A whale of a time...

I've had a really good time this last month working on a project for band Bill Davro designing the the cover for their self titled EP.
The concept was something front man Kieran Gallimore came up with using one the characters I'd drawn for an earlier poster I created for the band.

Working from a sketch he provided me with I set to making a 3D whale and set. My work was inspired by the work of Fancesco Misseri which I first saw on childrens animation Mio Mao
Mio Mao is a simple but beatuiful animation where two Kittens Mio and Mao are confused and amazed when they encounter new characters. I also took some inspiration from Nick Park and Aardmans popular Wallace and Gromit films when designing the set.

Meet Bill the whale:

He is sculped in two parts from Fimo, a head and a tail. The tail was a little more difficult and I needed to build a bit of wire sculpture inside. I used real sand from an aqarium shop and the sea is made of cheap hair gel!

The CD is available from Bill Davro and at Bill Davro gigs and hopefully in some record stores soon.
All photography was done by Emma Gallimore-Martin

The finished product :)

What next?

It's been a long time since my last post, I have left college and the job search is on! Esther my tutor has helped me write my CV, it looks a lot better now. I have signed up to the Arts Council recruitment site which now sends me job vacancies relevent to me by email which is pretty useful.

I found a site containing a list of childrens book publisher's and I'm compiling a list of adresses so that I can send them some of my work. I'm still not sure whether to post printed images or a CD or to send my work by email. I have created a flickr site containing all my work which you can view here. I will send the link alongside images to potential employers.

On Saturday the 18th of July Craft Candy based in Sheffield will be holding a craft fair which I'm propper looking forward to going. I also intend to attend some workshops run by Ministry of Craft in Manchester, Screen printing a T-shirt, learning to knit and making jewellery are just a few of the workshops on offer, The full list of workshops and dates can be seen here.

I think I'm going to call it a day but I will be using my blog more from now on I promise!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarah-trevatt/ for more images

Vintage Food Graphics

I found the most amazing book in the library on Monday, Its called Krazy Kids' Food! It's got all pictures of food packaging from the 50s, 60s and 70s in it. The graphics are dead bold and simple and blocky looking and brightly coloured and they all had their own ace little characters on them. I wish food wrappers were still as exciting now. I have held onto a couple of wrappers I like and I especially love the packaging you can find in chinese supermarkets. I think I'm going to start collecting packaging and graphics that I like.

Krazy Kids' Food, Vintage Food Graphics, Steve Roden and Dan Goodsell, Taschen, 2003.

Researching wallpaper: Rebecca Ellen

The new project is all about wallpaper. Researching approaches to wallpaper I remembered Rebecca Ellen. I had looked at her work in a previous project. She designs wallpaper combining print with embroidery. I love the idea of embroidered wallpaper! It makes wallpaper into something loveable and special like little embroidered pictures or hand made plushies. Although the printed element of her designs are more expressive where my work is usually more graphic the idea of combining printed wallpaper with stitching is something that I definitely want to have a go at this project. Heres a couple of her designs I liked most:

'Beside The Seaside'

'Seaside Town'

Detail:

My First Plushie

Okay I'm hungry and I'm tired, for the last 3 and a half hours I have been sewing my first attempt at a Plushie. It started the other day when I decided I wanted to make Valentines Day cards. I did this doodle and I decided to call him the eLOVEphant. Heres a plan I came up with for a Valentines Day card, eLOVEphants in love;

I will collage or embroider the finished design.

At the moment I propper LOVE plushies, I've tried french knitting a bear and my dad baught me Plush You! for my birthday, A book full of plushies with some patterns and sewing tips, its ace! So anyways I went rooting through my fabrics and got my machine out and here I'm proud to present my very own plushie;

Look how tiny he is!

Okay, so I'm not sure about his eyes, maybe I might make him slightly bigger so i can give him felt or button eyes but he's a prototype. I'm going to start looking for vintage bits of odds and ends or old clothing and make a whole load of eLOVEphants!

...I'm going for some beans on toast.

Print Tank Project

Trip to the Studio in London

Around the beginning of October, we visited Print Tank’s studio in London where we met Rose and Sian to talk about the brief they had set us; to design 10 samples that they would possibly buy off us if they liked them.
It was dead exciting to get a glimpse into my possible future. Rose and Sian started Print Tank in 2004. All their designs are hand drawn and manipulated using the computer which is a way I enjoy working too. It was a cute little studio with a friendly atmosphere and they had their own fabric printer! I wish I had one.
They showed us their work; they had like tons of beautiful printed fabric samples to show us, which they sold to both high street stores and fashion designers.
I learned a lot of really important stuff during our meeting with Print Tank, here are a few things and tips I have found essential that I should know:

- When designing a print, rotate images and play with scale to create flow.
- When designing for the high street don’t use too many colours, the more colours the more it costs to print the fabric!
- When designing a sample give an impression of repeat and make sure that any images used in the print are in some place in the print a complete image (e.g. in a floral print make sure both halves of a flower are somewhere on the sample)
- Once you have sold the sample, you have sold the copywrite of the sample and all images with-in the sample; the same image can not be sold twice!

The final point in that list made me question weather this was where I wanted to go with my career. I don’t like the anonymity involved, the way you sell your design and someone else gets the credit, and also the copywrite laws sound all scary and confusing to me!

So, I chose to work with a ‘Psychedelic’ colour way, one of the 4 themes the class had to choose from. And off I went to college to design my 10 textiles samples.


The Result

Here are a few of my 10 designs I thought were most successful and a couple of pieces of embroidery I did during the project.

The Feedback

On October 24th, Sian from Print Tank and Esther set up an interview type setting for us to present our textile samples. I’d had a couple of problems with not being able to print on fabric and not being able to find a Pantone calibrated A3 printer at short notice and id missed a couple of days with not being well so I didn’t have my full collection of 10 completed, but what I had done I was pleased with.

This is what they said:

- My work was professional looking.
- The images in my prints should be rotated more and I need to play with scale and add more excitement by using more images per print.
- They liked my embroidery work best especially my peacocks.
- My work lost a little bit of its charm when manipulated on Photoshop.
- Although they might be able to sell some of my work it isn’t really what their clients would want.
- That my work would be good on stationary, one off bags and children’s wear.

I’m pretty pleased with the feedback I got and I’m pretty proud of the work I’ve produced but most importantly the whole experience of the project has helped me decide what I want to do after university which I will talk about in a future blog when I have got some plans together…

aww!

I'm propper loving plushies at the moments and I think I've just found the cutest thing ever... Look!

Made by Sweater Toys. This is Bettie, not only is she a Tapir, my favourite animal, she is made from a recycled jumper like all the cuddly animals made by Sweater Toys.