Planet Ruby Starrs

I'm wrapping up all the loose ends of my degree work now.  Sadly we are not able to have a end of year graduate show - instead the Northern School of Art are putting on an online show which will cover all the departments across college.   We have been invited to submit one entry and given fairly strict guidelines for presentation.    I should imagine its been very difficult for every student to decide which piece of work to showcase and for a lot of people harder still as there work is very tactile and relies on a 3 dimensional approach - those doing costume studies for example as well as a large number of my contemporaries.   I came up with 3 different possibilities based on what I thought would translate well in an exhibition and also which were my favourite designs  - its hard to get as much detail in as I would like as we were reminded some people will access this on a mobile phone and then any small writing for example will disappear  I ...

I have slaved over a hot computer on and off for quite a long time now - slowly making my photographed sketch pages look tidy, interesting, fabulous and a true reflection of the work I have done in my Final Major Project to design a collection of scarves ready to hand in a couple of weeks.  Making my work look good as a digital file is a serious labour of 'love' and while I dreaded the doing it - it initially felt faffy and onerous - I have actually quite enjoyed it.  It has been a challenge to make my work which is very 3 dimensional and quite tactile - transfer to a 2 dimension digital archive.  I put lots of layers in my sketch book and nothing goes to waste - to be honest I stop short of rescuing other peoples discarded stuff from the bin but only because its some one elses so not a Ruby Starrs original. Every wee scrap I have - every little drawing, post it note - it all goes in - I like it to be busy and each little bit is part of my creative journey - so I have...

Well... short of handing in my dissertation proposal (which is written) that's college as good as finished this year!!  I have handed in my final module and feel reasonably pleased with what I have achieved.   Of course as I put it altogether to display finally and finish up my sketch book I can see loads of ideas emerging and things I wold do differently or in addition, or better in some places... that's the nature of the beast - its very much an ongoing journey -still lots of ideas for next year!!! I have handed in a week early and have worked hard over the last few weeks to make up the time lost next week so technically I have still put the hours in, but now wish I had time to experiment with tassle making and  3D dogs heads - this is exactly what I mean - always something to add on if there was more time!!! I have really enjoyed working confidently with Photoshop - never thought I'd be writing that!!! I had a lot of false starts - some nice designs emergin...

After the fiasco of disastrous hand rendered repeats - which incidentally I am going to reattempt at some time... I have been putting some images together digitally.  This has been a much easier and consequently more satisfying experience - I never thought I would be saying that!!!! However it is worth remembering that all these digitally manipulated images started off as hand rendered drawings done by my own fair hand and I have done about 70 different drawings over the last few weeks, some in situ and others from my own photographs.  I have hand coloured a lot of the drawings using promarkers, water colours and pastels.  In some cases I have used all three and added a quantity of inks, brusho and even emulsion paint!!  I'm in a blue phase at the moment (even considering painting the living room) taken from the fineliner pen drawing I did of the'atrium att eh Old Place Of Monreith All these drawings and paintings have been scanned into the computer and then ...

I've been drawing - using photos I've taken over the last year or so. I've collated all the ones of castles I have either visited or stayed in and the drawings are of the buildings or of the rich and varied artifacts found in the buildings.   quick sketch of floor and stones outside The Old Place of Monreith Its an eclectic mix from useful objects like giant chains or brass cat candlesticks to everyday objects like fancy bedheads and table lamps. mess about no 1 hardware hanging on wall!!! I used a fine liner for outlines but have enhanced original drawings with a sharpie for boldness and some graphite pencil to add some texture, and in some places there is touch of charcoal and promarker - what ever comes to hand and feels right.   Once drawn I have scanned them into the computer and cleaned up all the scratty bits dirty finger marks etc and then they are ready to play about with.  At the moment I am just experimenting with layering ...