Bookbinding

 Thinking about the booklets/signatures I printed... I wanted to find a way to bind them into a book to keep a record of my design process. A signature is "one unit of a book comprising a group of printed sheets that are folded and stitched together"(Anon. n.d.). To me, it is an "essential"(Olver. 2002:12) tool to identify how I develop my designs and to keep for future reference when developing more designs. 

Below are the photos of my first bound book I did under the guidance of a Youtube tutorial. My handmade paper was too thick to print on therefore I can use it for the cover and flysheets in my bound books (See Figure1). 

A few improvements are needed: The cover needs to be reinforced with cardboard, I need to find the right paper to print on and the right size for displaying my drawings. 

I want to make a book for each project I finish for my exhibition. 

Figure 1 - Bowes, K.,(2021). Bound booklets

Figure 2 - Bowes, K.,(2021).Cover of my book.

n.d.  Available at: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/signature [Accessed 2 November 2021].

Digital sketch

 This is the adapted earring I have been working towards for the platinum. It entails a tapered wire and the epoxy skeleton leaf. I will decide as I work if I am going to add the smaller leaf veins like I did for my mesh prototyes or not; weight dependant.

(This drawing was done using ArtFlow and is just a sketch of what I have in mind)

Bowes, K., (2021). Digital earring sketch.

Beaded 'chain'

  This is another casting I did last year that I have decided to use but for this neckpiece, I have been thinking about beading the 'chain' this is because the castings have such a great colour when they tarnish and I feel beads can complement and possibly enhance the colour.

Bowes, K.,(2021) Digital drawing of casting and beading

Digital perspective drawing

I cast these succulents last year but they are very fragile and the leaves move which means they can break off easily. I was thinking about joining the leaves with a wire the same way Fezile Mthethwa used wire to join her petals on her neckpiece. I sketched it on my tablet and the top view made me think of a flower pot so I drew the side view and three-quarter view to see how it would look. 

I was inspired by Nicole Ringgold to use my casting and that is why if you look at my organic chain designs I incorporated these succulents as possible likes to be featured in a chain.

Bowes, K., (2021). Digital perspective drawing

Fun paintings

My collection of paintings I did for fun to practice working in watercolours.

 

Booklets

I printed my chain drawings and folded them into mini booklets. I was hoping to print on my handmade paper but the off white paper was too thick for the printer.

Video of how to fold the booklet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHa6kR2SZok

Bowes, K., (2021). Booklets

Bowes, K., (2021). Folded booklets

Mass Designing

 Using my customized Art Flow brush I mass-produced designs by changing the settings and adding different elements. 

Organic Chain

I have been preparing to cast links for a chain at Phil Bear Jewellers and I have contemplated making my own organic chain. Drawing each link can be tiring but my Art Flow app upgraded and I am able to make my own 'brushes' so drawing the chain is so much easier. It means I can draw multiple designs in a short amount of time.

Bowes, K., (2021). Wax tree of links.

Colour wheel

I brushed up on my colour theory by painting a colour wheel using watercolour paint. 

I learned how to use the Alfred Hickethier system to label the colours, each colour is assigned a number, "whit 000(absence of colour), black 999(the presence of all colour), yellow(process yellow) 900, red 090 [...], and blue 009,"( Anderson 2006.:20). Using this system made it easier to mix colours as I looked at colour in parts/ratios, for example 903 (yellow green) can be simplified as 3 parts yellow and 1 part blue.

Bowes, K., (2021). Colour Wheel.

Sunflower earring design

My original design was inspired by a set of detailed ceramic tiles. I originally designed an earpiece using the tiles as a reference but I used a generic flower. I redesigned the earpiece using the image of a sunflower I grew as a reference.

Bowes, K., (2021). Sunflower

Bowes, K., (2021). Sunflower Illustration

Bowes, K., (2021). Sunflower earpiece

Earring illustration

I have been helping at Phil Bear Jewellers with building wax trees and cleaning up castings. While working I came across these small flower castings that inspired me to illustrate the earring/earpiece that I observed within the floral tiles. The illustration was done on a tablet using ArtFlow.

Bowes, K., (2021). Flower casting

Bowes, K., (2021). Illustration

Abstract pattern

This was another doodle page I did during the lockdown and between the three I enjoyed drawing this one the most and this page was purely for enjoyment. I feel there is more variety of shapes and size compared to the triangle and bubble doodle pages. It reminds me of the nervous system program once the grid has been manipulated but it's not all circles and looking at the positive and negative shapes it also sort of resembles the venation patterns found in insect wings but with thicker lines between the segments. 

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the pattern so I photocopied it and sectioned off small parts of which I then coloured with pencil crayons thus making the positive and negative spacing clearer. I used different colours as I was planning on choosing a colour to colour the entire A3 page, just for fun, but ended up forgetting about it entirely until I saw the page with the coloured circles last week and realized they looked almost like abstract enamel discs which could be interesting.

Coloured segments

A3 doodle page

CAD drawings

Some CAD drawings using my doodles to stay in practice and to pass the time.

More doodles

A doodle inspired by my bubbles.  

My meditation during the lockdown.