It is the Christmas holiday!!! The most wonderful time of the year!! I do have a fair bit of work to be cracking on with, but it is really hard to not just surrender to the inevitable mulled wine and mince pie induced coma that happens this festive time of year. However, this is my attempt at staying productive and resisting temptation - I do feel as though it is waning though!.....

To get a bit of a start on my research project  - 17th and 18th Century - I took a wee trip to the Manchester Gallery of Costume.

Beautiful 18th century dresses.

17th century bodice, so elegant, pretty and tiny!

Beginnings of research and sketches.

But in this beautiful winter weather and surrounded by home comforts I soon resorted to cake.....

Happiness.

Whoa.....have been a bit neglectful towards my blog, been living in the constant whirlwind that is uni and haven't had a minute to sit back and have a bit of blog time! However.....

..........It's CHRIIIIISSSSSTMAAASSSSS, well soon anyway :)

I am completely Christmas obsessed, not even ashamed of just how much I love it, as a knitwear junkie the beautiful array of Christmas jumpers are just one of the many temptations and joys at this time of year, so I've been soaking up the festive vibes and a starting to feel pretty darn jolly.

Fair to say the flat looks rather festive.

Yum.

And, of course, baking!

 Away from all those festivities I have been wrapping up my last project before the holiday. For this I had to find ways through a garment and a figure to portray my Dad and his emotional response to Joy.....pretty tricky but hey I've had a go.....Here are some photos of my finished figure:

He's enjoying that fleeting feeling of joy, pure, simple happiness. Feels light as a feather and on cloud nine. Childishly simple emotion of optimism -- suspended in the moment.

My own personal response to joy.....

Care free and weightless.....

Better late then never, our beautiful Ice Warriors!

Ah it really was a lot of fun, and we were pleased with how well we achieved the effedt of ice by using plaster for the costumes.

For the second time in less then a week I have lost myself among Charlie Chaplin, Captain Jack Sparrow, Indiana Jones and countless other Hollywood greats at the V&A's fantastic new Hollywood Costume exhibit. 

'When it's well designed costume embodies the psychological, social and emotional conditions of the character at a particular moment in the story.'

It really is amazing to see such iconic pieces in person, costumes so full of character and history you can't help but be swept away.....

Alongside the brilliant costumes there are interviews from designers such as Colleen Attwood and Sandy Powell and directors Tim Burton and Martin Scorsese! Definitely a must see!

Some sketches from this mornings pootle around.....

Well! First little bit of uni has left me whacked, but it has been good and have met some great people so I'm doing ok. Straight away we were into project work so as to wake us all up and get our creativity flowing again, at first it was a struggle but hey after a while I got into a good rhythm!

Basically, we had two weeks to design costumes, lighting, props and write a script and perform the whole thing in groups, crikey I can assure you, there was a definite wave of panic throughout the 120 students.....we were put into 'clans' and given a material to work with - my group got Ice - and chose a story from Camelot. We then had to create a relationship between the material and the story. Well, this is what happened.....

Initial costume design I sketched out after early  group discussion.

Experimenting with texture - create the illusion of frost and ice on the costumes by using porridge!

'White Ice' by Anya Gallaccio. Her work helped inspire the aesthetic of the Ice World . We tried to create the illusion of  this sort of image through our use of sound in the theatre.

Rachael modelling our rather dashing make up.

 

 

 

                                  

 

 Final designs for the story teller and Warrior.....

Onto a drawing project based on a piece, any piece at all, in the whole of The National Gallery - me being me I was drawn to a dark piece full of mystique and unusual characters.....'Witches and their incantations' by Salvator Rosa.

Image from www.gandalfsgallery.com