Reflective Journal - Week 3

To begin week 3, we had an 'introduction to photoshop' session where we went over the basics of using photoshop and also learnt some new things. We learnt how to change colours of our image, specific aspects in the image and how to select these things. We learnt how to colour scan, colourise and using two documents to put a pattern onto an object. Although some things I was already familiar with, it still refreshed my memory and enabled me to learn new things and ways of changing/doing things to my images on photoshop. Moreover, on this day we also had a talk about our work placement, organising and managing the placement, where to find placements, we were given examples of placements we could do that previous students had done and how to evaluate our experiences. This talk was extremely helpful as it gave us more information of where to look for a placement and how to approach it, there were quotes from previous students about what they wish they done, some said look more for something they were really interested in and some saying they wished they travelled further etc. I spoke to my tutor and she recommended some artists and designers that lived locally to Norwich, however, I managed to come into contact with an interior designer I have previously done work experience with and am able to do my work placement with her.

The following day, me and Rebecca (one of the girls in my group collaboration) dyed some fabric samples as for our 3 metre length of fabric we're going to be dyeing the background a pale shade of a specific colour, this experimentation enabled us to see how the colours would look and what specific amounts of dye we need for the colours we would like.

dying silk 2

dying silk

Furthermore, in the afternoon we had a workshop with 'Grainne', who gave us advice and help with our individual 'promoting well-being' project, she went round to us individually to ask us what our ideas were and give us feedback on what she thought and what ideas she had for us, she recommended to me to look at the 'gut flora' (flower) and adding this into my idea to make it more exciting and creative. This workshop enabled me to hear other peoples ideas and thoughts and listen to feedback from them about my own ideas, this helped me begin my new project.

Towards the end of the week we had a session with Clare Sams who gave us a presentation on 'Craftivism and textiles in protest', which was mainly about using flags and banners to protest beliefs, she gave us names of several artists that have shown this through their art and designs. This was to give us inspiration on our 3,000 word essay.