Planet Ruby Starrs

The motivation to do college work from home has been low, I know that in the light of the bigger picture not having a degree show or a graduation is minor but its still disappointing and also I had under estimated how much I would miss the inspiration, the chat, the support, the camaraderie of my fellow students in our and across other year groups... I'm definitely missing the technical support and wish I could recall more of my one to one session re InDesign - I know its not complicated but its thwarting me at the moment!!!!! Anyway after a relaxing week in the garden - as relaxing as one can be knowing the virus is out there - we are lucky to be safe and hunkered down with plenty to do - I have decided to get as much uni work done as possible.  Its likely going to be a digital hand in and this means less scarves actually printed at this point, but lots of photography especially as my sketch book is crammed to the gills and multi layered and wont look half as good in pictures as...

Last week I made a new discovery!! Our lecturer for professional practice is Claire A Baker, a textile artist specializing in embroidery https://www.facebook.com/claireabaker2/ .  I couldn't make her web page open so I have posted her Facebook page instead...  In the course of events which I think was more to do with our final major project rather than PP she brought in some of her work and talked a bit about embroidery and how it had evolved.   Her work is very beautiful and very inspiring, the work she showed us was very varied and in places incredibly detailed.  Totally beyond my patience levels although I would love to  give it a go one day... this is yet another skill to learn when I have time!!!! Claire is very involved with the Babushkas of Chernobyl - another tale for another time - but very very interesting and worth looking at her FB page to find out more... but back to my new discovery... hidden away in among Claire's incredible embroidery were...

More and more scarf designs are starting to emerge in a more cohesive and collective manner - I have collated them all (80 plus) on to thumbnails so I can faff about and pick the ones that work best, that I like best, that Dr Fred likes best and those which I think have a commercial value... although really most of them are starting to look quite quirky and I think my target market might be less main stream than some brands appeal to - but realistically I have to have some designs which appeal to a quieter taste, they are still quite funky but in quieter colours and may be less bizarre imagery, not everyone wants to wear a giant home made chicken in a basket image around their neck!!! So now I have to make the final decisions and then spend the next couple of weeks making sure the art work is spot on and ready to go tot the printers so that they can come back to be hand rolled hemmed (approx 4 hours per scarf) but its a lovely finish and also I am going do some embellishment on ...

More design development, this week was pretty much given over to consolidating and reflecting on work achieved so far.   This has allowed me to identify the gaps, the designs I don't think work and those I really like and which ones I am going to develop.. Original blind drawing, hand coloured using various media, including collage, oils, promarkers - scanned and digitally placed on geometric background. I'm experimenting a lot with scale and different backgrounds, and next week will be taking the chosen designs forward for further development, varying sizes of patterns, different lay outs and also defining some colour palettes.  I have a lot of work on the go and now is the time to make decisions and start to refine the designs.   I had a lovely afternoon playing in the sewing room with different embroidery and embellishment techniques and I want to apply them some where among my final pieces.  Then we had a very inspiring seminar with Claire B...

Slowly finding my mojo again - I've felt a little lacking in creativity this summer, I've done some sketching and a bit of painting but not as much as usual - its been quite a hard summer and my energy levels have been low and focused on family issues rather then  art stuff. I decided that I really needed some art therapy to lift me out of the doldrums so I checked out the Row by Row patterns I picked up when we did our road trip around Canada and North America last summer.  The theme for 2017 was 'On the Go' and I felt this was really fitting aa we were on an epic road trip... I wanted to some something 'portable' ie something I could sit in front of mindless television and get on with rather then being attached to the sewing machine so I decided to tackle one of the patterns as a hand rendered piece and immerse myself in a bit of slow stitching - always good for the soul. I dug out the patterns (16 in all) and looked for inspiration - I decided it needed...

While college is frustrating me a little at the moment - and I'm not really moaning... life can't all be roses all the time - the rest of my life has been fairly manic, interesting and I have recently seen quite a lot of old acquaintances which has been a great deal of fun!! Some friends came over from France to visit family and managed a flying visit to Amble and lunch on the little shore with us. It was really good to see them both.  Another old friend (in fact very old friend we were saturday girls together) was visiting with her family on holiday in the area so I was able to have a nice walk at Craster and a good catch up. Also my very good friends - featured on my blog previously with the amazing kitchen extension and two bonkers dogs came to stay for a few days and we scooted up and down various beaches, coffee shops and castles... After walking the dogs on Low Newton beach , we aimed for a bit of culture, but deciding Alnwick Castle was too expensive for a short visit w...

I've been working up my latest ideas for the current project relating to spots, circles and in my case moths.. Its definitely a work in progress, Interesting how the ideas evolve, and as this happens it necessitates more research which in turn gets bit more fine tuned.  I've found some amazing spotty moth images which I am using to elaborate my drawings with.  I've been working alot on back grounds - using various techniques I enjoyed experimenting with last term.  I've embroidered, furrowed and pleated different fabrics and now I'm about to collage on top of them. My ideas for clean plain lines didn't last long haha, just not my style, I can really appreciate it in other peoples work but for me I need colour and more texture.  My colour palette this time is quite muted - I'm using browns and relying alot on different textures, embellishments. yarns and fabrics to give it the vibrancy and weight I am aiming for.  I'm bringing in touches of red, gol...

So the brief is Dot Spots and all things Circular so very circuitously I have arrived at spotty moths... or moths on spots or moths in circles or even circling moths ..... yes its a broad interpretation of the brief but it will work out well and I hope will produce some interesting work. Despite our academic year rapidly coming to an end there is still lots to learn and do - today we had an explanation and demonstration of digital printing.  I've been lucky and last term had some of my samples printed up, its very exciting to see your own designs actually on cloth - really very fabulous if I'm honest, but I'm probably going to leave all that exciting malarkey to look forward to next year, I'm going to practise embellishment to end this year with. For this assignment we have to decide on a couple of techniques we either like or want to work up and concentrate on them and produce a collection of samples and some finished pieces.  The class was buzzing... so many di...