preview of the completed ruffle dress.

Although I plan to document and take more justifiable photographs, I know many of you have been curious to see the finished ruffle dress (my final garment for my fashion draping class). The fit is perfect, and the plan is to wear this dress at this years Team Brother Bear Third Annual Gala.

Keep an eye out on my website for better photographs.

beauty marks - final proposal.

Here are the final 'finished' sketches and presentation for the proposal of a collection called 'Beauty Marks'. The concept is based on skin with the accent colour being inspired by beauty marks, which appear in the hardware and accessories (ie. buttons, belts, shoes, glasses, etc). The collection also explores the contrast between light and heavy fabrics. Most of the looks were were taken or inspired from my previous rough sketches for this collection. The character was resolved in my earlier sketches to a 'plain Jane' type of girl with a bit of quirk.

Overall I was very pleased with how whole presentation of the proposed collection came together. There is a definite consistency between all the elements, and most important the the sketches reflect the mood board.

abstract and apply motion.

Still continuing with the 'static in motion' concept for my final photo series, here are a few more shots from the last two roles I took. The element of surprise is definitely an aspect of this project. With intentionally blurring and moving the camera while shooting the photographs you never know what the results are going to be.

The photographs that I have printed for the final series have been chosen based oncompositional qualities and visual aesthetic. I've been drawn to the photographs that have contrast, lines, range of tones and shapes.

The deadline for this project is coming up, but I intend to shoot a few more roles of film to see if I can come up with any images that will fit nicely into the final series.

A few shots from my role that I shot indoors a few days ago.

another saturday in the studio.

Its down to the last week and a half of the winter semester, so it is no surprise that the majority of my time is being spent in the fashion studio. Today I worked on both my dress for Fashion Draping and my final lace project for Intermediate Fiber, Fabric, Fashion (FFF).

I am almost finished the top of my dress. I just have a few little things to do. Tomorrow I hope to get the top completely finished and move on to the the skirt of the dress.

For my final project for Intermediate FFF I am creating my own 'lace' using a material called Solvy. You can sew onto this material using a sewing machine and then it dissolves with water, leaving behind the stitching. So I have been sewing away on this material creating these lace pieces that will be stitched together by hand to become a garment that mimics traditional armor. I liked the idea and irony of this delicate material being used to represent protective armor. Well that is the plan, but I find my initial ideas for the projects in this class always drastically change throughout the production stage. So we'll see what happens!

It takes about 30 minutes to complete each on of these lace pieces. I have already done 15. I'm going to try and do a bunch more tomorrow and then start piecing them together. Hopefully I will have made enough. I may have to incorporate fabric in order to complete the project, but I hope to be able to use only these lace pieces.

sketching beauty marks.

For my fashion drawing class I've been sketching many ideas for the collection Beauty Marks. This collection is for the final project where we have to produce 5 final sketches. Maybe eventually I can take some these designs into production.

I've been trying to develop a character that best suits the type of clothing I'm thinking of for this collection. I've started to become interested in this 'plain jane' type character but with a little quirkiness. Here are a few sketches placed in order. The character definitely starts to evolve into more of that 'plain Jane' ideal.

I have a week left to continue sketching ideas and to produce the final 5 illustrations.

Back to sketching, sketching, sketching.

static in motion.

The main concept of this series is motivated by the general intention of a camera. The camera has the capabilities of capturing and presenting a fraction of time; it can stop motion. Without a quick shutter speed, when the camera takes a photograph a moving subject, the result will usually end up with a blurry and soft subject. For this series I want to work in reverse, creating a sense of motion to static subjects. This series will require a lot of trial an error and experimentation. I will be shooting with a medium format camera, and I would like to shoot outdoors where my subjects will range from landscapes, buildings, store fronts, etc. I intend for the final series to be complete of approximate 11 photographs printed on 11x14 paper (cut down to the square format of the negative). I hope for this body of work to have a soft and almost painterly quality, and portray a sense of motion. The challenge of this series will be capturing 11 interesting images that work successfully as a group and on their own. The inspiration of this series evolved from a previous project that focused on documentary photography, and more specifically the blurred and out of focus images of subjects that were in motion. This final series will inverse this observation and experiment with the idea of the ‘static’ in motion.

Here are a few shots from the first two roles I have taken. I'm still trying to decide on how abstract I want the images to be.

Shot with 120 B&W Film ISO 100.