The Curator - Week Five

Today was deadline day. I immediately started on my resolved samples that I had yet to do. I used the black organza that I pintucked yesterday and started cutting it into strips that I could use for my samples.

I took some calico and made the brain shape all over that I had for my machine sample on the big scale. I sewed onto the fabric with a grey coloured thread so that you could barely see the stitches. I then machine sewed my highlight colours into the shapes and I then did some handsewn shapes onto black cotton almost the same as my hand embroidery and cut them out and stiched them on as in my first machine embroidery.

This took my most of the day and I was panicking about my second resolved sample when one of the lecturers came over and told me that one of my fabric manipulations looked like a resolved sample but it was too light. I put black organdie over the sample and slashed and frayed selected parts of the sample.

We were then taken down to a lecture from Dundee University where we saw examples of work and were spoken too about the course. I think if we hadn't been on such a strict deadline I probably would have gladly gone but I was a bit reluctant. I did pick up a prospectus. (Reading up on options- always a good idea).

When I came back up I now had to come up with another fabric manipulation to make up for the one which I made a resolved. I still hadn't used the black pintucks so I used them like the watercolour ones I had previously done.

I used the rest of the time finishing off all my samples with hand embroidery and little bits of machine stitch. I only just managed to get everything done before the deadline. The lecturers then decided to give the class another hour due to the lecture from Dundee but I was working at five and so in order not to be late I had to leave at four.

Last week my print lecturer asked if I could talk to her today before I left to discuss what I should photocopy tomorrow.

Well... I  tried to hand my stuff in and the lecturer said I had to label everything. She must have seen how much I was panicking and let me off without labeling it. I did go to see the print lecturer and by the time I got out of college it was 4.25.

Luckily I got to work with about a minute to spare. Whew!

Bobbi Jean Shields
Quintessential Designs

The Curator - Week Four

I spent the first class for the Curator this week doing fabric manipulation samples. I woke up that morning with an idea for using pintucks in my brain but it didn't work the same as it did in my head. I spent almost the whole day just making pintucks. I just sat at my table with my headphones on watch Pollyanna on my tablet while making pintucks. Somehow I started with that and then dissolved halfway through the day to singing along to Rocky Horror. I'm still not quite sure how that happened.

For the last two hours of the day I tried to manipulate the pintucks into the coral shape I had in my head but I couldn't seem to get it to look the same. I had this idea that I would fold the pintucks so the sides were together and sew, like a fan shape. I though if I sewed two of these back to back this would form the coral shape. Er... Not quite what happened because the coral wasn't shaped like two back to back fans but I did like the fan shape. I would've went ahead with it but it was too big and bulky where the rest of my samples were small and delicate and intricate.

On Friday we had to do our resolved samples but I still had most of my other samples to finish so I finished my scaled up machine embroidery of the coral and continued with an extra machine embroidery after my lecturer came over and informed me that it was the start of my first resolved sample.

At the same time she told me that I should most definitely continue my fabric manipulations today. She also told me that one of my pintucked pieces of fabric could be considered a sample on it's own.

I set out to manipulate the pin tucks in different ways. I stitched one of my drawings into one of the pintucked fabrics. I couldn't help feeling that there was something not quite right about this one but I couldn't put my finger on it. I might try some hand embroidery to bring it more in line with the other samples

I sewed pintucked strips lengthwise onto black organdie with some straight lines going thorugh the middle holding it in place. I like this sample immensely but I do feel the back looks more interesting than the front. It needs more stripes surrounding the pintucks as the side look just too plain.

Finally I looked at using the pintucks on their side but I could work out how to stand them up but still have them attached to a base. I decided to stitch them down at the edges after twisting them over so that they'd stand up. I inter-weaved them to connect them together and I really like the effect. I almost imagine them as snakes curling around one another. I felt it was too light putting watercoloured white cotton onto light blue cotton. I think I need to put more black into it.

I ended the day by making up some black organdie pintucks so that I can use them over the weekend.

Panic has most definitely set in today. For the end of the project (Wednesday) we have to have eleven samples.

Two Machine Embroidery
Two Hand Embroidery
Four Fabric Manipulations
Three Resolved samples

I still have two resolved to do. One to finish. One hand embroidery to do and Three fabric manipulations to finish. So I'd say I'm definitely panicking.

I'm going to have to do some serious work over the weekend to get them done in time.


Bobbi Jean Shields
Quintessential Information

The Curator - Week Three

This week was our first week sampling for the Hunterian, the Curator, project. Our first samples are two machine embroidery samples.

I spent all of Wednesday doing my first machine sample. It was based on my drawings of boulder brain coral and strontianite. I started by sewing the brain coral as I like the interesting shape and I thought the differing weights of line would create an interesting aspect to play around with.

The strontianite was added using stitched bondawebbed pieces as I felt when I had placed the coral the rest of the A3 sample was lacking somehow. I felt that the shape of the strontianite could bring together the piece effectively.

Halfway through the day four of us were chosen to speak to the lecturers individually along with a student teacher from the GSA. I spoke first about my project to the group and I really felt that I could talk through my work effectively and I do believe that it has alot to do with keeping this blog.

As I'm writing about my work I really feel that I am remembering my thought processes better and I can really explain my work in a more coherant way.

My lecturers and the student teacher gave their comments about my work. I was told that I should try to make my embroidery not quite as tight and to play around with scale. As my journal pages were different sizes which you probably cant see properly in the photographs, my lecturer who takes us for guidance suggested that I make a fabric book with different sized samples. I'm not sure how I feel about that and for now I think I'll keep them separate till I have them all done but it's something to keep in mind. All of the lecturers agreed that making photocopies of my work and using the photocopies to pay around with scale would be a good idea.

In my free time I managed to take one of the corals and enlarge the scale  and stitch the pattern of the coral onto fabric which had an interesting effect.

On Friday of this week it was Hand Embroidery Day. I really found the concept of today weird as our lecturers are usually telling us that we should be doing hand embroidery at home because they want us to take advantage of our access to the machines.

I wasn't really sure what to do so I started by embroidering some of my drawings onto black cotton. I thought that if I couldn't think of a non literal way to do it then I should use my time wisely and put together a literal sample.

I took me all day to finish the hand embroidery and even then I suspect that I should go in with some colour as I have only been using grey thread in different weights onto black cotton.

So far my samples aren't really forming as a collection. I think that it's because of the hand embroidery. As I have done it in black it doesn't quite fit with the rest of my samples. I think bringing in colour to all my samples will help with this.

Bobbi Jean Shields

Quintessential Designs

The Curator - Week Two

This week I was back at the Hunterian Museum. It was our second week of drawing and this week we were working with pencil.

In order to make up for last week, where I accidentally did some pencil drawing on our fineliner day, I did a fineliner drawing as well. 

I fortunately remembered to bring my A3 cartridge paper to draw on instead of just drawing in my journal. 

I used some of my watercolours to colour my backgrounds that I was working on. I also bought a new better looking journal that is bigger. 

Our lecturers decided to take a look at our work and so they told me I should place my drawings from my smaller sketchbook in as pages by themselves so that I have different paper sizes in order to make the journal more interesting. I like the idea but actually taping them in was hard to do. The tape kept on sticking to my fingers.

I enjoyed using pencil in that I can alter as I wish. I also like using pencil as I can get different weights of line however I do love the crispness of using a pen. I can't decide between the two.

On our second class of the week for the Curator we were supposed be doing collages and watercolours but I prefer watercolours so I spent most of my time doing those.

I really love using watercolours but I took the opportunity to use my promarkers as I love the effect of the differing weights of line. I experimented with using them and then going over the results with an ordinary fineliner although I did find out that if you use black fineliner onto black promarker there is no difference and so it won't show up at all. 

I mixed using watercolours with pen and did some drawings using watercolour first then adding pen or vice versa. I also had some with only watercolour.

I also found a good name for my project. "Gift's from the Underworld" The cabinet of minerals behind me was titled this and I had been reading about Greek Myths this week so it stuck in my head.

This week is our last week of drawing at the Hunterian during class time.

After class I went into Glasgow to Remnant Kings and bought two twenty centimetre strips of nice patterned fabrics for the Hunterian project. I also looked through the remnants bin at the front of the store for some fabrics that I liked. I think I ended up spending around thirty pounds.

Bobbi Jean Shields

Quintessential Designs

The Curator - Week One

We started drawing at the Hunterian Museum for our project The Curator. I had went over the summer to take pictures (Thank goodness I did for I had a camera fault last week).

I was drawn more to the coral and the rocks than the dead bodies of animals and insects which sort of freaked me out. I did like the idea of the bird's nests but I figured that the rock and corals had more source to draw from.

Before going to the Hunterian Museum I went into Paperchase on Buchanan Street. I would live in places like that if I could. I love looking at all the sketchbooks and papers and paints. Remnant Kings is another place where I could live.

I met a classmate while on my way to the Museum and we arrived but we figured since it wasn't opening time yet we would wait outside the doors. I started drawing the banister as we waited then some of our class came up the stairs and asked us why we were waiting when they were all inside.
I started by immediately drawing in the first hall we came to. I was kicking myself for it later. Most of my classmates had taken up residence in front of the big glass cases full of rocks and coral in the other hall. Those displays had alot more variety but after the first five to ten minutes they were impossible to see. Also these were the same people who had taken all the seats so I ended up sitting on the floor.

I didn't realise until about an hour in that the lecturers were in that other hall.

We were given the task of drawing. Two fineliner drawings, two continuous lines, a non dominant drawing and journal work.

We were told to use fineliner pens but I did sketch the outlines for some of the coral to avoid getting lost. I started drawing coral before moving to drawing some Minerals. One of my lecturers came over and suggested I use pencil so I used pencil for a while but then our other lecturer came over and said I should only be using pen. So I do have one pencil drawing from today.

The coral drawings were good although some of them I lost where I was drawing some of the time and some of the coral was really hard to draw. I did try to stick to the easier ones.

We go back to the Hunterian next week and I think we're using watercolours and ink and such which is really what I enjoy doing most drawing-wise. I love using watercolours. It's one of my favourite medias to work with.

Bobbi Jean Shields
Quintessential Designs