I found the powerpoint presentation on textiles, texture and form really insightful.
Its amazing the scale you can knit in.You can use almost anything as knitting needles (remove the tops off two sweeping brushes and bob's your uncle) and not limit yourself with just necessarily wool. Cut up t-shirt material, rope, wire... anything with some give in it, only your imagination is your limitation!

 A knitwear designer that stood out to me from the presentation was Sandra Backlund. What she can create using traditional handicraft techniques is mindblowing as even though she is using traditional techniques what she constructs using wool is so aesthetically fresh. She plays with the silhouette to great effect. The three dimentional quality to the garments she makes gives a womans body an added complexity that can't but not catch a viewers eye, and hence take note of the designers name Sandra Backlund. As i did.
It's funny to note that Sandra's childhood dream was to be a hair stylist. I think in a roundabout way she has fulfilled her dream but wool just happens to be serving as the hair. She brings that childhood dream into her collection entitled " body skin and hair".  The image above is from that collection.

 

 This piece taken from her "In no time"collection makes me think of rolling out a sleeping bag in the middle of the wilderness, with a few native Indian americans for the night after telling stories around the campfire. Weird what fashion can generate in the imagination, eh?

Project, Project, Project, Urban, Urban, Urban.....

To be honest I didn't know what i was at to start with, but then i decided on a focus point or it decided on me.

I find the shapes created in the discarded rubbish of the urban environment very interesting. I know "why?" you say. Well the folds and shapes they take on seem almost like they have become organic even though they are a product of the ill-treatment of the urban environment.
Yet a newspaper dumped (without thought or thought but ignorance) on the street finds its way into a corner, moulds itself to that corner and changes color according to the weather. It in an obscure way developes into an element which belongs now as part of the urban environment (albeit a dirty part of it), just as fallen leaves do. Am i talking any sense, God knows! It makes sense to me.....

Here i was exploring in my sketchbook the patterns and textures of the imagery i had collected on my ramble around limerick city.
The note i have written in the corner is:
"It's discarded... but discarded in a certain way... also i didn't realise until after i developed the picture that there's a cartoon on the dumped piece of paper encouraging the consumer to discard of the wrapper in a bin. IRONIC, that it's been thrown in the middle of a pathway."

 

Pedestrian Pigeon

Picture i took in week two while roaming around limerick for inspiration.

Thought this was a fitting image to upload to do with our art project on the urban environment. Liquidated logos by Zevs. It reminds me of a Banksy (who is anti-establishment yet worldwide known to the point of my dislike). This guy uses the urban environment as his canvas. I think thats an interesting idea as displaying art work in a conventional manner doesn't float everyones boat.. I'm down with that!