Progression Week
I already knew which pathway I wanted to do before I started progression week, so I was able to just use it to do the workshops which I thought looked the most fun, so that I could experiment and make the most out of the week.
Creating Illustrative Characters Through Play
I chose to do this workshop because I really enjoyed the narrative day in art, and I like developing characters, usually through costumes but I thought that illustration would be fun as well. In this workshop, we had to cut up coloured paper, and then use the shapes to create different characters, and then take one of those characters and develop it further through sketches and then a final drawing. This whole process was really experimental and fun, and I think that I might use the technique of cutting up shapes and rearranging them again in other contexts, because I found that it was a really interesting visual way to generate ideas, as it skipped out the long process of drawing each idea out, and I was able to make quick decisions by moving the shapes around. I definitely think that I will take this technique forward with me into the future. One of the next things that we did was to draw random shapes and then make the character that we created fit within the shape, which for me, really brought my character to life in my head. I ended up with 3 characters in a band, which I stood up so that it was almost like a 3D stage.
BA Fashion; Draping
I chose to do this workshop because I have done draping before in previous gcse and a level projects and I really enjoy doing it. I don't want to go into fashion, I much prefer creating characters through costume, and obviously there is a link but I think that there is a quite a big difference between the 2. But I do have an interest in fashion and I did enjoy the workshop. First we had to take existing clothing and then drape it on the stand to create new outfits and patterns and textures. We the took photos of this and used collage techniques to create new garments and outfits. I was happy with what I ended up with, and I definitely had fun in the workshop. It was useful for me because although I enjoyed it, it confirmed that I don't want to go into fashion and that I am much more suited to costume which is centred around the script/text and character. I am glad that I got to experiment with fashion a bit before I had choose pathways.
Storyboarding and Mood boards for Narrative and Fashion
This workshop started with a talk from the tutor who is a children's photographer, which was really interesting because she told us all about her creative process, and showed us lots of examples of her work. It is so useful to see other creative practitioners processes, as every time it helps me to develop my own process a bit more. We then had to chose a project, I chose a costume design for Vera Claythorne, from 'and then there were none', by Agatha Christie, and develop a mood board for it, with visual ideas to show to a potential client. We then drew up quick sketches and scanned them in to add to the mood board. I think that this is definitely something that I will use in the future, and I found it useful to hear about a creative process from the media industry.
BA Costume Design; Costume for Film
This workshop was definitely my favourite from progression week. It began with a talk about the break down of costume departments and what a costume designer does, which was so interesting and useful. Then we had to complete 2 separate tasks, the first being to create a costume for a 1980s bridesmaid out of the costumes and accessories from the store cupboard in groups of 5, which was fun but I really loved the 2nd task which was to choose a character off of the list that the tutor gave us, and then pick a time period out of a hat, to the create a new costume for that character. I chose to redesign Dorothy's costume, from the wizard of oz, and the time period I got given was 1930s, so I designed a little flapper dress made out of ruby beads (like the slippers), with fishnet tights, help up with a blue and white garter, in the same colour as the classic dress that she wears in the movie, to represent how she has grown up, and her loss on innocence. Overall, I absolutely loved this workshop and I cannot wait to do more of this kind of this in the next part of the foundation and beyond.
