Update

Its been a long time since my last post. The main reason for this is that my work has taken a completely different direction now. I still intend to produce a childrens book and I am actually working on a couple of ideas at the moment. They dont seem to fit in with the mills and plumes theme though and therefore I am unsure whether to include them on this blog or if I should set up another more relevant blog. Thats all for now, ramble over.

Close ups from degree show

Here are some close up pics of the five individual pieces that make up one wall of my display.

End of year show

Some more phots from the end of year show.

This is of my main piece which comprises 5 panels of hand dyed silk, lino printed buildings with some dyed ceramic buildings over the top. I was lucky enough to sell all 5 of these pieces on the night!

This is the first of my 2 installation type pieces. It is 3 light boxes with hand made slide/cells of my work. Typically the light in the top box blew the day before the preview show.

 This is the second of my installation style pieces. It is a hanging made up of individual hand made slide/cells featuring different pieces of my work. I did actually want to have a slideshow running of my work created on tradtitional slides but as a lot of my work was produced in photoshop this was not achievable so I settled for this instead.

Degree show preview evening pictures

Here are the first few photos from my end of degree show exhibition that ran from 15/06/11

This one is of my kids stood proudly in front of my work.

                                     The next three are of me and my friends from the course.

Book samples

Here are some samples of the possible layout of my books.

Collaged backgrounds

Here are 2 examples of backgrounds for my childrens book idea. The top one is of the actual collaged papers and the one underneath is a colour photocopy of it.

Degree show preview evening

It was the opening night for my degree show last night at the University centre at Blackburn college. A big thankyou to everyone who attended and for those who couldnt make it I intend to post some pictures from the show in the next week, (I need to bring the rest of the blog up to date first). It runs for the next 2 weeks so anyone intersted in seeing my work in the flesh, plus loads of other great Textiles work, (and some graphics) can do so then.

Rubbings onto landscape background

Collaged buildings

These 4 were going to form part of my final piece. I was going to produce around 8 of them and have them suspended in front of my printed devore background. I like the look of these pieces but with time getting short before my Final show I think I am going to have to revert to the prints on a coloured background. These pieces are just taking too much time to produce. At the minute they are stuck in my sketchbook but I might do something with them following the end of my course.

Failed Devore prints

These are just 2 of the failed Devore prints. The idea was for the paste to give the fabric a burnt look but instead of sitting on the surface like the ones that I did by mistake a while back it has actually soaked through. I have tried letting the paste get old and different ways of drying it to hopefully get the desired effect but to no avail. This idea was going to form the background of a large piece, (at least A1 in size). Time for plan B by the looks of it.

Hand made slides

An attempt at making slides by hand. I have no intention of these being used in a slide projector but i just want that sort of look. These look a bit too hand made though so I need to lok at nother way to go about it.

Lino on to silk prints

Some photos of the early prints that I did using my lino cuts to print on to my pr-dyed silk.

Devore lino prints

These two pieces are a lino print using devore paste onto suitable fabric. I actually made the mistake of printing onto the wrong side of the fabric and this is the result which i like... a lot. Unfortunately i have not been able to replicate this effect and I was hoping to use this as a printed background for my collaged fabric pieces.

The Starkie arms, Padiham.

Collaged fabric including some of my hand printed brickwork.

The cellar restaurant padiham

My interpretation of The Cellar restaurant in Padiham. This was done on canvas using inks with some machine and hand embroidery.

Burnt into vinyl

This piece was created by burning into roller blind vinyl with a soldering iron. I tried to create a shading effect with it and for my first time at this feel that it worked pretty well.

Devore brickwork

Here are photos of some brick pattern fabric that I created using the devore process. I didnt like them at first as I feel they didnt have enough detail, but on second vieewing I thought they were quite good.

Latest sketches

This set of designs are what i am planning on enlarging and making out of fabric collage.

 This design is based on a terraced house as opposed to my usual theme of factories.

 These 2 designs are my interpretation of the Cellar restaurant in Padiham.

Batik house close up

I tried to create one of my designs using batik. This is a close up of one of the windows. I machine stitched a bit over the top as well.

Fabric collage buildings

These are 2 pieces that I have made using fabric collage to recreate my designs. The top image has details created in stitch and the one below it has been done using a soldering iron.