well... ive began my trend boards and ive been trying to keep calm and not to get frustrated about using photoshop the truth is at first it was driving me crazy! but i have gradually learnt some skills...... i think! i started completing my gothic board and im quite pleased with it so far but beacuse im new to photoshop i find it pretty time consuming.
One tool that annoys me loads is the lasso- i mean its soo tricky to cut out an image with a really clean line around it beacuse as soon as you start on photoshop you become soooo obsessed with every little line, image and colour and the more you look the more things you find to correct !
But .. the main thing is i think my board has turned out (so far ) slightly better than i thought it would, but that might be beacuse i had a low estimation of what i could do on photoshop !

We had our last lesson of the term and I had my cad session which was really helpful. At first I kept getting behind because I’m not that good with computers but then I kind of got it – Though I think the cad handbook is going to be my bible when I’m doing my trend boards at home !!
We also started making and designing our river island accessory for the competition. My charity shop item was an umbrella and I’m attempting to make a necklace from the metal structure inside but I will see how it goes …

On Thursday I went into town because I felt like I hadn’t been in many designer stores for my trend boards, we decided to ask for any magazines from this season and I was sooooo surprised that I got loads of really good stuff !!

In fact the man in flannels after being really nice and helpful, even ran after us as we went out the store to give us these hardback books with amazing photo shoot pictures inside!! I can safely say I’m going back there every season and requesting him – he was so sweet!!

Today we had to create mood boards surrounding the phrase ‘container culture’- I focused mine around what the human body contained and I really liked putting the images together onto the page. At the end of the day we all looked at each others wok and wrote post- it note comments. My comments were …….

Nice composition like the black and white

Like the mix between black and white and colour

Looks amazing really original

Unique ideas well done Ella!

I was quite pleased with how it came out and I’m looking forward to starting my trend boards. I have cad tomorrow so Photoshop should become clearer and easier to use I hope?!

We are also having a workshop for a river island competition where we have to create a new accessory from charity shop bought items ….. So far I ‘ve bought a dice game and an umbrella, I’m not completely sure what to do with mine yet but I no I want to use the metal rods in the umbrella to form a structure forming a cuff bracelet or something.

I forgot to add- we had feeback about our trend board parctice in class mine was as follows:

• good image choice

• bordering on too much information

• in future avoid hand rendering

We had tutorials last Tuesday and we discussed what we had found from the shops so far. I was quite pleased with the feedback because it helped me focus on what I needed to do this week and keep me going in the right direction .

We got our marks for creative approaches to fashion and I have to admit I was quite disappointed with mine at first. I got 57% which is a 2.2 .(and the average was 60). At first I was quite upset but when I read through my feedback and flicked through my work again I did think well at least I’d know what not to do next time. I’m trying not to get hung up on marks because as long as you pass year 1 marks don't really count, but its difficult. I found it quite hard in a way because the way of marking is so different to A– level art but our tutors already warned us not to be too upset because the way of marking is different and its at a different level. I feel a bit better about it now because I can see what I’ve learnt to do and what not to do. When researching I should have used mainly other sources and not just related to fabric. Then I could relate these shapes to the garment I’m designing. I also should have experimented more with the photograph and considered the angle.Also I think I focused to much on illustrating my work for the mark making task when I should have been experimenting with the type of line etc.
So I guess whatever the result at least I’ve learnt some important stuff from the project!