Locating Unit Week 6

With the deadline for the Locating Unit fast approaching, in week 6 I wanted to start sampling and testing ideas for final outcomes. I began by going into the paper print room to use the screens I had made the previous week. The screens were fairly simple, just the positive and negatives of a composition made up of motifs from one of my paper cut stencils. Because the design was straightforward, I experimented with overlapping and overlaying by different amounts to get variations of white space, gaps and shadow effects. I also stuck to four colours from my palette and I think this helped me focus on composition as I wasn’t too distracted by colour. I liked the way my prints came out and found that the ones with large amounts of space were good for cutting into and further manipulating after printing. This is important as I want to create wallpaper designs which are tactile and bespoke, as well as being more traditional. I am thinking that I will design a collection of flat designs and then take some of these to work into.

Paper print wallpaper ideas.

Spending some time properly photographing my 3D structures was important this week. I often find that once I have made something I can forget about it and not look at it again for several weeks. Because I used the daylight studio to take good quality photos of my forms, it meant that I studied them again from every angle. This inspired me to do more drawings to get motifs for screens and more wallpaper designs. I also heated my laser cut perspex samples and moulded them into new shapes which I enjoyed as I loved being able to manipulate a usualy solid and un-maleable material.

 

Some of my perspex and paper 3D forms.

We had another group tutorial this week for the FFF live brief. This was beneficial, as I got lots of suggestions of ideas for 3D printing. With the comments from the session in mind, I am going to get my 3D forms scanned in, to see if they can be 3D printed. These will hopefully inspire ideas for part of my collar which could be 3D printed. Having explored several ideas for how to present my FFF outcomes, I have decided to focus on making samples and elements which could be combined to create a collar, instead of trying to create a finished collar, as I just don’t think that will be achievable in the time remaining. Although I am a bit disappointed not to be able to fully realise my ideas for this project, It has taught me some really valuable lessons about not planning too rigidly, allowing change within a project and how to adapt it as you go along. With these skills, I now hope that in future I will be able to get to the sampling stage of a project sooner, as I won’t be preoccupied early on with having set, unachievable ideas.

To progress with the 3D printing side of the FFF brief, I went to visit the Shed this week, the facility at the University where you can go to work on 3D design software and get samples printed. I had missed the visit the previous week, having been in Florence, so was worried I would be quite behind in the process, but Ed who runs the Shed was really reassuring and explained the process in a detailed but understandable way. He showed us the different types of printers available, the materials that we can print in and the software used to do the printing. There is such a wealth of technology available which we are really lucky at MMU to have access to. It was such an insightful tour and using the facility can be adapted to your level of proficiency. I am planning to work on designs on fusion 360 to take into the Shed next week, and these will form the basis of my sampling for FFF.

The Shed 3D printing Facility.

Finally, I did some more A1 drawings. I wanted to go back to a more free and uninhibited way of working, as by the end of the week I was feeling a bit overwhelmed by both my self-initiated brief and the live project. Allowing myself to be more natural did help, and made me realise that I need to focus on developing some of these big drawings into motifs for wallpaper. I need to work on the quality of my big drawings and use a wider range of materials, but generally I have enjoyed working this way.

Scanned in A1 drawings.

Next week I aim to focus on 3D printing, developing my wallpaper designs and sourcing textural paper for screen printing on, as I want to present a collection of digitally printed wallpaper samples and some more bespoke, screen printed ones.