This Won't Break Me

OKAY SHOOT.

Two days of art abandonment and one morning of renewed snow and I've got my 'This wont break me' head on.

This project will not break me for another single day.

Light.

Lets have a reminder.

"For me there is nothing more inspiring than Light. 

It's the shadows it casts and the way they exaggerate shape and form. It's the bricks turning golden with an early evening sun. 

It's the sky turning purple, and the clouds seeming to catch fire with a piercing glow. 

It's the calm serenity as it disperses through the fog. 

The distant sparkle.

It’s the way it influences your mood, fuelling you or calming you. It’s the way that a object can look completely different in different light. 

It’s the way that it always changes, it is never the same.

It’s that fact that it is so hard to capture.

It’s the challenge of capturing it.

It’s how it can be so delicate, yet so bold and powerful.

It’s the magic of experimenting with colour to recreate something so natural, so utterly effortless."

okay so that was the inspiration, that was everything i loved, everything i wanted to recreate. and lets face it. light costume is just making me bang my head against the wall.

so we'll start over.

life drawing

Oh and Other News..

Chicago production has been postponed until further notice, with the likely date set for summer/autumn 2011 which is disappointing but unavoidable.

Something to look forward to.

Light Update

Haven't given an update on my ongoing light project the past few days so thought I'd fill you in. Have been desperately trying to design garments. Having experimented with the abstract theory of 'Light Costume' I've been looking into the realistic potentials and ideas that others have already produced. My findings surrounding futuristic ideas of sensors really sparked some ideas, but within constraints I'm having to claw back some sense of reality.

I've considered fabric constructed garments, metal frames, LEDbeading, Electroluminescent wire, torches, fibre-optics, you name it-I've googled it.

But I keep hitting the same brick wall. That this has become too much about costume, too confined. This is no longer what I obsess about re Light. Light is beauty, it is simplicity, it is not complicated stressful days spent clawing my hair out, translating shipping costs into Stirling.

In which case, what on earth do I spend the next week on? What do I create? Lord knows if I get to next Friday and haven't actually MADE anything then I'll feel like this whole project has been in vain. SO FRUSTRATING.

Back to the drawing board tomorrow.

LOST AND FOUND

Just been delving around for inspiration in the studio and came across my old fashion illustration sketches, picked out my favourites to show you. Personally adore the cross hatching on Image2 and the detail on Image4. love love love love.

Mix and Match

Had a bits and pieces day today, spent an hour in the animation suites getting my head around StopMotion this morning and came to the conclusion that it is insanely time consuming, albeit immensely entertaining.

Then a couple of hours spent drawing, large piece of graphite in hand. It was so nice to just sketch, big bold sketches again, I cant remember the last time I did that.

And rounded off the afternoon with a spontaneous photo session in St Ann's Square with Emily taking in the crowds whilst she worked on her latest unit.

EMILY

working through ideas

fabric costume possibilities for dance, just working through some ideas, going to have a think about fabric alternatives tomorrow. 

inspired illustration

I have a lovely little book collection in my studio, covering fashion through the ages, art history, vintage tat, fairy costumes but nothing quite compares to the gems i find every time I open the pages of Laird Borelli's "Fashion Illustration by Fashion Designers"

'Shrine to all things Me'

Something for the Weekend

Okay I'm going to be honest I really don't understand this brief  "identify an object that highlights how I feel when I'm 'being me'"

my problem being, the 'objects' that represent me are my paintings, all of the LizzieDoyle work that I do for relaxing, and the best SPACE that represents me when I am at my most comfortable is of course my studio. None of which are easy to draw from.

SO I'm going to twist the brief a little.

NEW BRIEF: "identify an object that represents me/my personality and present in a space/shrine that encapsulates everything about me"

SOLUTION: This mask sits in my studio as a reminder of the first production I worked on in college, it is my theatrical side, it reminds me of my own days on the stage, of bustling dressing rooms and the hyped glitz and glamour. It is cold to the touch with sharp smart edges but has a feather, a softness to it, it matches my personality, the public exterior, the public mask.

The black, sophisticated classic shape. This mask is everything I aspire to be, and everything I work for.

morning sunrise

woke up to golden curtains

Visual Food for Thought

just a quick note today:

been chipping away at my sketchbooks as my mass photo delivery arrived this morning! (hoorah)

got really excited about having proper print outs of my LizzieDoyle inspirations all glossy and clean. so just attaching some visual food for thought as I plan some new colour schemes for the next phase in the Spanish collection and dash off to divulge in a daydream, of a life in Australia.

Bruce Munro

going gaga for this guy right now

the man's a genius!!

Ingredients required:
300 x chemical light sticks
500 x metres fishing line
one large bag of party balloons
a dozen large chunks of local coral (found on beach )
1x beautiful Caribbean beach, 1x tropical sunset
several thousand fire-flies & Mosquitos (not shown)
4+ x large Rum punches made to Andersons secret recipe (Mount Gay Rum base).
Time on your hands.

Lights of Eden

Sense and Simplicity

Just found the most amazing development from a couple of years ago on a geeky science website called Science of the Time. I'm so excited by this discovery, can't wait to find out more!

These clever creations have sensors on the skin that detect the wearer's mood, LED's embedded in the fabric then change colour to correspond with the mood. Using a construction similar to that of The Eden Project, I'm quite intrigued as to how I could replicate this effect. 

Perhaps coloured lights operated from within the garment.

 Maybe looking at performance pieces as a final outcome.

Even filming a performance in a creation similar to this and then presenting the video as a projection onto the static garment..ohhh the little grey cells are buzzing tonight.

Portfolio BackTrack

Some good ideas will ALWAYS be good ideas

wire drawings

Using Light Duty wire I've been mapping out simple versions of the light drawings I did the other day to create a set of small modern maquettes to present alongside my obsession with Light. Even these photos, these delicate, powerful, simple sculptures, capture the same intensity of contrast, and some of the qualities I named right at the start of this project.