My first blog

Hello

Well thats the first few weeks of uni over, i've really enjoyed it so far except the early starts!

We were given a project to make a Vessel or a group of vessels, researching contemporary metal design and texture, finding out about the designers themes and ideas. We can create one vessel or a series of vessels to be exhibited at the end of our project for an open day at the uni.

So over the next few weeks I'm learning all these new metal work techniques. On tuesday we had our first workshop we were learning hammering using brass and aluminium. I really enjoyed this class learning how to add texture to the metal by using the hammer, does give u a bit of a head ache 10 or so students hammering metal all at once. I was also shown how to anneal metal which softens the metal making the texture show up more. Its amazing how a hammer can create such different textures and i didn't even realise that you could get so many different shaped hammers.

Then I started to research some contemporary designers we were given a list of designers who created vessels themselves so I decided to start there. I came across some great designers whose work I found very interesting and exciting. Such as the work of Angela Cork

I really like her work and the different approach as it is not as usual vase it has a squint look to it which I find intriguing. Although her work has no texture to it but the shapes of her work inspired me.

Another desinger I looked at was Claire Malet her work is alot more textured.
I find the unperfected texture really different but also very beautiful.

So for my vessel I have decided to explore textures in nature such as bark, leaf prints and moss. I am also looking at lines and geometric shapes and I am finding scaffolding really cool and can see the shapes of them being created into my work.

We did a few more work shops like our rolling mill workshop, that was a good class but I'm going to have to get more muscles for it alot of arm work. We were rolling the metal samples and pressing textures on to them such as leaf prints or wire mesh. Then there was the doming workshop where we cut out circles in the metal using more hard on the arm machines then hammering the circles into a dome shape. I've always wanted to know how to do this as i think it creates a great look but i do find it quite difficult to do. Lastly I had the soldering workshop. The first few tries i did it quite well but I seem to be getting worse. hopefully that will change soon.

The first lecture was last week which I enjoyed i like that we are not learning designers and their pieces of work and what date they made them to be honest I find all that quite boring. I think it will be good learning about the world and whats happening at the moment to help us become better designers. We had to organise ourselves into alphabetical order which of course didn't happen this was an interesting way to see how we'd all react. I'm looking forward to more lectures, for me the way we are being taught and treated is the way I prefer.

So looking forward to what comes to me next speak soon. x