First day back at uni

So today was my first day bck at uni, and for some reason i was at john princes street instead of lime grove which was a bit annoying, but oh well, i can deal. I start at 9 on a monday now, so i've had to say farewell to my monday lay in, R.I.P, you will be missed, but its all in the name of learning right!!!

For the Academic project in my 2nd term we are doing Historical and contextual studies, which encompasses the male and female figures and how it has been altered in fashion since the early 19th century, we could have gone further back but because there was so little recording of any earlier fashion it would have made it incredibly difficult!

So im still only on my first day as i write this post, and the first things we are researching and looking into is how to dennotate and connotate objects and images, which we did some of last term, but didnt cover it as a whole. Dennotation and connotation both cover the general describing of objects/images and how we see and interperate them.

Sorry if some of my spelling is off, ive not been in academia for a while!

More posts to follow soon, when ive slept for 1000 years and so on..

Update on the lesson i just posted on, we cant get the t.v sound working so the lesson kind of went to shit

Update 2, i think im also in love with my tutor

Term 1 review

I havent really posted much about my first term at uni, its been really fun, hard, but fun. Im still waiting to recieve my first grade as i handed in with a late hand in due to personal circumstances, so me and a few others will probably get our results after the holidays.

The project we did was really entertaining to do, although the amount of money it cost was silly haha( eg, travel, book binding, materials etc). But i knew uni was going to be expensive, so i'd say to anyone wanting to study at any university, more so any london one, to make sure you have the money to both keep yourself fed, healthy, clothed and housed and still be able to afford things to do with your course! :)

i've met some awsome people already in my first term, we've had a few problems with flatmates and such, but that was to be expected haha, We're already looking for a house to move into next year which i can't wait for!!
Its all heads down and hard working from here, not that i havent been doing that anyway ;) but the odd, occasional drink has been involved as it would be with student life!

Have a great christmas to everyone reading this! Talk in the new year!!!

Stenciling

Using stencils in my work was really interesting, i've never really thought about using this kind of medium before, but i turns out im kind of a natural at it! We did a lot of it at uni (i'll upload some pictures later) and when i got back to my flat i felt that i just had to do more, some of them are from collages that i made myself and other ones are from things that i got out of magazines, personally i think the magazine ones worked better. 

I used fabric paints to colour them in, i didnt realize that i had no acrylics in so i had to work with what i had, but to be fair, the fabric paints worked wonders, they mix so well and give some amazing effects, for instance, the swirls on the yellow jacket (image 3) was from mixing a red and yellow and spiraling it round, it kind of starts mixing into an orange but doesnt get all the way there because the paint isnt being pushed into eachother enough.

I especially love how the illustrations have arms that can't be seen, like this one above (image 4), the arms are crossed so they aren't visible to the viewer, but if you were looking at the original magazine image, you'd see the end of the sleeves and the wearers arms folding into eachother. none of the illustrations have the original colour scheme of clothing on, i've altered all of them into my own image, so they can't really be traced back other than with the stance the models are taking. 

Back to my GIF roots

So my tutor loves the idea of gifs and has been pushing us all to make some, and as i have a history with making some i thought i'd give it a go again, i'd forgotten how tiring it it making them, i mean, i made one really simple one which is only 2 frames, but i still spent over an hour sorting it all out on photoshop, its not that impressive, but its a start onto some ideas im having at the moment.

MyBlog.arts.ac.uk

So im having to make this new bog for uni and its taking the pissss, would be so much easier to just keep it all on here. The blog im making is more of my own custom made website which is really cool but its the slowest thing ever.

I'll still keep posting all my work on here, mainly cause nobody here checks it and i can swear a lot!

http://tylercookson.myblog.arts.ac.uk/ the link to my new blog/site, but it will mainly just have research on and not a mass amount of my own work.

On another note the uni is brill, if you're interested in anything fashion i urge you to apply and take your education/passion further, the staff here have the best connections! Plus all the friends you make here become your new connections when you're out in the world, i already have people to contact from fashion journalism, photography, design (womenswear), public relations, 3d effects... all that malarky. Probably the best choice ive made coming here.

Probably for the best to ignore my first post, i'll be deleting it later, its a total ballache to figure that site out! urghhhhhhhhh

Brick lane research

So for my first project i was told to research everything i could about the street "Bricklane". As an iconic place in london, its full of culture and history to delve into, such as the 1999 nail bombing, its many famous curry houses, and the ever shifting cultures that come to inhabit it, which have been local brits, the jewish peoples and today the bangladeshi community, for which its nick name is banglatown.

Ive also found out that it has a massive amount of vintage and charity shops, as well as its market which attracts the students of the city of london looking to sell their wares. The street has become a large scene  for artists and fashionistas, again mainly because of the market and vintage shops, the deals they offer are highly sought after by students on a budget. (I should know, im a proper little deal finder)

This week im going down to do some street drawing, aybe find a few deals, try the food and ask about in the shops to see if i can find any more info about the street.

Drawing from a catwalk

So in my 2nd lesson i was thrown into the shallow end of the course and told to draw from a catwalk, HARDEST THING EVER! john if you're reading this make the first years do it, its so useful for getting them to draw fast in split seconds!

Its a really hard techinique to get, mainly cause you literally have 2 seconds on each model before you have to change, and the colour palette you have to use is so broad, so it helps to have a hand full of colours at the ready to be able to change fast without fucking about too much, I'll post a few pictures of the work ive done, only the good ones obviously!

If you're going to try this, its also best to start adding some base colors down first, a lot of runways will go through a colour scheme, so if the first outfit is blue, then dash the blue on for your next figure before you draw any figure at all! its makes the piece look more finished rather than rushed, plus the fact that the colour isnt even inside the whole figure looks brilliant, nice finish to any fashion sketch.