After a long couple of months Le Tour De France project has ended. For my final piece I have reproduced my needle felting as inspired by Moy Mackay. I have reproduced it 3 times to join together with other peoples work to make a one large piece about Le Tour De France.

I have also produced several screen prints from my own design, another needle felt, 5 A3 sheets and a sketchbook.

Overall I have enjoyed this project as it has been different to any I've done so far. I particularly liked how we got to experiment with new and different techniques and how I had more independence with this project. Although im a bit bored of looking at bikes now.
I would enjoy doing this project again.

Tour De France Report

Tour de France report

 

For our first project as second years this year, we have been looking at Le Tour De France. I went to watch the tour in Sheffield as the riders came through Yorkshire so I got my primary research from that. I took some photos and videos of the scenery and I even visited the Civic gallery as their theme was the history of Le Tour De France. I took some photos from there and for my secondary research I used information and pictures from the internet, mainly from the official Yorkshire website and the BBC.

Nothing particularly inspired me at the Civic, however I thought it was quite interesting how they displayed bikes from the early 20^th century and all the information they had about them. In my opinion I thought the Civic Gallery was a little boring but that’s just because I am not a big fan of The Tour De France.

I looked at a number of different Artists but the main 3 that stood out to me the most were;
Moy Mackay, she is a needle felting Artist who looks at landscaped and Nature. She inspired my final piece as I took forward her style and the way she perceives the country side in her work. I think her work is beautiful and unique. The second Artist is Alister Colley, who was the official Artist for Le Tour De France. His work is different from any I have seen before. He works in a cartoon style but distorts his work and makes it look like its bending. I recreated one of his pieces of the British Countryside and even used his cartoon like style in my work. The third and final Artist is a man called Rob Corradetti, he created a company called Killer Acid and he specialises in screen printing which has been a big part in this project for me.  I find his work inspiring with all the bright colours he uses and how crazy and different it is.

In this project I have, screen printed, needle felted, knitted, experimented with gouache and brusho inks and done some felt making. My favourite was needle felting, I have never used this technique before but I really enjoyed it, I found it quite therapeutic. However my least favourite was definitely knitting, I found it really difficult to master and I didn’t find it enjoyable.

I experimented with felt making and made some little felt balls, and blended two different coloured felts to make the finishing piece of felt thicker and multi-coloured. I then experimented further with it and needle felted on top of it.

My chosen Artist- Moy Mackay inspired my final piece with the landscape. Because I am looking at Le Tour De France and Yorkshire, I thought it fit in well with the project as Yorkshire is mainly countryside which Moy looks at and also because I enjoyed needle felting I thought I would use her work to inspire my final piece.

I think I could have managed my time a little better as I have had to work at a really fast pace to make sure I get all my work done to the deadline and I have also been taking my work home and finishing it. I think I managed my time well when producing my mood boards and Artist research sheets as I managed to get them done in the first 2 weeks. I still have some work I need to improve but I am confident my work will be ready to hand in on the first Monday back.

I was really proud of my painting I did, inspired by Alister Colley’s work because it turned out just how I had pictured in my head and I put a lot of time and effort into it. However, what did not go so well was my knitting. I found it really difficult to grasp the technique and also my prints did not go as well as I had hoped. I didn’t make some of the lines thick enough on my design so they didn’t show up as well as I would have liked. If I was to change anything I would make all my mood boards/development sheets neater and with a lighter background because the paint was too dark and I feel like I could perfect them more.

Throughout this project I think I have used my blog effectively as I have updated it with felting and work I’ve done for Le Tour De France but there is still more work to be uploaded. I did not use my sketchbook as effectively as I could have. I used it to keep looking back at work and taking ideas from it but I need to add more work to it still.

Overall I am satisfied with this project. I have enjoyed experimenting with new techniques and looking at multiple things e.g. (countryside, bikes, people, nationalities, history of Le Tour De France) rather than just looking at one thing.

Knitting

Knitting

 

This week we have been looking at knitting techniques and basics.

 

we started off with 2 needles and began by tying a loose knot around one of the needles.

 

Then with the second needle in my right hand I threaded the needle through the left one  making a cross.

 

I found this really challenging as I do not know how to knit and I dropped 2 stitches.

 

Our aim was to do 20 stitches and 20 rows, however I only managed to do 15 stiches and 5 rows.

 

Felting

 

 

Today we have been experimenting with felting. To start with we made a background which when dry, will be needle felted onto. The design that will be put on it will be to do with our current project- Le Tour De France. For my background I have chosen to do a green, landscape like felt so I can needle felt some mountains, sheep and trees on to it to create a traditional looking English country side.

 

This is what my piece looked like

 

 

 

For the process we had to chose some felt we liked, pull it apart and lay it on top of some bubble wrap to create a square shaped piece. After we had layered the felt up we added warm water mixed with washing-up liquid onto it and then rolled it up in the bubble wrap and began to roll it so the fibers would stick together.

 

 

 

 

After we had created our backgrounds we could either have a go at 3D felting or carry on with what we were doing. I decided to have a go at the 3D felting and created some miniature felt balls.

 

It was the same process apart from we rolled the small felt balls in our hands instead of on the bubble wrap

 

 

 

 



For our first project in the second year of College we are studying the Tour De France 2014.

I like this project because it is something I am interested in and I've enjoyed looking back through time and seeing how it has evolved. 

here are some photos i took while waiting for the race to start in Yorkshire. 

For one of my Artist Research i have chose Alister Colley. He was the main representative artist for the Tour De France. i love his work as he works on a large scale, he uses vibrant colours in a cartoon style. He uses so much detail in his work.

The first picture is my artist research page I've done on him and then I've drawn one of his paintings of the Yorkshire country side. The picture below it is one of his original pieces. You can tell that it is cartoon style and that's what drew me to his work the most as it is one of my favourite styles.