Let me introduce a new section on my blog that I hope will be of interest to some of you. I often get asked how I keep creative and inspire myself. Well, one of the many ways is to sketch, draw, paint and design. For many years I was privileged to attend a private design course run by john allen, who I have featured here on the blog before. The course, run in various locations around the UK, was specifically set up to teach craft makers how to come up with an original piece of design. I was the only non-craft maker (thank you for letting me in) but trusted my instincts that although I am a graphic and interior designer I will learn a lot. Oh boy, did I? I am hugely indebted to john.
The premise is simple: a museum/gallery/space is chosen by john. We then visit and are at liberty to select an object, a scene, an environment. We sketch, draw and take photographs. The only important factor is that whatever we, the students, choose has to have enough information for us to be able to go away and design from for the next six months. The end result, usually, is very far removed from the starting point. That’s it.. simple, no? Well…. it took me all these years to understand and I am still a work in progress. Personally, I was never interested in a finished piece but all the various stages of development.
Without further ado, here is one such project. I wanted to set myself a challenge. I asked john whether I could do something different and use the kings cross regeneration as my subject matter. To my surprise, he agreed. I will only show some of the work produced as it is only meant to inspire (I hope) and for me to document my creative journey.
I started with making a collage on tracing paper as to explore which aspects were visually of interest to me. Materials used: watercolours, coloured pencils, black lava acrylic structural paste, golden acrylic gel mediums & molding paste, various black ink makers, glue, french enamel varnishes and magazine cut outs.
Following are some close ups of the collage.
Next I experimented with manipulating some of the photographs in photoshop.
The following pictures show a small selection of various developments into the project. Some are photographed from original artwork. Some are from photocopies I made. I hope you have enjoyed some of this.
