Final Pieces!

Some of the final pieces for my latest project are now out the kiln, here's a sneak peek! Visit the 'Personal Exploration' page for more on how I made them!

Searching for Inspiration in London...

I spent the first few days of this term in London visiting various design hotspots. Particular favourites were the Design Museum, CAA and the Cecilia Colman Gallery. The Cecilia Colman Gallery was a delightful little gallery in St. John's Wood with an array of ceramics, glass and jewellery. Below are some photos from the trip. 

Final Glass and Ceramic Leaves

A Spot of Life Drawing

Today we had life drawing exploring light and dark. Just drawing the light or dark areas was a new method for me, however it was one I found rather enjoyable!

Home At Last!

I finally arrived home late Sunday night, what a month! It was one of the most incredible month of my life, but also the toughest and coldest by far! (below -20'C at times!)

Despite being the only competitors from a country that doesn't normally have much snow we did really well! We got awarded a Second Prize in the Harbin International University Snow Sculpture Competition with our sculpture 'The Antithesis'. The sculpture depicted the amount of water developed countries waste, whilst others are so in need of it.

In the second competition, the 20th Harbin International Snow Sculpture Competition, we won the 'Best Creativity Award'. Not bad seeing as we were up against professionals and representing Great Britain! This sculpture was called 'Time for Change' and aimed to connote how we are destroying the world, but also give hope; we can prevent further global warming if we changed. 
 

 
 


Now for a couple of days to catch up on sleep before getting back into uni work!

China for Christmas

I've been lucky enough to be one of four design students from NTU selected to take part in two International Snow Sculpture competitions in Harbin, China! This is an incredible experience and an amazing opportunity to explore a completely new culture, way of life and material! As none of us have worked in snow before (we're more used to sculpting and building up our work, rather than cutting away) it'll be a steep learning curve I'm sure! We fly out on Monday for four weeks, so we'll be spending Christmas there too! Whilst there we'll be keeping a blog through the uni which we'll update as often as we can! You can find it here :)

Turning Old Glass Work into Christmas Presents

In the free time I have since breaking up from uni I decided to make use of my old glass pieces from first year and turn them into jewellery. I'm really pleased with the outcome and I've done it just in time to give some as Christmas presents! I'd previously made earrings using superglue, however this doesn't stick the glass to the metal well and ruins the glass if it gets on it. For these pieces I used 2 part epoxy resin which worked really well!

My Eco Bag!

As well as my ceramic project I've also had another on-going. The purpose of this second project was to look at materials that we waste everyday and then create something from that. This is my finished product:

All the materials used (bar the thread) are recycled. The base material is constructed from 8 Tesco carrier bags pressed together to form a strong plastic sheet. This is then decorated with embroidery and material from the Nottingham Playworks Scrapstore. Material from here is also used for the lining and recycled buttons are used. I'm quite pleased with the overall look of it, I think the embroidery works really well though the functionality of the strap and fastening may need to be reviewed.

For further details on how I made this view my MIY instructions on the Co-oproduct site.

The end of Project 1

After quite a few fraught weeks making, my final pieces for 'Meeting of Materials' are done! The project explored architecture; whilst traveling over summer the different architecture in each city was drawn. I then combined these drawings, making new shapes out of the most successful elements of each to create new skylines. I then explored materialising these through print, ceramic and wire for detail. The glazes didn't work quite as I'd hoped because my chosen clay was Crank (for the texture) so this is something I'd like to explore further in future.

First Post

Hi there,
I'm a second year Decorative Arts student at Nottingham Trent University. I specialise in Glass and Ceramics and love drawing to inform my work! I'm going to attempt to keep this blog up-to-date with my latest projects and other design related things :)
Hope you enjoy!