St Anthony's High School Placement

10^th November 2016

After a few exchanged emails about ideas for a print workshop I plan to undertake whilst at my Placement, today I met Becky Mayall, the textiles teacher whom I will be working with. I also met the Year 10 textiles class I will be working with by observing a presentation being shown to the class by a lady who works for Ikea. I noticed the students lost concentration as the woman spoke to them at the front of the class. She didn’t use her PowerPoint to guide her presentation which resulted in a few stop/start moments. This made me consider some of the ways in which I could engage the students when I do my presentation/lesson.

 After the Ikea presentation had finished, myself and Becky had some time to talk about our plans for my print workshop. We talked about what I had learnt from the presentation I had just witnessed and spoke about the little overlooked things such as knowing when the right time is to pass round my samples which is key for a successful presentation. I also spoke about how I wanted my presentation to be a little less overwhelming and more of a conversational Q&A session followed by a print workshop. I suggested we put tables together to make a bigger table in order to all sit round where I can show my own work and samples easily as well as allowing me to come across as a less authoritative figure where students could feel comfortable in asking me questions. We also spoke about a PowerPoint presentation flowing in the background to keep me on track which Becky agreed to take control of whilst I would be sat round the table myself.

Next time I see Becky I will have a PowerPoint presentation of my learning experiences on my course at university, and the journey from drawings to prints; something Becky feels the students need to see in order to boost their motivation as they seem to be getting bored with drawing in their project. I will also research into some ideas for the GCSE project the students are undertaking, ‘Natural Forms’ theme as the inspiration for my Print Workshop as well as a lesson plan to familiarise Becky with my ideas. This way I can easily receive feedback from her if there is anything she would like me to do differently.

24^th November 2016

After showing Becky my Textiles print work today, we agreed to not use the Power Point Presentation as I am more set on the idea of a more conversational lesson, where I can sit round a table with the students going through the work I have produced. A Power point running in the background runs the risk of students losing concentration on what I’m saying and passing round. This will also hopefully create a more relaxed atmosphere and encourage the students to speak honestly about going to college and their thoughts on University.

Today I also brought in my work for Becky to see as well as the project I am working on at the moment which involved the paper prints using an easy printing technique and paper fans. As this idea is a cheap, easy and a fun way to print as well as the fact it can be easily integrated into their ‘Natural Forms’ project, we agreed this is the technique I will use for my Print workshop next week.

30^th November 2016

After observing and helping the class for four week today was my own constructed lesson. My workshop was really successful in the way that the students gained inspiration from my work as well as learnt a new technique which they can now develop on. The idea to have a more conversational lesson was the right choice and it worked really well as the students were interested and got involved with asking me questions about themes, concepts and university as a whole. This half of the lesson flowed really nicely and I enjoyed speaking to the students and hearing their ideas, questions, concerns and worries to which I hopefully helped and advised correctly. 

The second half of my lesson was a bit more hectic as there was limited space and therefore a bit more time than planned was spent on creating more spaces for the students to work. Other students didn’t get involved due to the limited space and although Becky and I were encouraging them to have a go I believe they most likely felt intimidated by the chaos of it all. The students who did get involved started producing some really good prints, accomplishing texture and colour. Some students even improvised with other objects such as string and cardboard to create their own original style of prints. 

Some of the things I learnt was to make sure you have enough space. I took Becky’s word for there being enough space around the table we were working on where students could take turns, however due to the excitement of it all, there was no real structure or order to make sure every student had a go as some students were enjoying it so much they took over a certain space for the entire time of the workshop. 

Although it may seem obvious, another thing I learnt was that not everyone will enjoy what you enjoy and if this was a permanent/weekly workshop I would need back up plans and activities as well as a variety of resources in order to interest every student.

Time also becomes a learning curve in the way that there are some things you can’t plan for and you need to make sure you have given yourself enough time in case something does go wrong. For example, if there was another lesson in the room I did my work shop in straight after my allotted time, the room would not have been tidied as I didn’t plan any time for the students to finish up and reflect on their work or time to tidy up. In the end myself, Becky and a few helpful students tidied the mess. 

Over all, I feel I have introduced a new technique and way of ‘drawing’ that will hopefully boost motivation and show the students a more hands on approach to being creative. Printing is something I didn’t understand or use in my work at high school and I hope that this workshop has provided a little insight into something a bit different to what they are used to doing. I have also gained new confidence in myself that I can organise and produce a successful workshop on my own and I enjoy it at the same time. This is definitely a direction I would like to pursue in the future.

Print Workshop

*Due to health and safety procedures taken at St Anthony’s High School I cannot post photographs and images showing the students faces. 

Botanical Shrub Post Three

5^th Dec-16th Dec

These passed two weeks, I have focused on finishing off my first self-initiated project ‘Botanical Shrub’ as I need to move on in order to complete two more briefs. Although I want to perfect this brief, I had a slow start and a few setbacks which has cost me time towards the end. Therefore, I have spent time refining prints, adding other colour and techniques to create a print collection for beach wear.

Researching into the context of beach wear has enabled me to choose the right fabrics on which to print onto. Looking into brands and companies such as 'Accessorize' and other high street beach wear brands, I decided to use linen and polyester fabrics rather than the more up market silk, cotton and chiffon fabrics. The types of beach wear products I have in mind are beach shorts/pants, kaftans, sarongs and wraps which I have communicated through visualisations in fig.7 to help me understand how certain prints would sit as a product.

Fig. 7 

Beach Wear Visualisations

In order to allow for more variation within the collection, more line drawing was done and therefore more motif based designs were created. However, due to lack of A3 sized screens in the print workshop, all my screen designs were put onto one large A2 screen which was difficult to navigate and print motifs with. The screen was too large and as each motif sat on its own it meant I had to wash and wait for the screen to dry each time I used it which became quite insufficient. With time to finish this collection decreasing, I have decided to abandon the motifs and carry on with layering the textured screens and introducing the technique of devore to add another subtle yet effective quality to the samples. The see through burnt out areas within the prints, achieved with the devore technique, has proved to be a more appropriate way of producing another texture within my samples than puff binder or flock as it has a delicate value, suitable for a beach wear context. Expanding the colour palette with tropical yellows and oranges has also worked well in communicating tropical themes as well as a summer beach wear context and over all a sophisticated collection.

Fig. 8

Final Collection

Yet I do believe changes could have been made through out this project in order to create some variation within my prints. Whether this could have been motifs or different textures coming through or a bit of embellishment. 

Botanical Shrub Post Two

28^th Nov- 2^nd December 2016

Working from the layers within my paper prints, I created four screen designs, each with a different texture. As most of my work has been textured/surface design based I wanted to add other botanical motifs. Due to the chaotic nature of my previous paper prints, I thought simple line drawings of exotic plants would be the best way to achieve a body of motifs. 

Fig. 4 

“Leaves, Ile St. Louis” (1950) by Ellesworth Kelly 

Exploring the line drawing work of Ellesworth Kelly, I started drawing from exotic plants I found and photographed to create simple motifs for a different screen design to juxtapose with the other textured screen designs as seen in fig. 5.

Fig. 5

Screen Designs

Working with pink, green and black reactive dyes I started working in the print room with no preparation or plan as to composing my prints. As I have not practiced screen printing for around 7 months, my day screen printing became more experimental, layering screens to build the textures and getting myself back into the routine of screen printing as a whole. This slow start added with no preparation meant my production of prints was inefficient, however not completely wasted as I learnt preparation was key for next time and got accustomed to working safely in the print room again. 

Fig. 6

My print samples as seen in fig.6 portrays the exploration of different techniques which I wanted to use due to my absence in the print room for so long. For example, puff binder was used, however it is not an appropriate technique to use when considering beach wear. On the other hand, maybe the use of devore could be a lighter, more suitable technique to use for a beach wear context. The colour in the print samples are also not honourable to the exotic, tropical jungle theme for my beach wear project and therefore, I will spend time mixing colours to get them right next week in order to create more refined screen print samples.