Onwards and Upwards... I hope!

 I realise I've only just finished blogging about something that I finished last term, but I am very behind, so I am going to have to hurry hurry hurry to catch up on here and let y'all know what's going on. So, sorry about the quick turn around.

In CDM at the moment we are currently working on a complete mish-mash of different projects in different areas, some of which are beginning to overlap and confuse me. We have 3 very defined areas of study; Visual Communication, Critical Practices and Design & Making. But right now we have at least 5 projects going! Anyone who thinks this subject is a doss (ahem, Alex Lewis) is severely mistaken.
So, rundown of the projects at the moment:

• Design & Making - Cagebirds making project - Technically we've finished this but we still need to be working on the background research and build-up work. This involved taking aspects from birds (because we weren't allowed to use them in the design work) as well as aspects from our designs and making a structural garment, not intended to be worn. It was more of a sculptural project than anything else. 
• Design & Making - Historical Pattern Cutting - This is a 5 week project with Tim, our *Cornish* lecturer and professional designer and maker. That involves looking at Janet Arnold's pattern cutting books. Janet Arnold looked at original garments from notable historical periods and worked out exactly how they were made and wrote a book full of handy square by square diagrams for us newbie costumers. Each week we make a pattern and a calico toilé from a historical period. 
• Design & Making - Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House - This is the newest project and it ties in with the Historical Patterns project because we are using a play with a very set time frame. It is set in 1879 and is all about the start of Women's Independence and their growing confidence. The main character, Nora, is treated like a Doll by her husband Torvald, and eventually ends up realising he's the not the man she thought he was and leaving him. It's a play that would've been intensely shocking at the time and helps highlight the differences between the culture back then and now. We are looking at it in terms of the historical costume, and also the differences in fashion at that time between Britain and the rest of Europe as the play is set in Norway. I'll go into more depth about it later on. 
• Visual Communication - Hansel and Gretal - This is essentially a Photoshop tutorial project and as well as using physical media to  create designs for some of the characters, our final outcome is a presentation which involves all the characters designed and enhanced by using Photoshop.
• Visual Communication - Cagebirds - This is where things get confusing. We were told by our VisCom tutor that when we split from TD (they went to work on a programme called Sketchup, which isn't useful to us) we were to continue working with Photoshop with our Hansel and Gretal characters. But once we got there we were informed by another tutor that she wanted something else from the sessions, she wanted 2 'posters' which involved all out Cagebirds designs, on a background and labelled. I think these can also go into out Photoshop presentation as experimentation, but I'm not really sure. 
• Critical Practice - Research Project - This project is to get us to try and focus our personal interests and build our research base and skills. We've chosen subjects we are interested in over the last few weeks, they could have been anything, and we're trying to link them together. We have to use an already established body of knowledge and clearly and rationally make a presentation which shows the knowledge we have gained on our chosen subject.

So there, that's what is going on at the moment in CDM Year 1. There's very little writing, but a lot of physical work going on, and it's getting a bit tough! I'm going to focus blogging on the main project, which is A Doll's House and will sometimes throw in a little about the others, particularly Hansel and Gretal and Historical Patterns. We'll see how it goes.

I've realised though, this blog is severely lacking in anything visual and is very dull, so I'll leave you with a little look into what I have created in the Cagebirds Making project...

         

Beginning to think it looks like an evil supervillain...

It was based on the quiff design for The Gossip. The gloves at the back are now sprayed black with red highlights to match.

Sorry I've rambled on so much, TA for looking anyway :)

Sal XX