Planet Ruby Starrs

With most of the festivities over, and a Christmas tree that was practically without a single needle by Christmas day finally stripped of its motley selection of Hindu gods, Chinese new year charms and Wilkos tat I have picked up some college work again. single drawing with half pen and ink and half collage We did a drawing workshop in the last week of term and out homework was to fill in the different shapes and patterns we had made with colour.   The drawings were a collectively traced using a light box or window.  First as a single drawing and then next with a rotation of another drawing superimposed on top and further drawings in similar style layering images on top of each other to create quite abstract patterns.  three drawings layered divided into three bottom water colour with ink , middle acrylic paint, top black dot work The brief was then to divide each drawing into segments and fill each segment with a different technique - the intention to provide a drawing sa

Christmas has been and gone, Baby Annabels batteries are running low, we have all been operated on by Dr Little Legs and had our make up done by Big Sister... the gin bottle is looking well used and all the wholesome food has turned into chocolate!   In our house it was total chaos once we woke the children up at 8.30 (yes we had to wake them - they had been so excited the night before they didn't sleep til late)  Santa brought stockings eventually but he was too fat to get up the stairs to the attic room so he had leave them at the bottom.. he had left quite a few things downstairs under the tree - the mess within the hour was incredible ha ha - I don't think Dr Fred will do another Christmas with us his extended family - he really found the noise.... excessive wrapping paper.... total abandonment of rules... shrieking and whooping... all a bit much although he did welcome the much needed breakfast sherry!! The day was fun and given we are in a place of serious disorganisati

We have finish college for the Christmas break and I feel like I have earned a little bit of down time but still seem to have loads of home work to do and thats without all the stuff I thought I might do as well!!! We got our Minor project module marks back and its safe to say I got off to a good start and now just have to keep up the good work!!! In reality I'm not doing it for the marks but being totally honest it is really nice to get a good grade and know that all the hard work and passion is recognised and noted accordingly... its a real confidence boost and very encouraging. So its on to the FINAL MAJOR PROJECT (FMP) - We have rewritten our new learning agreement and set a new action plan in place - I'm aiming for several scarf collections - all based on the imagery I have gathered and collated in the minor project - there is a lot to go at.  I have made an action plan and already I'm way off beam, I realised quite quickly that while I had a plan I needed to off l

The other module we are doing this semester is around  Professional Development.  This includes branding, CV's, finding a job, networking, business planning and such like.... all very relevant for most of my peers but less so for myself as a mature student.  That's not to say I don't look forward to the experience though.  I do hope to set up a business later this year so much of what we do and how it might be done will be very relevant to my intended venture. The module kicked of to a great start with a presentation by Matty Bovan an established fashion designer - he does completely wonderful creations which are interesting, wacky, clever and very inspirational.    https://www.mattybovan.com/ The presentation documented his meteoric rise from Leeds College of Art to St Martins and then via Louis Vuitton back to reality setting up a fashion studio in his home town of York where he works from now producing collections which are shown at London Fashion week  and other

And so..... the next creative stint begins..... THE FINAL MAJOR PROJECT!!!  using all the imagery I collated in the minor project module I intend to create at least 6 scarf collections - each collection having 4 designs (possibly seasonal) and 4 colour ways for each design.... I have done a plan - mapped out a vague to do list  using my never fail, 60% plan 40% to play with and I have started to consider the layouts and imagery for each collection.  I have no doubt what so ever I will completely change the whole thing half a dozen times but that's par the course and a lot of the fun.... I have been in Christmas card production mode hoping to make some cards to sell at a fair being held this weekend only they didn't work out as I wanted so will not raise funds to keep Dr Fred in mince pies this year!  They will however start a scarf design process and potentially be our personal Christmas cards once I have had time to refine them.   Meanwhile in between packing stray books awa

Now the dissertation has gone the next bit of fun starts..... There is a lot of giddy excitement in the air in out household!!! College finishing up, the recent hand ins, new projects starting, and the icing on the cake is we are moving house... better then just moving we are actually buying a house. We have loved this little house we rent at the moment - its a very pleasant space to live in but the village is not what we had hoped it would be and we feel very isolated and quite frankly the neighbors are not what we are used to.  Yes we were very spoiled when we lived in Northumberland - the community there embraced newcomers and was interesting to live with - we made lifelong friends, so moving here to a similar set up was disappointing to say the least and we have never really settled.  So we have been looking at alternatives. That said this is still a bolt from the blue - an unexpected happening in our lives - Dr Fred and I have vaguely discussed this option as we wanted some s

The dissertation is finished...  it took me ages to do all the detail stuff Harvard referencing ect... the simplest tasks were starting to drive me mad!! I cant believe how long it took me to work out how to number pages excluding the first two pages aagghhhh...  I suppose I should be grateful that its not like the olden days where you had to get it typed and bound before hand in - this essay has been a hard slog, a subject which I felt was interesting - how the digital explosion is ruining traditional creative methods turned into a fairly unexciting - pretty boring unexceptional topic!  there will never be a next time but my advice is think of something funky - does Danny Boyle like garden Gnomes - Racoon meets Lady Gaga - anything that might surprise you but not too grown up!! I have worked hard and will be rewarded with a mid grade because there is no passion in this essay - the hard slog is evident as is the lack of enthusiasm - C'est la vie you cant win them all.  I have tri