Lesson Plans and Budget

I have been assigned the school Wyke Regis to work with on the carnival costumes. As part of the project I have to figure out lesson plans for the days of my work shops. I will take into consideration the amount of time I have at the schools, what I will need to get done that day, the time and what I will have to do between each session and what I can prepare before hand. However the most important thing to take into consideration when doing my lessons plans would be keeping the children involved and active within the lessons and keeping them engaged enough to carry the project on throughout the four workshops.

These are the lesson plans I will be presenting to the school when I meet the teacher I will be working with.

Lesson Plans

I think my lesson plans will work well within the time given and allow me time to prepare for what is needed at the next session. I will need to work out the individual dates for my workshops with the teacher when I meet her at a future meeting in Weymouth. I have found doing lesson plans quite difficult but very useful as it has made me think and plan everything I will need for each session, which has helped me with my budget sheet as well. 


For my budget sheet I have to take into consideration everything I will need to purchase for my workshops and creating my 20 costumes. I have looked at multiple suppliers to figure out where I can get my items for cheapest price. I have calculated the amount pf everything to work out if it will fit into the budget and broken down the amount of everything into price per costume.

This is my budget sheet I will be sending to the carnival organisers to check if it is viable. I have not been able to include the price of plasterzote in this budget sheet as the organisers are paying for this separately as they can get a better price by ordering everyones together.

Budget Sheet.

I found doing the budget sheet really challenging as I needed to try and remember every little thing I needed to include, even if it was not very significant to the costumes. It was also very time consuming looking around the different suppliers, finding out the different prices and then figuring out the value for money. However saying this it was a useful thing to have to do because when working as a maker I do write budget sheets but I do not really have to think about staying within the budget as it is my costume and I will spend as much on it as needed, and the designer will tell you which fabric to use not thinking about the amount I will have to spend on it. With this I had to consider a professional budget and I think this experience will benefit me in the future. 

Meeting With The Carnival Organisers 24/3/11

We had a meeting with carnival organisers Sarah Colwell and Jo Gardener to pitch our ideas and discuss any ideas/changes that need to be made to our designs. Also present at the meeting to give feedback was Adele Keeley who is the tutor in charge of this unit and other costume and make up students.

The general information we got at the meeting which applied to me:
- At the schools we have 4 sesssions, 2 hours each.
- We need to think about what we would do in each of the 4 lessons and create lesson plans.
- We should only provide the children with one colour range.

Information and ideas for my designs:
- Stuff my tentacles with popcorn instead of newspaper, foam etc, as it will be fun and engaging for the children.
- Change the colour of my costume, maybe reds or oranges


This meeting was very useful and informative. The feedback that I received was generally positive, their was just a few small design alterations that I needed to consider. After this meeting I am feeling quite positive about what I am doing and think that as soon as I perfect the head cast of the Kraken I should not have many problems in creating the 20 costumes needed for the procession.
I think this meeting was also very useful as it gave me a chance to experience how to present my ideas to professionals and to get there feedback. It has helped me find confidence in terms of talking about my own work and getting across my ideas.

23/03/2011

I arranged a tutorial with Dexter to discuss how to make my ideas work in a 3D way. I wanted to know his opinion on how to construct the Kraken as this would help me when designing and working in the workshop. He told me to put the tentacles on a collar separate from the head piece instead of attaching them to the head of the Kraken. 
At the start of this meeting I was worried about how to construct the head and the tentacles, as one as it would not fit inside the vac-form in one piece but I wanted the tentacles to come from the neck. This tutorial has been very helpful as I now have a number of ideas on how to create the costume. It has made me think of different materials I could use and different ways to construct. I will carry on working on my designs but when I start to experiment with fabrics I will now know which will work best.

17/3/2011

As I had been unable to attend the first meeting about this project I attended the group meeting to get any general information I need about the project and look at the rest of the groups ideas and designs.

These are a few important notes and dates to remember:

• 24th March, 10am, meeting with carnival co-ordinators to discuss ideas.
• 6th April, 3.30pm, meeting in Weymouth with the carnival co-ordinators and the teacher from the school I will be working with.
• £200 budget for each school/20 costumes to be made
• Each class should all have pretty much the same designs/costumes

After this I had a personal tutorial to discuss my work/designs personally with Adele to get her ideas and views so far. These are notes I made about my designs specifically:

• We decided to focus on my Kraken design
• Cable ties could be used to represent the spikes, and they would go through the plasterzote easily
• Could make the heads in two halves
• Collect shells to stick on the costumes
• Puff binder for texture - sample
• Texture/barnacles

After having this tutorial I am feeling really positive about the project. I have decided on a design to work on and improve and I am happy with this design and already have ideas on where to progress. I think my initial designs were abit ambitious but through talking this through I now know how to tone down the ideas and make them work for a year 5 student. At this point I am feeling really positive about the project and cant wait to get 'kraken'. 

Research and Initial Design Ideas

After choosing my theme I decided that 'Mythological Sea Creatures' in general was to wide of spectrum to base a costume on. I looked through a lot of images and information on a number of different creatures before deciding on a certain few that I felt inspired me most and which I thought young children would relate to and want to wear as a costume.

I started putting my sketchbook together with imagery and information, focusing on The Kraken, The Mermaid, The Loch Ness Monster and The Sea Serpant. I chose these four as they are all featured in films or cartoons, and are the ones I thought young children would know the most about. They also had interesting body shapes which I thought could be modified into a carnival costume. Alongside the imagery and information in the sketchbook I started sketching out initial sketches and designs to see what shapes I could use on the body to create the costume.

The Kraken

(Kraken1)

- Looking at the shapes of the Kraken and how it could be applied to the body. 

- Mask including a broken boat 

- I decided would be to complicated to make en masse. 

(Kraken2)

- Different shapes of tentacles/how it would sit on the mask

- Thinking about putting a mask on a pole for the child to hold and covering the child with a sheer fabric.

- I decided this might be to heavy/claustrophobic for a young child.

(Kraken3)

- Over the head design based on images of the Kraken.
- I really like this idea, as I think it is very effective as a carnival costume, however I think it may be difficult to construct.

(Kraken4)

- Kraken head and body attached on a pole and platform.

- Would be held by the child.

- String, rope and fabric would cover the child instead of a full sheet of fabric.

- I think this idea is the most successful so far and I will pitch this idea to Adele at the tutorial.

(Kraken5)

- I started developing my Kraken idea my looking at different shapes of tentacles and how they could be modified and decorated. I preferred the the sharp spiky looking tentacles compared to the curvy ones as I think it is more representative of the creature I am trying to create.

(Kraken6)
- I looked at my designs and decided to start developing on what I thought was my most successful idea (Kraken4). I thought about how the Kraken could work and be carried. I thought the idea of having the Kraken on top of an umbrella or a platform of some sort. However this design would mean the children would not be able to use their hands and it could also be to heavy for them to carry for the whole procession.


The Mermaid
(Mermaid1)
- Looking at the Mermaid shape and information about the creature.
- Thinking about the mermaid tail and how I could make it textural and interesting.

(Mermaid2)
-This is one design I did in my sketchbook which was inspired by Mermaids.
- I started thinking about construction and how I could apply the mermaid style into a costume for children.
- I think this is my most successful mermaid design and I think when made it could be really successful, however I do not think it is appropriate for young children and I could not think of a way I could adapt it so boys would be comfortable in it.






I did do other designs and sketches based on mermaids in my sketchbook but I did not think they were very successful for carnival costumes, therefore I decided not to put them in my blog.


The Loch Ness Monster

(LochNessMonster1)
-I started looking at the shape of the Loch Ness Monster and the legends behind the creature.
- I also thought about decorative techniques which the children could do to the figure, such as potato stamping and applying beads and glitter.  

(LochNessMonster2)
- Thinking about how a Loch Ness Monster costume could be applied to the body.
- The figure would sit on the back and it would strap around the waist and across the chest.
-Even though I do like this idea I do not think it is as strong and effective as some of my previous ideas.


There are a few other designs for the Loch Ness Monster in my sketchbook, but I personally thought I could not make this idea work.


The Sea Serpant

(SeaSerpant1)
- Looking at the shape of the sea serpant and how I could use this to inspire a carnival costume.
- I thought about making a Chinese dragon type standard, which could be just one big thing that the whole class could work on instead of separate costumes.
-I decided this idea may be a bit over ambitious to do with young children and also I would not be able to work on it after between lessons as I would have no way to transport it from Bournemouth to Weymouth and back.

(SeaSerpant2)
- Separate costumes but still inspired by the sea serpant.
- This is one of my favorite designs as I could see this working as a group of costumes together, however I think it would be very difficult to construct.








Looking back through all my initial research, designs and sketches I am mostly excited and inspired by the Kraken idea. I have thought about it in more detail than the other 'creatures' and even thought of different design variations I could work on.
I will take my initial designs to my tutorial to see which ideas Adele prefers. I would like to get her opinion on which she thinks would be the most effective in the carnival and the most suitable for young children.
As I am usually a maker, I am really enjoying the design process and I am enjoying working in a sketchbook and getting all my ideas down visually. 

My Theme

I have decided to base the concept of my carnival costume on the theme 'Mythological Sea Creatures'. For initial research I looked at websites such as www.mythicalcreaturesguide.com and www.mythralthemystic.com and looked at images in books such as 'Fabulous Places of Myth'  by Robert Ingpen.
I found the websites very useful as they gave me a wider knowledge of what I was looking at and details of the myths behind the creatures. As I was looking through the images and reading the text I found myself getting ideas and inspiration for the shapes and characteristics of the creature that could inspire my costumes.
I did not find any books that were really very useful for my theme, the one I did find however had a few illustrations which inspired me greatly.

This is one image from the book 'Fabulous Places of Myth' which I thought was very inspiring. I liked the aggression in the image. I also thought that, from a child's point of view, they might want to make/wear something a bit more imaginative, where they could make the creature look as sinister and dark as they want.

SDP Learning Agreement

I have included my learning agreement in my blog as I think it will be useful to look back on as I progress in this project. I found it really quite difficult to wrote this as I have never done one before and was not sure what to include.


NAME:                                   Mikaela Dowling    

COURSE:                             BA (Hons) Costume with Performance Design        

UNIT TITLE:                                    Self Directed Project                    

REF. NO./LEVEL:               CSS518

WEIGHTING:                        2.0      

DURATION:                         9 Weeks       

HOURS OF STUDY:          300 Hours    

Unit Leader:                         Adele Keeley

DESCRIPTION:

For this assignment I will be designing and creating a proto type costume for the ‘Spirit of the Sea’ carnival in Weymouth. I will look at mythological sea beasts to inspire my design. I will also be working alongside a school in the Weymouth area to mass produce my proto type for a group of year 5 students (approximately 20 costumes to create). I will go into the school a number of times to help the children create/decorate their costume to be worn in the procession. As the young children will be wearing the eye catching costumes, I need to consider a number of things when designing them and making the prototype, such as the weight of it and how it will be worn/carried. When making the prototype I will also need to consider that the procession is on the windy sea front so the costume will have to withstand this.

As the project is self initiated, and I will be working independently for most of it, I will create a timetable to effectively plan my time.

I decided to do the ‘Spirit of the Sea’ project as it gives me a unique chance to do both the designing and the making of a costume proto type. I also wanted to do a project were I could be creative, and have the freedom to take the project in any direction, but with a few general limitations. Even though I am a maker I feel it is important to be able to display ideas and create designs, and this is one of my weaknesses. I will work in a sketch book and try and present it all effectively, showing my research, development and designs, improving my presentation skills. I also wanted to work on this project as it gives me a chance to teach, and work on something extremely exaggerated at the same time. One of the main learning objectives for me would be how to work with and communicate my ideas to the children, but also taking into consideration their creativity and how to work that into my design. This would be great practise as I am considering teaching in my future. I also want to use the university workshop as I have only used basic stuff in there before. I think with some guidance I would be able to create something extravagant in there, at the same time learn new techniques and how to use machinery that I have never used before. These new techniques and skills, would be useful as they could be used in other projects and areas of study. Also, being able to use the specialist machinery would be helpful as I could take this with me into industry.

For this assignment I will design and create a proto type costume to be used in the ‘Spirit of the Sea’ carnival. I will also create a supporting sketchbook to show how the project has developed from start to finish. I will take my proto type to the carnival organisers to see if it is suitable and in keeping with the carnival. If so, I will then make the base of 20 costumes to take into the school I have been assigned and work alongside the children to bring them to life. I will also create a blog to keep record of my development. I will keep my costume quite basic as I do not think in the time allowed I could make 20 extremely extravagant costumes. I will however think of ways to make the costumes simple, but very effective. 

Aims:

A1       To provide opportunities for self-initiated, autonomous learning

            and develop the ability to plan time and work independently

A2       To provide opportunity to study the contextual development of costume and performance design

A3       To further develop the creative, intellectual and practical applications of research and contextualisation within a self initiated environment

A4       To propose, develop and evaluate professional aspirations through professional development planning

Learning Outcomes:

On completion of this unit you will be able to:

LO1     Identify and define the context for the development of your own work towards professional aspirations

LO2     Demonstrate an understanding of the development of Costume with performance design

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LO3     Have developed the creative, intellectual and practical applications of research and contextualisation

LO4    Consolidate and demonstrate professional aspirations and planning                      through your Progress File