the patchwork dress

urban fox :: manchester

Just got back this week from Manchester, where I have been an urban fox for 5 weeks, working on "Mrs Biggs" a drama production at ITV Granada..  I loved being in Manchester, for a city it's got quite a relaxed vibe, very well appointed with shops and great transport i.e. the Metro tram network and free city centre buses.

It was quite a shaky start to the year with power cuts at home (we had more than 10, and my car exploding on the M6 and having to be RAC'd back home from Carlisle).  So let's hope it can only get better!

One highlight was meeting up with blogger Sue (Mouse) which was lovely, at the fabulous John Rylands Library - an oasis of calm in Spinningfields, with a rather gothic Hogwarts interior (and nice café).  

It was like a working trip or holiday, and the freetime I had, I used to explore the town and discover places like:

• the Manchester Craft + Design Centre - a covered market of little maker studios with its own café - I was rather envious of their handmade world and private/public spaces!
• Manchester Art Gallery + Museum - this was one of my favourites by Holman Hunt, and Grayson Perry's drawing 'Print for a Politician'
• The Trafford Shopping Centre (omg! - a mad Disneyland)
• Morecambe seafront

Needless to say I only took my 'works' camera which I forgot to take away on my days off, so hardly took any pictures except these 2!  

This is the view from our office at Granada - some mornings the tower blocks in the distance lit up with the rising sun, their windows turning to golden sequins. (Nic, I think you may have said that!)

It was a great location to work so close to the town, and open views with lots of light. (Un)fortunately the studios are moving to Salford to be beside the BBC and media village that is springing up there.  There was a nostalgic feel of working studios - years of Coronation Street, plus Countdown and the infamous Jeremy Kyle being filmed there!

15 : something to look forward to...

I seem to have fallen by the advent wayside a bit - perhaps it was overambitious to post each day, although I do hope to fill in a few more dates before Christmas..

Must admit I am excited about the prospect of seeing "Young Herriot" on BBC1, starting this Sunday for 3 consecutive nights on Monday and Tuesday too.  Earlier this year I worked on it as graphics art director, and it was one of the most enjoyable jobs that I've done.  Working in the period of 1930's (fairly impoverished) Glasgow really made me think about how things were done then - obviously no computers, but even typewriters may have been rare or used differently from after WW2... plus of course the wonderful addition of animals as subject matter.  

For me, the job involved anything from doing paintings of dogs to exam papers, photoshoots, and even just dressing images such as paintings and postcards for the walls of the various sets.  I even got to work with a signwriter, which is a craft I just adore.

Whatever they say, it is fun to work with animals - and filming the series is probably another dose of stories in itself!

There are a couple of clips here - featuring a gorgeous wee jack russell terrier..  and I found this clip on Youtube of the series producer talking about the background of 1930's Glasgow and Alf Wight's original writings as 'James Herriot'.

Perfect Sense - general release

 

The folks at Sigma Films have asked to spread the word about the Premiere in London, and general UK release next week of "Perfect Sense" - a film I worked on a while ago, producing and co-ordinating all the on-screen graphics and bits of paper!  

I can really recommend this film as something different and very moving...you also get a different vantage of Glasgow in a less parochial sense - it really feels like an international city... and yes, and those are all my flyers blowing around on the streets in the midst of the chaos!

featured

I wonder how everyone feels on the subject of recognition.

On my screenwriting course, we were taught that the desire for it (eg being believed, seen, recognised, successful) is one of the 8 major themes that can motivate the character of a movie (or life!). 

We are often so wary of being 'big headed' or blowing our own trumpets - ironically that is what most blogs are really about - however I think for most artists or creators it is as important as getting paid - to have someone desire your work, to receive feedback, to watch someone's face as they receive a commission you have made for them... these are all things that I like and find most fulfilling about my creative work in whatever form.

It has its light and its dark, yet I suppose the root is about being received and accepted by others.

Yet I also feel quite awkward about it - I cringe at getting too much attention, have a fear of bragging.  It is messily caught up in the areas of advertising, self promotion and exposure. I secretly love and desire to be recognised within a work context, but constantly worry about the scale of it and the context in which it is done.  Does anyone else?

This week it was lovely to receive recognition in the form of having one of my bags featured on anothers' blog in her UK craft roundup - thanks, Talie.  I was genuinely thrilled when the email came through.

On the other end of things I was also delighted to hear that 'Perfect Sense', a film I worked on in 2009, will receive it's premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this Monday.  Very exciting.

While this was a much larger project I played a small part in (creating graphics for action and set dressing), I can think of no better place than Sundance for David to show his film and have it received.  

I hope it does really well!  I have a feeling it will, as it has a unique and moving storyline.  Watch out for it, I can't wait.

art for arts sake..

No, not a spot the difference competition, but a print (above) made from the photographic image (below).  

This is the year where I seemed to have expanded my practice with Photoshop (mostly for work) - and am quite enjoying it, where formerly I had 'the fear', and it all seemed very complicated.

Making up artwork to hang in film & tv sets is trickier than you think..  Firstly the issue of copyright, and the prohibitive rates for paying picture library fees ratio to the often miniscule graphics budget, means that we often have to call in favours of other members of the department, holiday snaps, or friends who will give us permission to use their images!  Then there is also the appropriateness of the image to the character who will be in the set.  Normally this can be bypassed by hiring images for short periods, but as these will be required in a long running series, they had to be practically free and permanent!

I had already used several photographic images already, so had a dabble about transforming the photographs into watercolours or even screenprints.  There is also the effect of trying to intimate that artworks have been acquired over a lifetime, rather than in a few short weeks, as is often the case!

The print was made by fiddling about with 'artistic effects' in the Effects Palette on Photoshop.  I think I used 'cutout' then 'ink lines', and then individually selected each colour (under the toolbar heading Select - see 'colour range' - you can click on the colour you'd like to change, then just use the 'eyedropper' tool to pick another colour from the colours that come up.

I can hardly believe it is nearly two years since I took this photograph!  Autumn seems to be coming around a little quicker this year..

If you have had 'the fear' of using Photoshop, open up a photograph, go to the Effects palette and just dabble around - a lot of art comes through happy accidents anyway!

best wishes

Caireen

the deep

 coming up on Tuesday.. a job I worked on during the snows of last winter!

magazine pinwheels

I have been making these 'pinwheels' at work - my colleague and I have made nearly 150!  There was something about the way they sit in the boxes that I wanted to photograph.

These are made with my own favourite stalwart - magazine paper!  Once folded you get quite an abstract pattern, most of the text gets lost or can provide an unusual feature.

Here's a simple/lazy way to make them using a magazine.  

Materials required:

Magazine (or wallpaper, wrapping paper, etc)

Scissors or scalpel/ruler

Wire - short florist wire works best, or cut down with snips approx 6"

10 minutes of time.

 

1. Pull/score out pages that attract you for their colours or patterns.  Full colour pages work best, a little text on them doesn't matter - experiment.

2. Fold the paper in half ie, make top of page meet the bottom.  Cut/scalpel along this crease.

(photos would be good, wouldn't they - but sorry too lazy to take them... read on!)

3. You now have 2 rectangles of paper.  On the shortest edge of each begin to concertina.  The fold works best just under 1cm - but as it comes naturally to you! (If you make the first fold by taking the chosen picture onto the back, they fix together better - all will become clear when you do this!)

4. Now with the paper all bunched up in its folded concertina, fold in half again across its length to make a little fan.  Fix the gap by stapling or sellotaping on the back, so you now get a complete half circle fan.  Repeat with the other rectangle.

5.  There should be a little gap still toward the centre of either fan.  Fold a piece of wire (florists) in half and poke the ends through the 2 gaps, and twist together at back of your now complete pinwheel!

6.  Fasten the gaps if necessary.

7.  Of course you can use any paper,  we also did some from old wallpaper scraps.  The beauty of magazine paper is the variety, colour and sheen - not one pinwheel will be the same, and the size is pretty much readymade by the paper size of the magazine.  We were inspired by this blog, but you could twist the wires onto a bunting type string, or twist into flower arrangements... or put on a hat, wear in your hair, ...decorate your cat!

 
 

'deep' appreciation

I don't tend to write too much about my dayjob, preferring to keep my blog for other types of creative musings - although my job is very creative in a different way.  However, on the last project I worked on, we had call for several images (60 to 70 was my brief!) to frame the walls of a marine biologist's house.

I wondered how I was going to get the right images without blowing the entire graphics budget through photo library costs!  I turned to my blog friends Ginny and Diana, and asked if I could use some of their coastal/nature images (mixed with a few of my own).

It was a lovely to collaborate with them, as the images complimented each other, and it did seem believable that they could have all been taken by the same character.

As a 'thank you' I decided to order some Moo mini cards for Ginny with her images on, and her blog address on the back.  Diana had already ordered some cards for herself, so instead I made a little patchwork collage of the images she allowed us to use, and framed it as a gift.

I also ordered myself a pack of Moo mini cards... just because!

Thankyou sweetmyrtle and pebbledash - I hope you don't feel too exploited - and we shall see the result this autumn on BBC1!

 

coming up for air

I'm back in the land of the living - after a very intensive stint of professional work.  Now I have been studying the creative process, the connection to burnout and adrenalin, and the polarity of a freelance life - either overworked and tied to a project, or out of work wondering where the next job/income will come from.  Either way it's a bit crazy, but I am learning to live with it and methods to live with it.

The last project although really interesting and absorbing - was also personally draining and bordering on abusive!.. and the much needed time to keep sane through daydreaming, having some other life/interests seemed to get sucked away to the point where I didn't even have time or the energy to look at blogs, let alone do my own!

So after 3 days of practically sleeping - I am very glad to be back here - I have the latest copies of Selvedge and Quiltmania, which I am applying as cold compresses on the hour, every hour.  And looking forward to absorbing myself in nice things, before going on to the next project which starts next week...

These little icosahedron balls were one thing I made by hand for the film project.  They were made from beautiful japanese origami paper that came from the Artstore in Glasgow.  

I photocopied and blew up the net of the shape (nothing more complicated than rows of equilateral triangles, to which I added glue tabs) from this book, and pasted onto the inside of the paper, lightly scored and folded the lines, and used double sided tape and UHU to glue together.

I could have been a bit neater, but was pressed for time.  Using my hands again, was so therapeutic. They might even make the big screen.