Christmas Baby Hedgehog

Even the most prickly of characters can't help feeling a bit festive this Christmas!

The Royal College of Art

I visited the Royal College of Art last Thursday as they were celebrating 175 years of Art and Design and I was particularly thrilled to see the fabulous electric pink jacket by Christopher Bailey for Burberry's Spring/Summer 2023 collection! I would most definitely love to own that jacket!

Christopher Bailey for Burberry Spring/Summer 2013

Christopher Bailey for Burberry Spring/Summer 2013

Skirt, trousers and jacket ensemble by Wendy Dagworthy

Yoko Ono unveils new fashion line

Yoko Ono's unusual creations from her new menswear line were apparently inspired by John Lennon's 'hot bod!'

As part of a collaboration with retailer Opening Ceremony, Yoko Ono unveiled a new menswear collection on November the 28th called "Fashions for Men 1969-2012." My first reaction to this collection was.... oh my goodness! And I have to say that is still my reaction as I can't quite take the hand prints on crotches very seriously. Who would find the idea of hand prints on a man's crotch appealing?

 

Aside from the distracting and bizarre hand prints, Ono's new collection of 18 pieces also includes tanktops with nipple cutouts and a flashing LED male bra. Recently in an interview, Yoko Ono (79-years-old) says the she made the designs 43 years ago as a wedding gift to John Lennon.

 

“I was inspired to create ‘Fashions for Men’ amazed at how my man was looking so great. I felt it was a pity if we could not make clothes emphasizing his very sexy bod,” she told Women's Wear Daily (WWD). “So, I made this whole series with love for his hot bod and gave it to him as a wedding present. You can imagine how he went wild and fell in love with me even more.”

I'm not sure those nipple cutouts are going to catch on Yoko Ono, but it's definitely something new!

Patterns and Prints on Pinterest!

I'm loving exploring patterns and prints on Pinterest! It is really addictive!

Constructing and Analysing Successful Prints

The constructing prints workshop was really interesting. I was presented with a fabulous variety of colourful patterns and printed fabrics. I was asked to choose some fabric samples and assess how successful they are considering colour, scale, repeat patterns, the retailer, motif and other criteria. It was really useful to consider what makes a print successful and to understand that there is sometimes logic to successful prints and a method that can be put in place for creating a successful collection of prints. It was interesting to note how successful prints can be which have put things together that are uncomfortable, unexpected, contrasting, dramatic, and cause tension.

An explosion of printed and patterned fabrics

Shingo Sato Masterclass

Shingo Sato came to Colchester Institute yesterday to give a masterclass to the 2nd and 3rd year fashion and textiles students. I had the pleasure to listen to his talk and see his creative Transformational Reconstruction designs. 

Shingo Sato is a couture designer who designs for private clients and teaches in both Milan and Tokyo, specialising in a design technique called TR. He has written a book showing Transformational Reconstruction in beautiful detailed photographs and descriptions as it moves through increasingly elaborate design applications.

Shingo Sato holds pattern workshops and he is most famous for his creative work on eliminating darts through style lines. His site claims his “Transformation and Reconstruction” technique is “significantly” different from conventional pattern making since his designs are “constructed in 3D.”

  

 

 

Flutter those paper lashes!

PAPERSELF

Paper Lashes To Flutter

The London brand PAPERSELF has created a fashionable fusion of the ancient Chinese art of paper cutting with contemporary design in the form of paper false eyelashes. Its ostentatious false eyelashes made simply from paper are amazing intricate works of art that are sure to take off in my opinion. PAPERSELF gives you the opportunity to adorn your eyes with ravishing, enchanting, delicate body art. They are beautiful and feminine; I would most definately purchase the peacock paper eyelashes.

There are many more themed paper eyelashes which you can browse through on the following website: http://eu.fab.com/sale/2487/

Encaustic Wax Art

Recently I have been experimenting with using encaustic wax in my work. I find this process really interesting as it is never completely certain to produce an exact outcome or result. The effects are very organic and fluid as the molten wax slides off of the iron onto the page creating beautiful patterns. There is an element of control as you can work into the wax with instruments or indeed the nib or side of the iron itself; or a nice effect I find is to let droplets fall from the nib to create a dotted or speckled effect. In particular the metallic waxes really highlights interesting areas of detail and shimmer attractively and the fluorescent hues are really eye-catching. It is not a complicated process and it is really fun! I plan to develop my artwork through using Photoshop to tweak the saturation and hues and to overlap interesting layers of encaustic wax imagery.

Encaustic wax art by Suzanne Fraser

Encaustic iron and wax blocks

Encaustic was art by Suzanne Fraser

Encaustic wax art by Suzanne Fraser

Encaustic wax blocks

Encaustic wax art ideas by Suzanne Fraser

Fireworks!

I celebrated fireworks night on Saturday the 3rd of November at the Hatfield fireworks display with my boyfriend. It was fabulous! The fireworks were numerous and gigantic and interestingly they were displayed in time to music that went really well with the theme of fireworks/bonfire night. It really got me in the Christmas mood, especially when the glittery and sparkly ones lit up the sky.
Simon Pegg (from Shaun of the Dead) was there and led the count down to the display which was comical!

Advanced mark making lesson

The photos below show some of my advanced mark making sketches, paintings and prints. I was really pleased with how these turned out and I am now going to develop them by scanning them in, overlaying different prints and manipulating them on Photoshop by adding my colour palette where appropriate. I was particularly pleased with the small pattern repeat paintings where I focused on dotted imagery; I feel this was the most successful.

Snake skin inspiration

During the advanced mark making class I focused on an amazing snake skin and a snake skin handbag. These two objects were perfect and most relevant to my project as I am focusing on scaly and reptilian imagery and creatures. I really enjoyed exploring small pattern repeats of the scales, tessellation and dotted imagery.