UHC Workshop @ Hotspur House

Last Thursday I went to the workshop that the Ultimate Holding Company where running at Hotspur House, I found the session quiet useful as it informed me about the city and the places we could use over the coming weeks of Unit X.  I've got a list of places and a map we might want to visit and make use of, I wasn't there for the full session as I went to the Cube Gallery Exhibition but I think I got all the information we needed which is in the information leaflet I picked up, so I can put it in our group space and we can make copies of it for our own use.

Special Collections

On Monday I went to special collections just for some history on Manchester, I wasn’t quite sure what I was looking for, but I came across a Portfolio of Original Prints of Manchester by Norman C. Jaques who was a lecturer in printmaking at Manchester Polytech in the department of fine art.  I think with our project old school/new school it’s important to look at the history of Manchester itself.  The prints show Manchester as a developing city and it’s nice to see how things stay the same and how they can move on. 

Mold from new build (Josie Cawdry)

Today Kate Egan brought one of my fellow peers a mold used in the new build to create the patterned pillars.

I thought it was really interesting as it is something that was created specifically to be used in the new build. It shows how other artists have envisioned what they would like to see in the new build. 

It is a really study sample and its really interesting  to see exactly what has been used to create a space/place within the new build!

BLOG QUESTION- AMELIA TILT

Hi Guys,
Last week we were asked to change our blogger names if they were numbers, well Ive done that but it hasnt changed on the contributors list on the side of our blog. I think I've changed the url or something and Im worried they wont be able to look at my personal blog!!!! Stress! And I looked on our old tutorial groups and it said it had been removed when I clicked on my name, what shall I do.

This is my blog just incase anyone cant find it...

http://ameliafayetilt.blogspot.co.uk/

INFO ON THE DEADLINE

For anyone that missed the talk today with Kate Egan, I thought I’d reiterate what was said:

THINGS YOU MUST HAVE-

·         ARIVALS TASK / 6 IMAGES ON BLOG

·         KEY PAGES OF YOUR SKETCHBOOK SHOWING YOUR IDEAS AND DEVLOPMENTS

·         DESIGN IDEAS

·         TEXTILE AND VISUAL EXPERIMENTATION

·         1 VUSUALISATION (YOUR IDEAS IN THE NEW BUILD)

·         1 STRONG IMAGE OR VIDEO SHOWING YOUR WORK (FOR THE SCREEN)

·         CONTEXT SHEET (A3 SHEET SHOWING IMSPIRATION, PROPOSAL, SAMPLES, CONTEXTUAL REFERENCES)

ALL OF THE ABOVE MUST BE COMPLETED BY FRIDAY 18^TH MAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The final digital drop in is on Thursday at 10am with Mary ( you must hand in your digital work by then)

Festival-

WEARING IT- @ Mosi- Thursday 24^th May 7-9pm

IMAGINING IT- @Hotspur- Friday 25^th May

LIVING IT- @ Oxford Road Screen- Monday 28^th May 6pm

F A C E S mcr (Terri McClafferty)

Hey guys sorry I haven't made a post until now as you know that I've been having trouble with linking my blogs.

On Tuesday I went to an event at the Kraak Gallery, which other people from Unit X had created for their projects.  It was a collaboration of music and art.  I thought it related in some ways to my own project as it was all about how people get involved and make things happen.  There was artists there drawing people, disposable cameras to take photos of faces, a photocopier where people photocopied their own faces and put the pictures on the walls and people drew on them.  I thought the whole event was so interesting as it combined different elements in a relaxed atmosphere.  

For our closing party of Unit X, again it will be F A C E S mcr that will be organizing it, so it will definitely be a good opportunity to get involved if you missed out the first time.

Tutorial May 10th (Josie Cawdry)

Yesterday was the final tutorial with Mary Starke, although very useful some of the information we were given was quite shocking to say the least.

We were informed that the project deadline was actually friday 18th may, on that date everything we have worked on so far has to be handed in for assessment. Something that we were not told previously, we had been lead to believe that we had a further 2 weeks after blog deadline to complete any samples and our final digital outcome! This is wrong, everything has to be in for the 18th.

Good news for some, but bad news for people like me who were hoping to use the lazer cutter to progress work further, now i have no time to pursue this.

So to summarize;

18TH MAY FINAL DEADLINE FOR ALL WORK, DIGITAL BLOG AND FINAL DIGITAL OUTCOME.

Essay Nightmare! (Josie Cawdry)

Hey girls, hope you've all got your essay finished and submitted so we can finally focus all our attention on our project!

Not sure if youve all had the same problem as me, but turn it in and moodle have been playing up today which has given me a massive headache, hopefully once the issue gets fixed i will be able to get back on the working bandwagon, fingers crossed!

Good Luck!!

Whats happening in Manchester? (Josie Cawdry)

Below ive put the links of some interesting websites showcasing some of the great exhibitions and tourist attractions manchetser has to offer. Maybe we could visit one or two as a group?

http://www.creativetourist.com/

http://www.manchestergalleries.org/

http://www.manchestercentral.co.uk/art-galleries

http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/

http://www.thelowry.com/exhibitions/manchester-museums-and-galleries/

CV TASK (Josie cawdry)

Thought this might help with regards to the cv writing task, due in Tuesday 8th may.

http://www.cvcl.co.uk/writing-perfect-cv.htm

Your CV should not only summarise your qualifications, skills and experience but should also reflect key aspects of your personality that will help you to stand out from all other applicants. As well as utilising a profile at the top of the CV to highlight your particular skills, it is important to inject some of your personal qualities and strengths throughout the CV so that your individuality is really emphasised. Any specific achievements from your work, academic or personal life should be highlighted as these too reflect your personality and can demonstrate to any potential employers your proven ability to add value to a role.

How you present the CV is of vital importance and the top tips here are to:

• Type your CV rather than handwrite it
• Use good quality paper that is not flimsy but not too thick either
• Be creative with your presentation and choice of font
• Keep it to a maximum of two or three pages
• Put the most important information on the first page

You can demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of your chosen profession by using relevant terminology and 'buzzwords', although this should not be overdone. It is much more important to be specific about your achievements and experiences. Also, you should aim to include information on additional skills such as your ability to speak other languages or your proficiency in the use of computers.

Common cv writing mistakes

Some of the mistakes that people make when writing a CV are very obvious and others are much more subtle. Here is a list of some of the more common mistakes seen in CVs:

• Too long and too “wordy” - summarise your information as much as possible to ensure that it is both clear and concise
• Disorganised layout – by following the guidelines above as to how to present the CV, you can make sure that the information is presented logically in the CV
• Spelling and grammatical errors – it is essential to run a spell check through the finished CV and to read through it to ensure that it makes sense
• Including photographs or other decorative embellishments – this should be avoided as they distract attention from the important information contained in the CV
• Use of first person – too much use of “I” or “Me” in the CV can appear arrogant and is also too informal
• Irrelevant information – it is not advisable to include anything that does not add value or could appear negative such as reasons for leaving jobs
• Too much use of jargon – some technical terms are acceptable but it is important to explain these if there is the possibility of them being read by someone not familiar with them

Digital workshop (Josie Cawdry)

Today's digital workshop was a extremely session showing us how to use Photoshop to create layers, brushes and patterns.

Scanning/photography sketchbook pages www.jesswilliams.co.uk 

Resolution

The resolution relates to the size and quality of a digital image. This is connected to how many pixels there are each square inch of the image itself. The more pixels, the higher the resolution and vise versa. The less pixels, the less resolution there is. When a picture with a low pixel count is enlarged the quality is decreased and the pixels become visible, making the image blurry.

• High resolution is needed for anything that is going to be sent to print.
• Low resolution images are needed for internet use so they appear quickly on the website.

To get the perfect images follow these simple steps;

1. check the size settings of the camera

2. use only natural light (artificial light will give a yellow tint)

3.photograph at midday

4.get closer for detail

5. place objects on a large clean white sheet

6.DONT use flash

7. try and not depend on editing software

8. in low light, always use a tripod

CV info.

Hope everyone is doing well with the essay!! I have been really ill over the weekend and been a bit useless with the group blog for a few days, sorry girls! I have had a look at a few artists CV's and come across a really good and useful one! Her name is Karen Nicol, the layout is really clear and very creative! It might help you if your a bit stuck with it or confused what to put on it! Obviously ours won't be aslong as hers as we haven't had all the education and exhibition tour that she has, although we could put what exhibitons we had visited, our subject grades, where we have studied and where we are currently studying!

Hope it helps :)

http://www.karennicol.com/pages/cv.html

New Art School - Charlotte Yates

Josie has practically said it all in terms of how the tour went and what key features to expect in the new build.. Thought I'd just do this post so you can all veiw my photos from the day too, that way we will all have more variety when it comes to chosing images for propsal and our digital work but also all of you that wern't lucky enough to be chosen for the tour will be able to visualise it as best as possible!


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.144536725677103.29474.100003623286580&type=3 

DEADLINE INFO- AMELIA FAYE TILT

Hey Guys,

Hope all you essays are going ok and your still managing to get some practical work done. I’ve come to abit of a standstill with my practical work, I feel like I need to get my essay done so I can stop worrying about it. But I’m so excited to get it finished so I can go back to making samples, I want to get into the embroidery workshop this week and get some work done so hopefully my essay will get done soon.  I was just posting to give you some info on our deadlines and the essay as I was getting a little confused. I don’t know if anyone else was feeling the same but I thought it would be sensible to tell you what Kate said to me today:

“The C.V. and Blogging Task submission deadline is the 8th May (you have already done blogging task in Jan).

This forms part of your contextualising practice unit not unit X - I met with all 'Living it' students last Monday to talk about this, please let me know why you did not attend as I think this has led to your confusion.

Please look at the pink blob notice board on unit X on a regular basis. There will be another message posted

about the submission of the CV and blogging task and how to submit it tonight.

Unit X Submission

Submission Deadline - Blog summary:

At the end of Week 8 (18th May) you will submit the self-evaluation and assessment form to the Coursework Receipting Office at the student SIP in Geoffrey Manton Building. On this form is a space for you to include a link to your individual blog.

For the assessment we will look at the work you have produced for the 'final outcome' as well as the work on the individual blog which should include a record of key points in the making and development of your work. The group blog will be assessed by your contribution to it.

There will be assessment and submission guidelines on the Unit X page shortly.

Regarding display of your work, you need to be attending your 'Living it' group tutorials every Thursday. Please attend tomorrow. The outcome of 'Living it' is a digital proposal - the proposal can be made from 'real' stuff that is photographed and put into a digital format.

Talk to your tutor and group about this tomorrow.

Hope that clears up any confusion.”

It made me feel abit better as I was really confused about what I was supposed to be doing and when. Hope this helps if you were stuck too!!!

BLOG INFO-AMELIA FAYE TILT

This was posted on the Textiles In Practice Facebook page by Martina Blison, I don’t know if everyone has seen it so I thought I’d repost it so we all know what we’re supposed to be doing! Aside from stressing about this essay!!!!!!!

Blogging - Jane McFdayen

After the talk with Jane Mcfdayen I thought it would be useful for us all to know the guidelines of how we will be marked on our blog(s) and most importantly the sort of things we should be putting on it.

Criteria;

• Did you work effectively in your team? (Are you reflecting on your teams ideas/ are you contributing?)
• What did you find out and learn? (What thoughts are going around in your mind)
• Did you do something? (What is the outcome/ the key decision points in your work must be noted - final proposal, how did you get to this)
• How did you explain it all?

The group blog is about sharing what you think and know to the other members in your group so they can help you and you can help them. With your individual blogs you can be more reflective about your own work and describe your individual progress.

I hope this helps.

mmu visual resources

hello everyone, I have been looking on the flickr address that was given to us when we went for the slides talk! There are some really useful images and its a good resource, i advise everyone to check it out as all of the images are original and unique, as they were the actual slides which we were shown, but have just been uploaded to the site, here is the link.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmuvisualresources/page8/

Hopefully that works -- just an example of some of the images that I have found :)

There are loads more form different centuries too, as these are very old! Hope this is useful for you all!

Our First Group Meeting 12th March - Charlotte Yates

Sorry everyone I completely forgot to write this up hence why its being posted at such a late date! I thought it's better late than never though but also this way we will be able to see if we are doing what we set out to in terms of team work.

Basically we had a discussion briefly of what each of us wants to do in terms of workshops and 'themes' for the Old School, New School brief quickly moving onto how we can best help and support each other throughout Unit X.

Here's what we came up with..

•  Allocating a different person to write up each lecture/talk/exhibition, this way we won't all be repeating the same information yet any one who missed out will have the opportunity to catch up.
• A weekly meeting outside of tutorial/class time where we can share our work and ideas but more importantly help each other.
• Set up a facebook group along side the blog and swap numbers/bb pins so we can all get in touch with one another and support each other with more technical things such as 'working the blog!'
• Finally, pay attention to others blog posts (they have all been put on for a reason and may inspire us or introduce us to something new!) also contribute by commenting as well as posting.

Personally looking at the blog 4 weeks later I think were pretty much on track with everything we planned to do and know each one of these points we made a priority has been a huge benefit to all of us!

News about Weave! (Josie Cawdry)

Interesting news for any weave enthusiasts! 

After deciding i wanted to add an element of weave to my project i took a trip down to the weave room to beg for a loom! Miraculously no begging was needed and i was able to secure a place for an electrical loo for the next 2 weeks. If anyone else in interested get down there and see Rebecca for more information.

Essential Reading List - Charlotte Yates

Bit of a random post but I don't know if any of you have spotted the essential reading list on moodle? I've been to the library and most of the copies are out but I've managed to get three books, if any of you are interested let me know and I can bring them in with me for you to borrow/photocopy what ever..
So far from having a quick look through them they seem to be really interesting and I think they could help all of us in one way or another.

I managed  to get hold of  'The fundamentals of Printed Textile Design' 'Wallpaper' and '1000 Patterns'

Colour Forecasting - Charlotte Yates

I've been trying to come up with a colour way for my designs as at the moment everything is in monochrome and I thought what better place to start then having a look at up and coming colour trends for interiors 2012/2013.

After researching online on various sites I think I've got a good idea of whats to come, deep rich blues, slate grey, pure white lots of copper and bright pops of  burnt orange and lime green or 'sprout' as one site refers to it. Here's a list of the sites i found for anyone who might be interested;

http://woven-words.com/2011/12/02/brentano-color-forecast/
http://www.europaregina.eu/trends/heimtextil-colour-trends-2012-2013-11262011.htm
http://www.europaregina.eu/trends/texworld-textile-fabric-trends-spring-summer-2013-01312012.htm
http://www.trendbible.co.uk/blog/colour-trends/colour-trends-maison-objet-jan-2012/

Obviously I'm not going to base my colour way for the project solely on this years colour forecast as I think it should relate in someway to my project and, as it's a design for the new building if it was ever to be made it would hopefully be there for some time and I wouldn't want it to easily and quickly become out dated.