reflective journal: 18th October

Reflecting on yesterday, Thursday, I would say I had an unproductive day. However when I break the day down and really look at what I did do and produce, it wasn't that unproductive. I suppose I feel a productive day is when I produce something fabulous but in order to produce something fabulous I have to sample and play and end up with things that don't work. That's the learning cycle and the obvious route to a successful piece of work.

We were tasked with creating a letter and a sole for a shoe that the group is creating for our visit to Paul Smith next week. We are going to present him with a pair of textile made shoes based on a pair of shoes that he has made. The shoes we were modelling off were beautiful, quality, creative and no doubt would be a joy to wear. They had a velvet top, leather sole with Paul Smith's details embossed into it.

http://manolomen.com/images/paul-smith-velvet-oxfords.JPG

I was given a piece of felt to create my letter so I set about thinking what fabric to use and I thought lace as Paul Smith originated in Nottingham and still infact has a base there and lace was created in Nottingham. I then embellished a green voile with the lace and created the letter L. Thinking about Paul Smith's signature stripe I found a rather tacky piece of plastic tubing striped, again reminding me of his work. I stitched this to the letter. I also hand sewed a whipped running stitch in two different colours to add more detail to the letter and also to give a delicate stripe effect.

So did it work? I have to be honest and say yesterday I was having a day where I compared my work to everyone else's work and concluded mine was the worst, that it not of a standard for someone on a degree. Was I being hard on myself? Was I being realistic? I suspect a little hard on myself but I felt I wasn't very creative yesterday. I've had 4 days of anaesthetising myself with food with the end result I could just about function yesterday and was FULL of self doubt.

Today is a new day and I'm feeling more positive and I can reflect on yesterday in a more realistic manner. Why? Because I took action last night and went to a meeting. My feedback last year for reflective journal was to not make it so personal, and I feel I have done that very well but I won't omit reflection on days like yesterday truthfully because it was obvious I suspect to my tutor that I wasn't at my best and my reflection has to be honest.

Anyway, my sole that I created for Paul Smith was completely different to any others. I opted for a vinyl fabric, with a vintage look. I wanted to hand stitch onto it and my brief was to put the college name on it and something along the lines of "with love". So I represented love with a red stitched heart, creating the shape by drawing in pencil then stitching the outline with a running stitch and then filling the heart to give it a padded look. I left a piece of red embroidery thread hanging because I liked the effect it had and also reminded me of a Banksy piece of work.

(http://wwbi.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/balloongirl.jpg)

I looked at the BSDC logo and drew on the curved line under the logo and used a chain stitch in college colours. I then hand stitched using a whipped running stitch and normal running stitch in blue and yellow the college logo. I wasn't happy with the results, primarily I think it was the colours that just looked wrong. I then added a running stitch around the outside of the sole, to reflect how Paul Smith's shoes look using a dusky pink colour. Finally, I added a bicycle which Paul Smith apparently loves.

So what would I do differently? I would probably use the same fabric because it was different and I was drawn to it. However I would choose different colours and I would have undone the stitched logo and done it again. I feel I am restricting myself as regards use of techniques. I am sticking to what I know when really I would like to try things I did in diploma but I can't remember and I feel I should remember and should know how to do say mono prints. I did have this scenario last year with screen printing and I pushed through the feelings of in adequacy and did a project using screen printing and became more confident of the technique and would be able to set up screens for an image that required more than one screen i.e. the pie images I did required an outline and fill as I wanted different colours and definition.

So what do I need to do? Refresher on mono printing, thinners and dyes so I can use different techniques. This will involve me planning more time and committing myself to more time because I have noticed I'm not working to a plan - again !