2014 update!

Hey guys, sorry I haven't updated my blog in a while, I hope everyone is well and having a great year so far.

 I haven't done many personal posts lately,

 so I thought I'd post some work I did during the Christmas/ New Year Break since I got some new art equipment and a lot more time and motivation from a few sleep-ins and a lot of food.

I'll be updating my blog with a post on my project and hand-in later on!

Here I used Water colours, fine liners and edited slightly on Photoshop

My new obsession is American Horror Story(can't be very healthy)

But I felt like having a go at another portrait because they're great for testing your proportional skills and even better I decided to use my prisma colours and go a bit mental with colour, because why not?

The original photo is below, a little off but I'm starting to improve.

 And of course, I find food so fun to paint/draw 

especially sushi because of all the colours and attention to detail!

Update.

I've been thinking about the whole learner agreement part of this project this week.

I think this is the hardest part considering all the other weeks have been fun with experimenting with materials and finding out new techniques.

I have a lot of samples to choose from and this week we also had a group crit.

The rest of my group picked out samples they really liked and how I could make products from them and what I could do next.

I really love getting a second opinion or more on my work because when you look at it for too long you start to over think what other people would find interesting.

I'm still not 100% sure what I want to make but I'm thinking about a decoration object and then accessories

focusing more on jewellery and ceramics.

A lot of people liked the cylinder shape so I've been working with that, my tutor suggested I work with a sphere shaped moulds to try it out and experiment so that's my plan for Monday, I really like the idea of sticking with the rounded shape because it was successful in jewellery and I want my pieces to look like a collection in the end.

In my own time I'm trying to get back into painting, I'd love to take some photos of my own and paint them later on so they're more personal but at the moment I was just browsing the internet and came across this.

 I really love the style of Francoise Neilly and expressionist painting

I did this using acrylic paint with pallette knifes and black ink with brushes on a plain while canvas.

I haven't posted anything on here in a while, I've been quite busy with work and making a facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/elmariedesigns

I'm going to start making things really soon and posting them on there.

My brother did the graphics for my page which are amazing and I'm very happy with.

Recently I've been knitting, drawing, doing a bit of photography and just enjoying my creative freedom from university getting ready for my second year.

Here's a painting I did of Taylor Swift using pallette knifes and acrylic paint on canvas

Here I embroided a design I drawn from my head and embelished

I've been out enjoying the English weather while we have it, I didn't get to relax until yesterday because I had work at the weekend but I'm planning on taking advantage of my week days(:

Back to the Drawing board.

Yes, I did sit there and think of that title for 5 minutes. 

This post is about getting back to drawing and being free of assignments and freeing your mind. 

Summer is a great way to practice what you've learnt in the past year and push your new skills!

 I felt like I lost a lot of what I enjoyed doing before such as drawing and painting whilst I was focused on my Uni work but next year I plan on finding a happy medium.

Of course I will be starting work full time again soon but I won't let that fill all my time.

Here's some drawings/painting I've done lately.

subconscious and surreal mind.

Just carrying on with samples and doodles this week, trying to doodle what's in the subconscious part of my brain, and re-create scenes from my dreams.

In Ceramics I made a coil pot.

This doodle was on acetate and was more of thinking of elements of my dream.

 I've tried drawing in my sketchbook before bed when I'm really tired, I tried to jot down ideas and thoughts that popped into my subconscious.

Here's a scene from a dream I had, I created this with gouache paint. The painting shows a scene of my dream where I was taken to 'famous destinations' I can vividly remember this scene which was a beautiful sunset and mountains behind the trailers/caravans, I couldn't quite remember what they were on but I had an idea to draw them on top of a lake.

I didn't get a chance to take photo's of the work I've done in jewellery but I'm really confident it's going somewhere and in a direction I'm really enjoying(: 

This week..

So this week has been very busy with my contextual project due on the 25th March, also in my main project on my course I've started to feel more comfortable with where my project is going. Last week I filled a few A3 sheets of paper with drawings for my mind but the twist was, I wasn't looking, I drawn whatever popped into my head, I did these in the car on the way home from Uni.My tutor thought it would be a good idea if I photocopied these markings and enlarged them, I found some interesting shapes and she suggested I should make them out of wire.

I also flattered some of the wire using a hammer and flat plate where the pencil gets blunt or I'm applying pressure. I really like the idea of this, I also got a book from the library called ''N3W RINGS by Nicolas Estrada.'' It's has some beautiful forms and ideas inside, very inspiring and reminds me of the standard of designers around.

Here I used a mixture of colours and did this sitting down on the ground with the TV  in the background  

and it took me 10 minutes.

(The Big Bang Theory to be exact)

This one took me 5 minutes with the same environment.

 I created this one in 10 minutes and standing up with music on in the background. I only selected a few colours and I thought the black cancelled all the others so I picked yellow, green, red and blue. It was nice to see the lines overlapping and imagining it in a 3D form.

I'm finding this project challenging so far because I'm used to having control over my drawings and content in my sketchbook, this is very mind boggling and there's so many ways of expressing different sides of 'surrealism', it's very hard to minimize it down for a few month project.  There's so many meanings to symbols and no one is right, it's interesting to hear what others think certain markings look like and seeing their perspective.

In other news.. I have been enjoying blowing bubbles in my room whilst it's raining outside :')