Final Project - Design work and sampling

Here are a few sketchbook pages from my current project about the Human Senses.

Making a basic skirt to experiment with when exploring the senses

Experimenting with hair and buttons - working with how things feel and sound

Working with plastic bags - how things sound/feel

Working with plastic bags and tissue paper

Initial design ideas

Dying with man made dyes and pinning on the mannequin

Experimenting with a Parisian colour scheme

Dying with tea, coffee, cocoa and chilli to develop scented fabric

Experienting with paper - working with sound

Working with spices to develop the sense of smell

Experiementing with a toile to see how fabric moves when danced in

Experiementing with a toile to see how fabric moves when danced in

Design ideas

Dying with cinamon and vanilla. Felting with fennel seeds, cinamon and basil. Keeping to the Parisian colour scheme.

Final Project - Initial Research

My idea for my FMP is based around pleasing the human senses. I would like to design and make a costume piece for dance that satisfies more than just the eyes. There is so much scope in terms of finding new and innovative ways of making something that is aesthetic to the ears, nose and hands as well as the eyes.

Here is a few sketchbook pages of my initial research and from my research week in Paris.

I went looking round charity shops and picked up anything I could find that made sounds. I wanted to find things that wouldn't obviously make sound. Examples of these were: a lampshade, glass beads, a badmiton racket, forks etc. Above is an example of drawing with the objects I found eg. a fork with acrylic ink.

Magazine research into images that typically smell nice.

Magazine research into images that typically feel nice. Hair is something that is always advertised as being 'soft if you buy this conditioner' etc. There is some sort of unnatural obsession with having soft and shiny hair.

Inspiration from French architecture and colour for costume for dance.

Inspiration from French architecture and colour for costume for dance.

Inspiration from French architecture and colour for costume for dance.

Inspiration from French architecture and colour for costume for dance.

Inspiration from French architecture and colour for costume for dance. Looking at texture as well.

Designing using images that subconciously say to the eye that they smell nice.

A collection of perfume samples from Paris woven together. This page smells lovely!

Drawings from Paris

Drawing in response to the sound of The Musee D'Orsay

Continual Line Drawing

Rock Challenge 2012

The Global Rock Challenge has been the best experience of my life.

I have taught myself so much and learnt about what I really want. No matter how hard I worked in life I felt I was always that tiny bit disappointed. There was something about the Rock Challenge that made me want to do well. It made me want to succeed. When I was 13 years old I participated in the Rock Challenge as a performer and year by year I fell more and more in love with the idea of performance.

Something that we would never get anywhere near enough recognition for was the amount of hard work that goes into being a team leader. The 6^th form committee would always put their heart and soul into the Rock Challenge, persistent to have as little help from the teachers as possible, which has been truly inspirational. We would work so hard as a team and often get disappointed for not getting placed in the top 3. However, we came back fighting, willing to work harder every year!

Year after year we would get picked on and made fun of by other kids in school because of how “rubbish Carisbrooke’s Global Rock was”. I’m going to be honest; this was a horrible thing to have said to you, no matter how jokey it was.

After experiencing being a team leader last year I realised how much work goes into making a production like this. Deciding on a theme, soundtrack, choreography, teaching, costume, set, hair, makeup, lighting and fundraising is just the start of what we do as a 6^th form committee! On top of all this, try to make it fun for the performers and backstage helpers taking part. The fact that we do this around our school studies out of our own free will speaks for itself about how much this means to us.

We first got our top 3 placement in 2010 but yet somehow I still wasn’t satisfied. I felt like people still didn’t truly recognise, understood or care about how good we were at what we did! Therefore, being a team leader the following year encouraged me to work exceedingly hard to the point that it was exhausting and stressful. It was so important to me to give our school a good name.

This year I have been involved with costume and makeup which, again, has taught me so much about how to work with a client: not easy! I thought I would miss being a performer on stage this year but I felt I enjoyed it more to watch the rest of the team on stage dancing with all their heart and soul.

This evening has been one of the most emotional evenings of my life when Carisbrooke College was awarded 1^st place along with best makeup, choreography and set! I felt like after all these years our hard work had finally paid off and I was completely overwhelmed with happiness. Every group of team leaders for Carisbrooke has taught us so much and we have learnt so much off each other’s mistakes, so much so that we have managed to exceed beyond our expectations which is a feeling that I really cannot describe.

Overall, taking part in the Global Rock Challenge for 6 years has been an overwhelming experience of ups and downs but ending on a natural high: something you really cannot get from drugs or alcohol, which I believe is the intention of this project. Next year I intend to study a degree in costume for performance, completely inspired by the Rock Challenge. I feel like I am now capable of anything and it really proves that if you’re passionate about something you can achieve the unimaginable.

Thank you so much Rock Challenge for the opportunity. It will be an experience that I will truly never forget.