Colour & Texture

So at the moment I get very excited when I hear my phone buzz with a new email. Normally it means more work heading my way but at the moment it it is mainly my super enthusiastic year 9 students emailing me something equally incredible and fantastic.

So despite being about to head out to meet some friends I am desperate to share with you the newest gem.

Johanna Squires is a Textiles superstar and a name to watch for the future. She has a great sense of style, knows exactly what goes with what and is a really hard worker- a perfect set of credentials for becoming a successful textiles designer!

I'll leave you to enjoy her piece but keep an eye out for some of the other superstars I am lucky enough to have in the first GCSE cohort

Miss Miller

Upcycling- Claire Coles

I discovered the work of this amazing artist/designer when I was at uni, but until today wasn't aware of the application of her techniques onto tired furniture.  How amazing is this?  Coming to a lesson near you soon year 13.



Insects, Arachnids & Reptiles

Insects, Arachnids & Reptiles by miss-miller-cds featuring wrap rings

jeans

How cool is the image below?  It was created by one of my excellent year 9 Textiles students Jess Woods using Polyvore- a really cool tool that helps to create 2D moodboards- you should all have an experiment.  You can create a 2D moodboard using a range of their images- which incidently are products that are currently on sale (so there is the added bonus of shopping at the same time!)

Take a look and investigate!  The blog post previous to this is me having a bit of a play by typing in the wor 'old'.

Enjoy and well done to Jess my first year 9 student to complete their mission!  Keep an eye on this blog- they are all beavering away at some exciting little bits which I have promised to share on here- watch this space!

Over and out,

Miss Miller

jeans by jesswoods featuring buckle jeans

Old

created using Polyvore

Old into New (or current day at least)

Friday's lesson saw in the large part us sharing our childhood memories and the objects we have kept associated with those.

We then tried to find ways through which we could create observational studies of these objects.  This included: photographs, printing methods, drawing, manipulating using Photoshop, recording words associated with them, using the products to create casts/ textures and scanning.

We started by using air-drying clay to capture the textures of these products.  Here are the results- quite lovely if you ask me!

 Jodi

Emma

Alex



Matt

Miss Miller

See you in the lesson shortly,

Miss Miller

P.S I tried to use our Flickr page to upload our photographs from Friday's lesson but it didn't really work properly so you will have to take them off my SD card later.

Damien Hirst

Slightly late to jump on the bandwagon yesterday my friend Anna and I visited the Damien Hirst exhibition at the Tate Modern. In all honestly I didn't really know what to expect, I haven't been exposed to that much of his work- aside from the most famous. I really enjoyed the exhibition, in his focus on celebrating death and combining ultimate luxury with hell (very well linked to the A level Art brief- Alex!)

My favourite elements were of course the butterflies and also Mother and Child Divided- which has now made me explore the anatomy of a cow with more interest.

I can't recommend this exhibition enough. I didn't realise there was a void that needing filling- but it definitely has been! Get yourself there anyone- particularly 12&13 over the summer. It finishes on 9th September.

Enjoy!

Miss Miller

Old

On Friday I went round to my friends house. On her table were some dying roses. I quickly snapped them up. I love both the changing colour and texture of the decaying objects and feel they perfectly fit our 'old' project title.

Enjoy the weekend,

Miss Miller

Introduction

So in the first lesson as year 13s we managed to cram in a whole host of activities related to our new project.  We mind-mapped, played with smart materials, explored Miss Miller's 'memory box', learnt some simple new techniques to better our presentation using two particularly cool websites poladroid & dafont, [tried to] set up our blogs (who knew that the group of super-intelligent students I currently teach coul be challenged by my 84 year old great aunt when it comes to the internet!) and on-the-whole really got to grips with old, new, borrowed, blue.

We also spoke about what we could learn from year 12 in order to make year 13 even better.  Including:

* recording and reflecting using our own blogs (also a great thing for creative people to have for uni applications)

* using technical language (making use and writing down the key words in every lesson)

* much more independent work (not just what I set- but more, more, more)

* taking ourselves out and about more to improve the amount of primary research we have

* making notes and bringing our Textiles note books to every lesson

So tasks for this week (and there were quite a few but aaaaah who cares?! Let's strike whilst the iron is hot!)

1. Finish setting up your blog.  Have a look around the internet at other blogs.  Whilst doing so try to find 5 artists/designers linked to O,N,B,B. Email me the links to your blog.

2. Collect things together linked to one, some or all of the words from O, N, B, B and set up a still life.  Photograph or bring into school for Friday's lesson.

3.  Buy yourself an A3 sketchbook and get started beginning to fill with title page/ mood board- whatever you see fit but just get busy getting as excited about the project as I am!

Here are some of the photographs from my 'Old' still life.

Looking forward to seeing you on Friday

Old New Borrowed Blue

I am so excited I can hardly contain myself.  Unfortunately as I was on a training course this afternoon I missed my first lesson with year 12s as shiny new year 13s.  I was very generous in letting them continue with work from another subject, I didn't want to reveal the new project title until I had time to properly explain and share my enthusiasm for it too. 

As, at present I am the only one who knows of this blog's existence and also because I plan on sharing this with my group tomorrow too I am confident that they wont be able to have a sneaky peak in advance of tomorrow's lesson. 

So- Old, New, Borrowed, Blue.  Not because I want everyone to start designing their wedding dresses.  I would like the words to be explored independently, possibly combined where possible.  I would like everyone to have an opportunity to explore the concept of 'upcycling', generating something new out of something old and in the process adding value- making it worth more than it did before.  This will also provide quite a large variety of scope for the written (essay) element- I can hear the sighing already!

I could go on and on and on, this is one of my most favourite topics, so I will leave you with some simple slides from my presentation for tomorrow.

Miss Miller

And so it begins....

Having dabbled in blogging whilst at university combined with exploring opportunities to make our lovely learners more reflective and to record their thoughts, experimentation & progress we have decided to set up our very own Art & Textiles blog.

If I am completely honest in addition to the above I have also been hugely inspired by both Couldsdon College Blog and Gayle Bicknell- I have just returned from a very peaceful week in Greece and when the sun became unbearbale at midday I retreated to my room, making full use of the free wifi and explored both of these blogs right back to their conception.  So very well done to the both of them and a big thanks for the inspiration!

It is hoped that this blog will become 'ours'.  A space, or forum, where we can share information about our work, pose questions, find out about current exhibitions, upload photographs and lesson resources/notes to and generally be massively inspired by in order to drive our work forward, get the most possible out of the course and provide you lot with a wider learning experience.

Sometimes I will post, some times Mrs Doig and other teachers will and it is hoped that the new school year will also bring us some shiny new department bloggers who will look after it each week as part of their community service.

Either way I am excited and you should be too- we have embraced the 21st century!

I am going to sign off now, because unfortunately for me, having spent the whole week relaxing in the sun I now have an exam paper to create for year 9 for first thing tomorrow morning, I am leaving you with some snaps of Kos, Greece.

Miss Miller