Overall Reflection of Planning

The Moving Tides Project has involved a lot of planning and time management. Usually this is not one of my strong suits but as this project has involved so much I have had to make sure I get everything done in time. I have had a few obstacles in this project largely involving the construction of my costumes and have been disheartened by this but as this is a professional project there has not been time to be annoyed I have just had to get on with it.
The amount of planning involved in this project has enabled me to improve my time management skills and has given me a chance to do a number of different tasks I have not done yet at university, such as budget and lesson plans, meetings with professionals and peers to get feedback and improvements on my work. 
  

Making my prototype and the final costumes...

The prototype I have made for hand in is an early mock up of how I will make my costumes. I did not have the time or money to make them to the standard the real ones are going to be. 

The Collar

This is the prototype of the collar. It is not as well made or as full as  the real ones are going to be  but  you get the idea  of how it is going to look.

This is one of the collars that will be used in the  carnival.  The children will be wearing purple tie dye t-shirts underneath  which I feel will look really effective.

The Heads

To make the heads I had to vac-form the moulds I made from plasterzote.  I also formed an eye on each sheet as well to attach to the Kraken heads at a later date.

I cut the shapes of the heads and added a spiky center line  to make  the halves easier to attach and  to aid the design.  However I do not think the shape of the spikes are effective enough so on the heads being used in the carnival I will re think the shape of the spikes.

This is the revised shape of my Kraken heads. I think this shape  works much better than the one  I did on the original  prototype.

These are some of the Kraken half heads. You can see the shape of the spikes are much more effective.

Image of the eyes cut from the plasterzote

Plasterzote waste 

This is how the heads will be decorated. The children will decorate the heads with poster paint, puff binder and cable ties.   I would also like to use split pins to decorate the heads but they are not on my prototype as the school are providing those.

Overall I am really pleased with the way my costumes are going to turn out. My prototype is not as successful as I would like it to be but through trial and error I think the actual costumes will look great. However I think that even though the prototype is not that reflective of the actual costumes I think you can get the general idea of how it is going to look. I wish I would have made the prototype look better for hand in but I thought my time has been better spent making the actual costumes and I did not have the funds to keep re creating the prototype. 

Evaluation if Self Directed Project

For my Self Directed Project I decided to participate in the Moving Tides carnival project. This project required us to design and make a prototype for a carnival costume which we would take into a school in Weymouth and make 20 costumes, working alongside the children. I found the prospect of this project exciting as it was different to anything I had taken on before.

 I decided to base my costumes on the theme ‘Mythological Sea Creatures’. I chose this theme as I originally found it very inspiring and had a number of ideas in my head to start working on.

I began my research by looking at websites and images in books to get ideas on shapes and colours so I could start designing. I found through my research that my theme was very broad and I would have to narrow it down in some way. I did this by looking at just four of the creatures I researched.

From this I started sketching and getting my ideas down in my sketchbook. I enjoyed creating my sketchbook as it was the first chance I have had to work in this way.  After getting all my initial designs down and discussing it in tutorials I decided to base my designs on the Kraken.  I had to take into consideration that it would be small children wearing my costumes so I could not make anything to extravagant or heavy. I toned down my initial designs into a costume I believe to be suitable for children of that age.

To construct my costumes I had to do a lot of experimentation in the workshop to get the correct shape for the heads of my Krakens. Initially I found the prospect of going into the workshop a little daunting as I had never had a reason to work in there properly. Luckily they were all really helpful and pointed me in the right direction to get my heads constructed. They suggested that I build the heads in two halves as it would be the only way to get the shape I wanted into the vac-form machine. I had to built the initial head shape in clay which I really enjoyed as I had not worked with clay for some years. It was great to get my hands dirty and begin making a costume in a way I had not considered before on this course. From this I had to make a plastic mould of it in the vac-form machine and fill it with plaster to get an end product that would with stand being formed 20 times. Even though being in the workshop was a long process and I had a number of things that went wrong I felt it was a valuable experience and learning curve and I now feel that if I needed to use the workshop in the future I could go in there and work with little to no guidance.

As part of this project I have to go into a primary school and work alongside a teacher and a group of year 5 students to produce the costumes. To prepare for this I had to write four lesson plans, one for each workshop I will be leading. I found this task very difficult as I needed to consider the time I had in the schools and the amount of work that needed to be done in each. I also needed to include all the materials and equipment I would need for each particular session. After having a few sessions in the school when writing this I have found that sticking to the lesson plans is quite difficult. I do not know if this is because I was too ambitious with my planning or if it is because I am working with a different class on each week so a lot of the time is taken up explaining the project and what we will be doing that day.

Overall I have found this project very exhilarating and also a great challenge. I think this project has been good for me as it has elements of both designing and making. It also has the fundamentals of supervising as I have met with a number of professionals, presented ideas, had to complete a budget sheet and source all the materials needed for the costumes. If I could change anything about my costumes I would change the design as I just do not feel inspired by it anymore and so many things have gone wrong when trying to construct it I think I have just lost enthusiasm and feel if I had gone for a simpler design I would not have had the problems I have had to deal with. I would also re-do my sketchbook as I know I could have made it more visually pleasing.  However generally I am pleased with the outcome of this project and feel I have learnt a number of new skills which will benefit me in the future.  

Preparing for the next workshop.......... (2)

After my second workshop at Wyke Regis Juniors I took on the task of taking all of the collars home to attach the fabric to. This is going to be very time consuming as I need to pin the fabric in a position were I can sew them to the collar in a straight line.The students had not done this when pinning on the fabric so I will have to unpin everything and re pin it into a suitable position. I will also need to add fabrics as some of the underneath fabrics were not thick enough.

Image of collars after I had re pinned and added extra fabric.

For the next workshop I need to vac-form and cut out all my masks for the children to decorate. This will also take a long time as there is 40 half heads and I am going to cut different patterns down the ridge.

Workshop 2 - 18/05/2011

Today was my second workshop at Wyke Regis and I was quite excited for todays lesson as it was the popcorn day and I knew the children would be excited. I worked with a different class today as the school wants all the year 5 students to be involved in making the costumes. 

I decided along with the teacher I was working with, that as we had so much to do today we should split the classroom up into separate work stations.

We had a table for cutting up the fabric for the collars:

A table for pinning the the fabric onto the collars:

These are the fabrics I cut up in preparation for today.

Some students pinning on and cutting the fabric to size for the collars.

Some of the students holding up there collars showing what they have done so far.

We had a station for stuffing the tentacles with newspaper:

We also had a section for making and stuffing the tentacles with popcorn:

Table for popcorn makers and finished tentacles

A student stuffing the tentacles with popcorn

I think the children enjoyed this session as there was some exciting activities and we made sure everyone got a turn at each table by getting the students to change tables every 10 minutes. However because I was working with a new class we had to introduce them to the project and this took a lot more time than expected. Unfortunately there was a lot of work that still needed doing so  I took all the collars home to attach fabric too and the school said they would fill the rest of the tentacles in art club. Even though I did not get done what I wanted in this session I really enjoyed it as the children were really enthusiastic and seemed to enjoy the tasks set. 

Experimentation Reflections...

Even though the other post I did about experimentation was the main bulk of what I had been doing in the workshop, I have also been experimenting on different things throughout this project. I have not included everything under the label 'Experimentation' as what experimenting I have been doing is a bit all over the place and is mostly in my sketchbook. 
Experimentation has taken place throughout this project for me as I begun experimenting with different design ideas, shapes and colours and that has continued into making things in 3D. By having tutorials, peer feedback and just by working through problems that have arisen myself, I have discovered that experimenting is very important and can bring up issues or even positive things that I would not have expected. 
The experimentation in the workshop has been very up and down for me as it took me ages (and I mean AGES) to first get the correct shape of my Kraken head. I had to keep adding and taking away areas of my clay mould and from that I would vac-form and make in plaster. Then it still would not be right so I would build it again. All this was very tedious and I have to admit towards the end I just wanted to smash it up. BUT finally I got it right, and both sides matched and I was so happy...
Then the worst happened... As I had left it to try over the easter break one of the technicians in the workshop threw both final casts away so this meant I had to start the whole process again. I could do it alot faster this time as I knew the materials and how the equipment worked but it was the trying to match the two half heads in shape and size. This was as difficult as I had found it the first time round and because I had to much other stuff to be working on and preparing for my workshops ect, that the two halves are unfortunately different. This is very annoying but there is nothing else I could do taking time and everything else into consideration.
However generally I feel I have had a very positive experience in the workshop and in all of my experimenting. I know longer feel nervous or apprehensive about going into the workshops and now I just feel (which is not really positive but) that something is always bound to go wrong, know matter how hard I try so I might as well not moan about it and just get on with it.    

Prepping for the next workshop....

As there was not time to finish all the tentacles I had to bring a load home with me, which had already been dyed but the strings needed cutting off. This was VERY time consuming as we told the children to tie them really really really really tight... and they listened! But after about 6+ hours of cutting the string I managed to get them all hung up ready to dry and this was very satisfying!

2 or 3 tentacles per peg!

I still need to source the popcorn for the next session but I told Hannah and Maria (another teacher working on MovingTides) that I was having problems with it and they suggested only stuffing a few of the tentacles with the popcorn and the rest with newspaper. This will work out better for me in a number of ways as it means I will be able to source it easier, I will not have to pre-make a load and get it to Weymouth as well as everything else and it will be better for the budget. I am a bit disappointed about this but I think it makes sense I just hope the carnival organisers wont be annoyed.

Workshop 1 - 09/05/2011

I went to Wyke Regis Junior School today for the first time today. I was really nervous to start with as this was what the whole project has been about and I was worried that the children would not like my ideas or they would be uncooperative. Luckily my school is really enthusiastic about the project and the whole of year 5 had been given a presentation that morning telling them about Moving Tides and my design, The Kraken. 

When I arrived at the school I got a quick tour and started setting up everything I was going to need. I first set up the dye vats and me and the teacher I am working with this week, Hannah started cutting up loads of string ready for the children.

I made sure I took along gloves, mask and health and safety forms so we could do the dying as safely as possible. The children were not aloud to put anything in the dye but I thought it was better to be safe than sorry.

We started the lesson off going through my sketchbook and I showed them tentacle samples, which we were going to be doing that day. The children were so enthusiastic, giving me ideas of how I could make the costumes, most of which were obviously impossible but it was great to see they were excited about the project and were thinking about it in a creative way. 

We started the practical session by tying string on all the tentacles ready to tie dye.I told the children to put 3 to 5 ties on each tentacle or collar. Some of the children found this quite difficult as it needed to be tied really tight! But we told them to bring it to either me or Hannah to check it was tight enough to go into the dye.

With the dye I was using the materials needed to soaked in soda ash first so I put this with water in 2 buckets at the front of the class which the children could put there tentacles in when they had finished. The children seemed to really enjoy doing this as I put a plastic ruler in them so they could poke the tentacles down. 

After this we took small groups of the children out to the dye vats so they could see how we would do it, even though they were not aloud to touch the dyes. 

I think my first workshop went really well considering how nervous I was. Unfortunately we did not manage to get the full 160 tentacles tied but they will be taken and finished at art club. I think I might have been a bit ambitious thinking that we would be able to get all the tentacles and the 20 collars tie dyed in one day as some of the kids were not as quick or as bothered as the others about doing it. For example one child managed to do 14, were as another child only did 2. I will take this into consideration for the next lesson and try and plan my time accordingly but it seems to me know matter how much you plan, things are always going to run abit late or there will be something that will go wrong. However I know this now and will not let it stress me out in future sessions. 

Into the Workshop...

After my tutorial with Adele I started thinking about my costume in terms if how I am going to construct it technically and how I will decorate it.

The first thing I did was to go into the workshop and speak to Julia, a technician in there, to see what she thought would be the simplest way to construct the costume taking into account it was going to be made en masse at some point. She told me I would be best to construct half the head out of clay, vac-form it and fill it with plaster. I would then be able to use the plaster cast over and over again. I would also have to make the opposite side of the head and form both sides in plasterzote and glue them together to create the head shape.

I had a number of problems when making the proto type for my costume. I had to rebuild in clay a number of times to get the correct shape and even when this was correct things still kept going wrong. When I had finally got the right shape and moulded it in plaster I had to re-do this as someone moved it in the workshop because someone moved it before it had set and it cracked. After this I also had to build up on top of the plaster with clay as it still was not the right shape. 

From this I vac-formed the shape in plasterzote to see if it was the correct shape to fit on a childs head. I also vac-formed the shape of the eye I wanted to use and attached the two together using cable ties like I will on the real costumes.

 This is the shape that came out of the vac-form machine which is the shape of the plaster mould it has been formed around.
This is the shape of the half head after it has been cut out and the eye attached.

Then I had to construct the opposite side of the head and try and match up the two sides. I found this very difficult as it is such a strange shape it was hard to see what I needed to change. 

I am very pleased with the overall shape of the half head and even though it has been very time consuming and frustrating at times I am very pleased with the outcome. It has also been very educational to be in the workshop, working with new materials and machine to create a costume in a different material other than fabric.

05/05/2011

Today I had a tutorial with Adele to discuss my progress and anything I was worried about. I originally organised this tutorial when I was stressing because my plaster moulds had been thrown away in the workshop and I wanted her advice. However by this time I had already had started to reconstruct my half heads but I was still massively stressing about how much I had to do and was very nervous about my first workshop at Wyke Regis . 
I did talk to her about my first workshop and she settled my nerves by just talking me through my plans for the workshop and she basically just gave me a pep talk about my project. This settled my nerves a little as I now new what to expect and that I was doing ok on this project in general.
Even though this tutorial was not about my actual physical work it was great to talk to Adele and it gave me a boost as I had lost a lot of passion for this project.