Grace Coombes

Just graduated from the University of Brighton with BA(hons) in illustration, Coombes individual style is interesting and clever. Her print and pattern fascination is clear, and although her colour schemes are often limited, they make her images all the more striking. Her collections of images, usually in book form, come under titles such as 'the oceanic collection' exploring arts and crafts created across Oceania in the 18th and 19th century, and a book of images to celebrate the 183rd birthday of Jules Vern's birth, including Journey to the Centre of the Earth, From the Earth to the Moon and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Her interest in different cultures and unusual objects brings about a sort of tribal influence, the simplicity of which I really like. So here are some of my favourite images of hers:

 

both from Jules Vern Collection

 All available at www.gracecoombes.com

or on her blog http://gracecoombes.tumblr.com/

Sandra Murray

I'm feeling the need for new projects and inspiration again. Having just finished a dress commission for my sister, I am having a bit of a lul on my night off work with no current creative project to fill my time. So I've been on an inspiration hunt, and have found this lady. An exceptional couturier, originally from the Isle of Lewis in Scotland (can't beat home grown talent!) she now lives and works in Inverness. It's really nice to be reminded that moving to London is not the only option for a successful designer I must admit!
Colour and material are of great importance in her work, using tweeds and wool in combination with velvets, lace, silks, linens, and inspired heavily by the surrounding highland landscape. Tweeds and tartan play a large part in her designs. It is quite obvious from all of her pieces that each one is individually designed and constructed with the utmost consideration. Doing all the work by hand, the quality and finish is quite clearly excellent.

 

images available at http://www.sandramurray.co.uk/

Hiroshi Tanabe

Some really nice graphicy pieces by this man, Born in Kanagawa, Japan. His work is compared a lot to japanese woodcuts.

 

Hermes spring/summer 1998 by Hiroshi Tanabe © Hiroshi Tanabe

Love the skeleton lines of the above ruffle, and how whole areas of line are missed out in the marie-antoinette style one on top. Amazing how a few lines can suggest form, texture, lightness...

Richard Gray

Well I've been thinking... I like drawing people... women in particular, and I love fashion, so why not fashion illustrate?! It's actually something I really enjoyed at uni and remember some tutor at some point saying it's something I should continue with.. so maybe i will. Mayyyybbeeee I will.(said in slow motion whilst holding chin and looking up to the corner). Anyway it's a thought...
So I found this: by Richard Gray, who as far as I can gather is based in New York. I just really like the bold red hair and porcelain skin. And long neck. it just looks elegant. Not so fond of the background etc. but like the brightness. Also like the liner hair and japanese look to the background of second one. It's a bit pretty pretty for me though.

 

 Actually like this better:

Not particularly fashiony, but i just like the mass of detail with the block of pure black. Think I'm going through a monochrome phase. maybe with one colour....

Started drawing

Well since I have decided to grow some motivation, I did some doodleys. Armed with a biro and some chanel nailvarnish...(realised I have left a lot of my art things at home...) these are some results.. bit out of pratice drawing it seems...

Little Emma Watson- she is just so pretty. Thank you Vogue for the model... shame I made her a bit coneheaded.

My lovely Boy who sat very still watching Take Me Out on telly (haha) so I could draw him, Unfortunately his eyes and lips do look a bit more feminine than they are... I just really like drawing girl faces!

And this is meee! Looking like a right pouty mrs! haha. Again, I think i have got a bit carried away and made myself more attractive than I actually am. And i don't think my lips are actually that far out.. although they do stick out a bit. Anyway. it's still drawing so it COUNTS! Can't wait to get to the art shop and get some supplies. Although i do actually rather enjoy a bit of biro.

Charmaine Olivia

Back to the blog! I am determined to feel inspired again! So firstly this clever lady- Charmaine Olivia from San Francisco. Not only does she describe herself as a tea drinker, which I always feel is a sound judge of character... but she does amazing illustrations and paintings which are beauuuuutiful! projects include Urban Outfitters, Nylon Magazine, Eyes on Walls, Envelop, Threadless, Infectious, illux.dk, Pingg, Bolia.com, Cool Hunting & Society6, to name a few.I've always loved drawing the female form, so these a right ole treat! It's amazing she is self taught too. Her black and white silhouettes are so pretty, remind me of artists square in Paris.. 

also some of her paintings:

feathers and skulls

ophelia/ boat shoulders

really like the raw wood background in this one

bears in hair

think this is actually one of my favourites, really like the more painterly look of the skin and the boldness of the red dots along with the bare wooden base.

Helen Storey's Wonderland

Just been looking out for ephemeral designs in line with my studio project, and found this. tis a wee bit AMAZING! Professor Helen Storey, in collaboration with Sheffield University's Chemistry department, addresses environmental and societal issues with her soluble garments and textiles. Throwaway culture is no longer relevant, as on contact with water, these garments dissolve, being made of completely natural materials. The process of 'disappearance' is as much part of these designs as their presence, with the dyes used creating patterns in the water, all down to scientific binding of the dyes, creating a well timed process.

from http://www.helenstoreyfoundation.org/wonderland/1.htm
The Disappearing Dresses are the result of a process that began 2 years ago when Helen began talking to scientist Professor Tony Ryan OBE, who is a polymer chemist at the University of Sheffield. Using the symbols of the dissolving dress and other works that have arisen as a result of the collaboration, Wonderland shines light on the wider and much greater issues of sustainability and ethical living. A work perhaps vulnerable to cynicism, it demands and suggests intelligent change through brave collaboration and experiment.





http://www.showstudio.com/projects/wonderland/movie/
This video shot by Nick Knight shows model Alice Dellal being submerged in water clothed in a fully biodegradable garment, and it dissolving revealing her body within 10 seconds.

Storey, still working with Prof. Tony Ryan, is now working on furhter products based on their research:

The disappearing bottle - inspired by Helen's original concept of a plastic bottle that would have an intelligent relationship with its contents. By using a specially developed polymer to make the bottle, once empty it can be dissolved in hot water - when the solution cools down it makes a room-temperature gel - seeds (encased in a pepper-pot lid) planted in the fertile gel grow from the waste.

Water purification products: In the third world the most readily available source of power is human muscle. The water purification products use reverse osmosis and human energy to create clean from contaminated water.

Free Feet: This is a 'second skin' for the underside of the foot; a running shoe with no uppers. It is moulded from a polymer and has adhesive patches at the heel, ball of foot and big-toe. The commercial potential is four-fold (1) medical device for people with sensitive and swollen feet who cannot wear conventional shoes (2) orthopedic device to encourage good posture through effectively walking barefoot (3) foot protection for people who normally do not wear shoes and suffer from skin damage and infection as a result (4) fashion. This product is being developed in collaboration with Terraplana Ltd.

Here's some more images of the soluble textile:













(This image by Nick Knight)

WOWSER!!!

Blooming love Nendo!

holy moles I am very much enjoying today's findings! This Oki Sato is a bit of a lej by the looks of it. Clever man. Today has been a rather inspirational day yaaaay.


Canvas: A restaurant made of a sheet of canvas. To change an old house into a restaurant was not an easy task, given a very small budget. After deciding to use a 200 meter sheet of canvas ---which was very reasonable, We wrapped the entire building, inside and outside, including tables and chairs. Small remaining pieces of canvas were used for cards and matchboxes as well. This was done for to control costs, and also to maintain a total image. (neno's website)

It's all you really need isn't it?! looks like a cosy atmosphere, clean, and there would be food. So... restaurant... done. would be cool if people could paint an ongoing mural inside....





This 'silhouette chandelier' is so pretty! Made by crossing six semi-translucent black fabrics, this design lets the outline of a flat chandelier imitated by the rhinestones, to appear three dimensionally. Really like the unusual take on things.

Nendo's concept

Before posting the concept, just wanted to show this lantern making technique nendo has come up with, this collection of them for an exhibition at New York's Museum of Arts and Design is beautifully subtle. Like the way they used white stickers on the floor around exhibits to make them seem to melt into the surrounding space.

'Smash' is a specialized long-fibre non-woven polyester that can be manipulated into different forms through hot press forming technology. Because it is thermoplastic, light and rip-proof, but glows beautifully when light passes through it, we wanted to create lighting fixtures in the style of vernacular Japanese chochin paper lanterns with it.

The structure of standard chochin consists of thin strips of bamboo wrapped around a wood frame and strengthened with vertical stitching. Japanese mulberry paper pasted over the frame completes the lamps, and gives them their characteristic glow. But we realized that Smash’s particular properties would allow us to shape it like blown glass into a seamless one-piece lantern. It is impossible to completely control the process, so each fixture takes a unique form as heat is added and pressurized air blown into it. As in glass-blowing, we can intervene during the production of each piece, resulting in a collection of objects whose infinitely varied imperfections are reminiscent of the infinite formal mutations of viruses and bacteria in response to environmental changes, and a far cry from the standardized forms of industrial mass-production.

http://www.nendo.jp/en/

Nendo's website states this as their basic concept. The ! is what all design strives to create. no idea what ! is, but i like it.



Giving people a small " ! " moment.
There are so many small " ! " moments hidden in our everyday.

But we don’t recognize them.
and even when we do recognize them,we tend to unconsciously reset our
minds and forget what we’ve seen.

But we believe these small " ! " moments are what make our days so
interesting, so rich.

That’s why we want to reconstitute the everyday by collecting and
reshaping them into something that’s easy to understand.

We’d like the people who’ve encountered nendo’s designs to feel these
small " ! " moments intuitively.

That’s nendo’s job.

Oki Sato aka Nendo's mossy walls

Tokyo based company Nendo, involved in architecture, interiors, product, graphic, furniture and event design. found great information about it on designsponge:
[about: This project involved renovating an old wooden house on the Shibuya River in Tokyo's Ebisu neighbourhood into a live-work space. The house had accumulated some strange and wonderful features -an inner courtyard, an oddly long hallway, a tiny room- from a series of earlier renovations, so we decided to build on these earlier features, but also to "acclimate" the space to the new owner's [Oki Sato] lifestyle. The hallway became a study, and the small Japanese-style room a studio. Veins of moss pattern the riverbank outside the windows, so we used similar veins of dry moss on the interior walls to subtly connect existing spaces with newly-renovated ones, and the house’s interior environment to its exterior one. Most wallpaper imitates nature through a two-dimensional representation of it, and cladding the walls entirely in moss would simply have been too much. We wanted something in-between, so we applied the moss in a pattern that looked like wallpaper, creating an ambiguous texture that’s neither artificial nor natural. The same pattern appears on the cable outlet, and on the door frames and door handles of the office, further synthesizing the moss pattern with the space.]

CURB: the natural media company

Have just come across this advertising company, CURB, who utilise 'clean advertising'- so all natural materials, organic processes which do not damage the environment, overall a transient nature to the campaign. Stamping into snow, sand, growing moss, carving logos inot crop fields, turf, glowing bacteria, I love it all!!! it's just so much more interesting and clever, and much nicer to trees than a poster :) check the website: http://www.mindthecurb.com/

Growing things!

My current final year project concerns natural growth, how nature adapts to different environments, and how it can regenerate from decay of other materials. Have ben experimenting growing crystals, lichen, and rust on fabric. Lichen is currently rotting in my kitchen.. not too successful.. or hygienic... Rust gives fantastic colouring and looks very organic, at the moment though the crystal growing is giving the best results! I feel like a child doing experiments again! Tis fun and they are shiney so what could be better?!
The bottom photo comes from a collection I acquired after visiting the School of Life Sciences within Dundee University. The lovely helpful people there let me use the labsa to grow crystals and then use their superduper microscope/digital camera which is connected to a pc to allow instant capture of a microscopic image. So tis the babies I grew up blown up to 100 times their actual size! awww I'm so proud. myy prreecciiooouuss...

Painty..paints...

Just found some more photies of some paintings I did this summer for a wee exhibition at home... they ended up hanging in my sisters new sitting room! hehe yaaaay. j'adore les fleurrrsss!

Rock the Catwalk!

I dislike rambling on about my work.. hope I don't sound like a pretentious eejit.
Anyway THIIISSS my friends...(of which so far count= nil hahaha I dont care.. look at me go... I'm a typing madman) is Rock the Catwalk!


It's an event my fourth year class are organising on 9/12/09 to rasie money for the New Designers Exhibition next year in London after we graduate! costing a WHOPPPIIINNNNG 12 thowsand pownds. gasp. So we've already raised 900 from our 'Rags to Riches' pop up vintage and second hand shop we set up in the uni.. twas fab! but now it's onto this... we've got lots of people from the uni modelling clothes from local boutiques and charity shops to promote local businesses, with live djs all night and entry to the club we're holding it in. So should be a good night to celebrate dissertation handin! Bad news is we have our end of semester reviews the next day where we have to present our work to tutors and classmates... as if I wasnt nervous enough....

So if anyone ever see's this..... please come!!!!