Junk Kouture 2015

When entering this competition we were novices. oblivious to the entent as how large this competition was. after sending our entry away we kept level headed as we didn't know what to expect and whether or not we would get through. when we recieved the news that over 3000 students across Ireland also entered my optimism of getting through was a little knocked. however, i was delighted at the news we had made it to the regional finals and were short listed to the top 80 in northern Ireland.

The regional final took place in Derry in the Millenium Forum. As the day approaced our preporation with 'The Rised Of Lady Titanic' for it built up however, upon arriving we didnt know what to expect so we could not fully prepare. when we arrided it was evident that this was our first year competing as we were a bit lost. however, it didnt take us long to adapt and get in to the swing of things. we were then able to prepare for the dress rehearsals and perfecting Emmas performace as she had to be on the cat walk for 1 minute 30 to our chosen song from the Titanic. the atmosphere and experience of being back stage and seeing how everything works was great. i got and insight to the performace world of being backstage and thoroughly enjoyed it. the show itself was great, being able to gain inspiration from other students from all over the north was great and to be able to take to them and share their designs with us. the show was a great production overall with everything running smothlty and Emmas performance going well.

regional final photos:

However, we were a little disappointed to not hear our pieces name called during the announcment of the 20 chosen to go onto the All Ireland Finals although we were proud and greatful for how far we got. during the regional final they announced 18/20 to go through and reserved 2 'wild card' choices to be given the news at a later stage by Glenda Gilsen, tv personality.

To our absolute surprise we were chosen as a wildcard!! meaning we were to compete against 79 other pieces from across the whole of Ireland. this gave us a great sense of pride and achievement, that our hard work paid off. we then attended the final in April at the 3 Arena in Dublin. this huge set up was both amazing and daunting to be part of, especially for Emma who was to be on stage performing alone infront of the large crowds.

when we were announced as the wildcards:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxlWdu3fels

arriving in the morning we were a little aware of the process and were guided by the asigned helpers for each region. we were then given a changing room where we could prepare Emma for the show which we shared with 2 other finalists. this was a great opportunity to gain insight to their ideas and thier pieces for our own inspiration. it was a great experience to be part of.
our day was packed with preparation, media coverage and meeting the judges. during the day we had the opportunity to speak with some of the judges and showcase our work. along with us we brought a portfolia full on my own and Emma boards to show our thought process behind the outfit. this was a great experience as we felt a senese of pride and achievement when they were impressed with our work.
we made it through to the final with great pride and a sense of achievement therefore we just enjoyed the final days an experience overall as the standard was so high we didnt expect anything higher than we already achieved. looking back i do not regret entering this competiton at all. despite the hours of prep work put in it was all worth it as the experience i gained was great. it has really interested me into perusing a career in that industry later in life as this was a great taster of the performace work and a great insight to the reality, i was particuarly interested in the makeup aspect of it as well as seeing everybody elses creations and ideas. that it is not all glamourous and there is infact alot of waiting around. But non the less i really enjoyed this experienced and it game me the drive to successfully finish my first project.

The Process of my Final Piece

Throughout my project i have been intending on creating a fashion piece for my final piecethe only decision i had to make was what sort. through my research of the Titanic i became under the understanding that the sinking of the titanic was known to be the end of the edwardian period. using the Edwardian period along side the film production of The Titanic i gained my inspiration for my piece. through this research i found that hats were an extreamly popular garment. from the opening scene in The Titanic throughout the film hats where symbolic to the wealth of the person. the iconic moment from when Rose steps out of her cart onto the docks with her large hat gave me the inspiration to create a hat myself. this decision by costume designer Debhora lynn Scott was intended to be an eye cathing moment and to draw out emotions of the viewer. these are the intentions when creating art, it must be eye catching and draw an emotional reaction from the viewer, whether that be making the happy or them feeling an emotion or the atmosphere such as in this case, Debhora lynn scott along with the directions wanted all eyes to be on Rose and the initial acknowledgment to her wealth to be understood.

As i progressed in my project i had decided i was to create a piece, similar to the style of those worn on the ship with aspects on the shipyard brought in to satisfy both areas of my project. 

Whilst working on my project, the opportunity to enter Junk Kouture arose. this was a great opportunity ti display my work along side other students across ireland. myself and another art student, Emma Hughes came together in designing an outfit that we could enter into this fashion competition. i was to create the hat whilst Emma would make the dress and be the model.

this competition asked us to create our piece using recyclable materials, and as both my own and Emma project focused on interiors we decided this was a great opportunity to explore the use of waste interior materials such as carpets, lampshades and so on into creating a fashion piece.

From the aim of creating apiece out of recycled materials and entering this competition i began the planning process of my final piece. i came up with a range of design drawings as seen on my pages that i could potential make out of recycled interiors. I wanted to create a hat that would represent the oppulance of the titanic as well as incorporate aspects of the shipyard.

My design process lead me to creating a final design which i could then work from and develop upon when creating my piece.
I aimed to create a hat that almost resembles a tea cup in shape. i wanted it to be eye catching and unique. i combined elements of both the ship and the shipyard or engine rooms in my design.
the base of the hat was created from a circle cut off out of a carpet which we were donated  by a local interior shop that was about to skip it along with curtain tassels and edging that we could use at a later stage to decorate. onto this base i decorated it with glass paintings onto scrap plastic. these images consisted of ropes, chains and floral patterns found on the china and fabrics of the ship. i then edged the hat using scrap table clothes and sample cut offs of fabric which i ruffled up on the sewing machine.
The large cup like shape of the hat was created using a lampshade for the structure onto which i sewed curtain cut off panels. to enhance the decoration of this i edged it with curtain ties and tassels and began to paint patters onto the fabric using glass paints. in the inner side of the hat i wanted to focus on the engine rooms and shipyard aspects of the ship. i created a disk like shape of fabric which i printed images of thee workmen engine rooms onto, which i then distressed using black oil aswell as embroidering into it using dark threads. i then created loose pieces of vanishing muslin lace to create the illusion of oil and darkness to portray the harsh conditions in the engine rooms in contrast to the first class quarters of the ship. in this part of my hat i wanted to create a center piece focused on the workmen. using a smaller lampshade i distressed the metal which i then covered in nuts, bolts, coggs and chains. i then twisted wire into the shape of a handel and added it onto the frame to make it look a little more like a tea cup shape.i wired this into the centre of the hat using clothes hanger wire. i then decorated the hat  with two large bird feathers which would have commonly be found on the hats of those on board the ship and in the edwardian era.
a challenge i found with my hat was it was very heavy considering the materials used as well as the fact it was difficult to balance. to overcome this issue i created a bowl hat which would sit onto the models head without pain to help with the balance of the hat. onto the bowl i added images of the workmen which i then embroidered into and added vanishing muslin lace pieces to hide the joints. on the inside of the bowl i padded it with wadding and covered with hessian as found on the ship yard and curtain edging to again hide the edging. to make this bowl a little more discreate i created tighter vanishing muslin lace pieces for sll around the circumference of the base of the hat.this was designed to mimic the vail like face guards found on many of the hats on the titanic.
after this step was complete the only task i had left to do was create broahces which i added onto the base of the hat using images of the workmen in the centre i worked around each of them with fabric cut offs and tassels. my hat was them completed.

i was happy with the overall finish of the hat which gave us the confidence to put it forward in entry for Junk Kouture 2015.

Further Reflection

Upon further personal reflection on my overall project i was not fully satisfied with my work. Especially in my textiles. This drove me onto working into each of my pieces with more embroidering and embellishment to bring the standard of each of my pieces to the next level, showing progress in my work. when embroidering into each of my pieces, i concentrated on bringing out simple shapes and textures to enhance the appearance of each of the pieces. this was because i had began to think of the final piece i wanted to create and i wanted to include some aspects of embroidering therefore it had to be up to standard in my experimentation and sampling stage before i began work on the final piece.

Reflection and Reviewing

'' Is the tea cup going to be a main theme in your final piece - a main feature?''

- when I began my project based on the titanic I didn't expect to focus so much on the tea cups and fine china however, as I have grown with my project I have learned that the tea cup is a great representation of the opulence of the 1st class areas upon the magnificent vessel that is the Titanic.
When i began the research for my project, watching the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Whinslet was a main source for me as it gave me the opportunity to view how the ship would have looked in its day, in colour, whereas images of the Titanic online all tended to be in black and white due to the lack of technology during the edwardian era. during sceneces which took place within the dining rooms of the 1st class areas I was drawn towards the china used by these passengers. i thought the fine china, evening tea was a great representation of wealth. this was the initial reason as to why i began to draw the cups.

Through my tonal studies of the tea cups I was able to make comparisons between a tea cup and the ship itself. Despite the obvious contrast in size and purpose, the Titanic and tea cup share the similarity that their structure was designed for a certain job. The titanic; to carry passengers to their desired, dream destination whilst the tea cups is simply to hold drinks in. Each creation is able to carry out their purpose with the most basic and necessary infrastructure, however, the comparisons that I have found between fine china tea cups and The Titanic is that neither were both basic, both creations include detailing and decoration which enhance the appearance of them, giving then a step up in class.  

I hope to incorporate the fine china into my final, whether that be through ceramics or my extracting designs on the china and using them as designs for embroidery.




'' Are you going to develop with glass paints and incorporate them into your final piece with embroidery?''

i really enjoyed using the glass painting method so i do hope to develop my skills in glass painting and include them within my final piece. i hope to use the, along side embroidery to create depth and texture to my work. i will try to also incorporate this glass painting technique with the likes of the chains and ropes by extracting patterns and textures in each. i would like to include glass painting in my work as i believe it has a high quality finish, almost like the ceramic paintings found on the fine china.

Inspiration:

I really like this piece as is it very simple yet effective. i like the fact this artist as stuck to their colour schemes as it has created a dymanic eye catching piece with very little range in colour. this inspires me to remains to a certain colour scheme. colours which i would associate with the wealth of the titanic would be blood red, royal navy blue and gold. when using glass painting in my final piece i hope to try and stick to this colour scheme to make my work simple yet effective.

by: Katie Smith (Pinterest)

by; Parvaneh Allahdad

I love the faded effect of the roses in this vase. this would be an appropriate pattern for my project as there have been roses as part of the floral decoration on the fine china which i have drawn. however, creating a vase like this i would feel i would be quite limited. i do not see many opportunities for incorporating the shipyard aspect of The Titanic.

'' are you going to develop and move with the idea of ice shards with textiles and incorporate this idea with other features for your final piece - or will the final piece have one main idea/ feature?''

I would like to try and incorporate the idea of ice shards to my piece as it is a very eye catching feature of the titanic quarters building in Belfast which immediately caught my idea and inspired me to create this project. when creating my final piece i hope to focus on bringing the interiors of the ship, however, the idea of adding structure to my piece through pieces like ice shards makes me want to develop further with my experimentation with the ice shards. an idea i had was to recreate the ice shardes using the technique of mosque with crushed china ceramics. or my creating individual shards using different embroidering on different wallpapers and bringing them together as panels to create a bigger structure just like that of the Titanic Quarters building in Belfast.

Inspiration:

By: Diana Maus ''Quite Clearly Ocean''

When carrying out my artist reference research i found this mosaique piece which created using beading. this piece initially caught my eye for the blue colour schemes and the illusion of waves. i really love the way this artist incorporated jewls and the white beading. this ispired me that if i were to create a similar piece i would use the likes of lace fabrics, curtain tassels and broken china to incorporate the interiors of the first class quarters of the ship.

by: Smalti 'Hooty' from the 'Watcher' series

I really loved the simplicity of this artists work. Again, the limited colour range caught my eye and drew me into this piece. I find this close up perspective very intriguing and find that the perspective of this artists work immediately conveys emotions of intimidation and compel the viewer to feel like they are being watched by the owl in the image. i want my final piece to convey and encourage emotions from viewers. i hope to portay the presence of royalty and wealth with the hidden aspects of the shipyards features, just like the Titanic itself. 

Working with my drawings on the sewing machine

by using transfer paper i was able to print a few of my drawings onto fabric. i think this was a good was of enhancing a plain drawing as well as incorporating the two contrasts of the Titanic together. that is the 1st class luxuries with the dirty oil ridden worker areas.

in this first piece i printed my drawing of the form onto fabric which i then extracted floral patterns from other drawings and sewn them into the fabric to add a further step of elegence to the piece to reflect the elegance of the ship.

using the same techique i working into a couple of others drawings, using different methods such as adding glass paintings, tea staining, adding felt or wallpapers and so on. each technique was similar however they created difference finishes to each piece making them each unique.

Interior Pieces

To create these pieces i used objects and materials which would have commonly been found in the interiors on the upper class departments within the Titanic.these materials consisted of wallpapers, curtain fabrics, tassels and netting.

in this piece my colour scheme was red as i see red as a very rich colour. this reflects the wealth of the passengers.

for the next piece i used the same technique yet stuck to the colour scheme of navy, blues and icy tones.

I also created a blue piece however i mono printed a crystal vase lamp into the centre and included some 3D flowers made with wiring and papers.

Pattern

Similarly to my glass painting where i extracted shaped from my chandelier drawing, these fabric pieces where cretaed using the same method. however the first piece was done on plain cotton and the colour was brought in through the use of scrap fabrics. i found the end result to be quite plain however i hope to work into it at a later stage. as idea would be to have a glass painting piece above it using gold swirls as my detailing.

the second piece intended to portray symetry and pattern was a vanishing muslin piece. when finished the piece had a washed out distressed apperance, which made me think of the images of the sunken ship immediately. the gold threads where no longer vibrant and the appearance of the design was rustic, just like the ship is now.

Ice shards

The inspiration to create a piece based on the ice shards came form the exterior architecture of the Titanic Quarters in belfast.
The silver exterior consisting of triangular cut pieces which lock together to create an illusion of ice, along which the even larger illusion of the titanic itself from three angles.

Using this image, I went onto create a piece of felt using greys, and blues to create the illsusion of icy waters aswell as sticking close to my prefered colours for this project of navy. I chose to use felt to bring a softness to the piece. on top of which i sewed into angled pieces of luxurious silken fabrics aswell as silver ribbons to incorporate the elegant fabrics which draped the ship.i also added the swirling patter commonly found on the china cups to the edging to tie the two contrasting images of iced waters and harsh conditions to the warm atmosophere of the 1st class areas. 

Using the same colour scheme of blues and icy colours, i created this vanishing muslin piece. i intended it to look similar to a lace table cloth or doley which may have been used on the Titanic.

Glass Paintings

I though glass painting would be appropriate for my project as it creates a shiny yet delicate finish, like the objects found on board in the 1st class areas.

Using my drawing of the wall chandelier as my inspiration I created a panel piece of symmetry using the shapes of the crystals found on the chandelier. I also included some swirling shapes like those found on the china tea cups.
To create the background for this piece, i collages different textured wallpapers which kept with the theme colours in this piece of golds, navy and deep red.

For my next glasspainting piece I did a replica of my tea cup drawing down scaled, to bring our the shiny and delicacy of the china ceramic cup. 

using the same technique as used in my larger glass painting piece, i used wall paper as my backgroup, yet this time i patch working a few sections of floral fabric to add more flowers and leaves to the background.

From my research i learnt that tiles where very commonly found along the floors and walls of the Titanic. this lead me to the idea of extracting floral designs from my drawings of the ceramic tea cups and drawing them onto tiles. i got two blue tiles, each different sixes, and using the gold gutta i create two simply designed tiles. i then added some colour to flowers using the glass paint. i found this technique very quick, simple and effective.

The Edwardian Chair

I decided to draw a close up of a piece of furniture that would have been commonly found on board the Titanic. I wanted to keep the drawing up close to the wood to fully show the design carved into the frame.The rich wood and design of this chair frame illustrates the importance and class of those on board the titanic. Similarly to my drawing of the wall chandelier, i drew this piece using both tonal and colour pencils. this was intended to create the illusion of time passing by. the gray-scale of the tonal pencils shows how we see the titanic nowadays; in black and white. Yet, the colour pencils brings it to life and illustrates the deep colour of the rich wood.

Floral China Tea Cup

After creating a coloured piece of a decorative tea cup, I wanted to create another using tonal pencils. i chose to do this cup as the design and shape of it reminded me of the elegance and delicate detailing found on board the Titanic.

The Wooden Banistor

After finding this object in an antiques shop i was inspired to create a tonal study of it. I chose to use tonal pencils as i feel the grayscale look gives pieces like this a more aged appearance which i thought would be appropriate in order to date it back to the edwardian era of the Titanic.

Printings

my first print was made using foam times which i engraved into to create a rose like pattern which i then rolled with paint and printed onto wallpapers. this was to tie in the floral prints found on many of the china cutlery and the fabrics found on board the titanic. however i found this technique to produce quite simple prints which lack in detail.

After creating these pieces i returned to the mono printing method. i decided to mono print my tea sup drawing using black ink to give the illusion of oils to tie in the idea of the oily dirty conditions the workers where working in. 

I then went onto again mono print using the black ink as I liked the oily effect it created. however, this time i used the image of the binoculars. When I had finished the initial print the ink came out quite blochey. Therefore I decided to use the same paint but using a paint brush I layered the paint on top create an oily thick texture to the image.

I went onto create another mono printing piece using a scaled down version of my drawing of the rusting chains. rather than printing onto plain paper, I used wallpapered as my background. this is a good method of tieing in the shipyard conditions to the opulance of the first class areas of the ship itself. I liked how the black oily ink created a gravel, dirty look to the chains against the textured wallpaper.

The Crystal Lantern

This piece was created using chalk on a black page rolled with black ink.the black ink was to symbolize the oil found on the shipyard of the titanic whilst the crystal lantern was to incorporate the 1st class atmosphere on board the ship. i found great difficultly achieving the detail i wanted whilst using these chalks. i used mainly blue chalks to reinforce the idea of icy colours similar to my intentions for using blue whilst creating the oil lantern which would have been found in the ship yard.