Development

I have really enjoyed the development process of both my costume brief and my self-initiated brief.

With the characters of both ‘Alice’ and the ‘Queen’ for my costume I have adapted a really playful and experimental outlook to my sampling. The Queen of hearts samples were mostly taken from sessions of fully experimental testers using a variety of textural material. Trial and error has helped development, and ideas for the next thing to test. Taking inspiration from the heart and then trying to capture the sliminess in hearts and food I had photographed provided wide scope of different materials to test such as kidney beans, latex and glue.

For the Alice character when looking at the living hinge to create samples that grow and stretch from its original size, it has been a lot of trial and error. This has proved challenging at times, as it is a technique that I have never explored prior to this. However, in my sampling I have kept an open mind when trying a variety of designs and materials. My open mindedness, and willingness to try a variety of things has started to allow me to take note of what works most successfully. This is something that has worked really well for me, and has allowed me to decide what to bring forward to create my refined samples for this character.

For my self-initiated project I have started to create designs and have a couple sessions for the laser cutter. Due to the short time given for this brief I have decided to use a technique that I know I can utilise successfully. So far the sampling has created successful outcomes when drawing from research into structures/patterns of Florence’s architecture and plant cells. I will continue to develop different patterns and use different materials in the laser cutter to decide what to carry on into my refined pieces. I am also considering bringing my photography (which has been successful) into digital prints, and combining that with stitch and my laser cut pieces.