In a coconut shell...

Forgive me my blogging sins. I've not been on for a while now. It's due to technical issues, but now I'm here, that's what counts right?Anyway, here's some of what I've been doing while I've been away:
My final project for my first year was a 'live' one. We worked with briefs set by external companies/clients as opposed to ones set by our tutors. It submersed us into the world of professional practise for the first time. Our deadlines were short and we had a lot to do for each one. One of the companies was the jewellery brand Watch This Space. They're pretty established and know exactly what their clients want. The people that usually buy from them are what I'd describe as the middle aged woman who wears full purple with a contrasting velvet scarf (probably in lime green) and is adorned in vulgar, bulbous stones of little value. As you've probably guessed I don't really like the company's style but I had a grade to attain from this so I persevered. All of the work that we had to present for this project had to be generated on Corel Draw. It was pretty easy and I got quite good and quick at doing it, but I didn't enjoy having to be creative on a computer.

One of the other projects was to create a piece for the Birmingham Children's Hospital to celebrate their 15oth anniversary and to help them to raise money. I really enjoyed this project as it was to design something simple and commercial. All of the projects were treated as competitions. People from the hospital looked through everyone's designs and picked 5 people who's designs they wanted to see made. From those they'd pick one to put into production. I got through to the final five with this design:

It's made in solid sliver and would have retailed at about £30 a piece for the brooch (the one pictured) and £20 for the pendant. I didn't win. Apparently, according to my tutor, I came a disturbingly close 2nd. The judges had to really nit pick between mine and the winners and decided that mine could be viewed as sexist because it depicts a FEmale nurse!! HOW ANNOYING!!!! If I'd had a man they'd have said it was a paedophile. And anyway, I never said it was a woman, it's just a person in a nurse's uniform.

The other project was to design part of a costume for a theatre group called Kindle. They were producing a play called The Furies which is sort of a modern take on the Greek myth of Clytemnestra. We were to pick a character and design/make part of their costume. We were encouraged to capture part of the character in our design.

I chose Agamemnon as mine. He was associated with brutality and power but also had an aged and timeless effect about him, and there was a connection to birds too. Basically, this is what I made:

It's made from burnt/melted leatherette and synthetic feathers. I hand stitched pieces of the leatherette together to give a skull-like appearance on the white parts. The girl I made it for seemed to love it but, yet again, I did not win.