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. 

Over Easter.....

The work I set myself for over Easter was to have all my tentacles ready to tie dye at my first workshop. This meant I needed to draw on all the tentacles onto doubled up calico, cut them out, sew them together and turn them through. This whole process was very VERY time consuming.
I found when drawing on the tentacles it was better to draw on all the tentacles free hand rather than have a paper pattern for them. By doing it this way I could fit more tentacles on the fabric as I could work them around each other and they would be all different shapes and sizes which is what I wanted. Cutting the tentacles out and sewing them together was actually the least time consuming part of the whole process. Turning them through was the worst as it just took so long because obviously they were all curvy and I wanted to pull all the curves through before tie dying them so no parts were missed out.
Even though this whole process was really long and really tedious when it was finished I was so SO happy! I know it took me a lot longer than I anticipated but when I counted 160 tentacles words can not describe...

Meeting with Teachers from Wyke Regis

I went to Weymouth to have a group meeting with the carnival co-ordinators and to meet with the teacher from the school I will be working with. We watched a video from a previous carnival and received general information about what would happen on the day of the carnival including what route the procession would take and when and were to meet on the day.
The main reason for us to be at the meeting was that it would finally be a chance for us to meet the teachers we will be working with and to get there opinion on our lesson plans and designs.

I was quite nervous about meeting with my teacher but it went very well. We discussed what we would do in each workshop and what materials the school would supply and what I would have to provide. I had to change my first two workshops slightly as the school wanted to get involved in the tie dying as the class I will be working with are 'tie dye experts'. So in the first lesson the children will tie dye all the tentacles and collars and in the second lesson they will stuff them and start attaching the fabrics to the collars. Luckily the school will be able to provide paints ect so I do not need to worry about trying to purchase these items within my budget. This meeting has given me more confidence about going into the schools and working with the children. The only thing I am worried about now is preparing everything in time and being able to buy everything I need within my budget. We also decided to do the lessons the one day a week as this gives me a chance to prepare for the next lesson and it also gives the school time to catch up on anything we did not get done in the workshop. We also discussed the fact that there is 3 year 5 classes in the school and if I would mind splitting the workshops between the 3. I think this is a better way of doing it because, as we discussed, the children will not get a chance to get to precious about there work. 

Design Development - Post Meeting

Design Development

After my tutorial with Adele started drawing up a new design, taking into account how the costume will be proportioned against a child's body.....

I also started to consider how to decorate the costume.....

These are the two drawings I will take into the meeting with Sarah Colwell, Jo Gardener, Adele Keeley and the rest of the students working on Moving Tides. I decided to take these two designs as I thought they would be able to visualize the proportions of the costume, as well as see in detail what type of items I was thinking of using to decorate the costume.

I am pleased with the way my designs are developing and I am excited about constructing them. I will need to sell this design to the carnival co-ordinators and take on board any suggestions/changes they want me to make. 

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.