London Art Trip

So I have been meaning to post this ageeeees ago (2 months to be specific!). We took a trip with our art school DJCAD down to London where we could any galleries we want! Here are just some snaps from the trip :)

Oxford Street where we spent over 2 hours in the massiveeeee Topshop!!

Bricklane

 Bricklane

 Bricklane where we did most of our vintage shopping!

 Bricklane

 Vintage Shopping, Bricklane

The vintage shops in Bricklane were absolute amazing- I would do anything to go back just to go vintage shopping! Picked up some really nice pieces. I will probably do another blog post on my purchases from London :)

 We also all got randomly interviewed by Cherry from bbc3 loool

 Damien/Kusama exhibitions-both amazing!

 I don't know if she realised she was sitting in between two butt cheeks meheeh

 I was in heaven inside this exhibition at the Design museum, totally up my street and who doesn't love louboutin?!! Unfortunately no pictures we're allowed but the shoes were of course AMAZING.

 Don't know why but this area of London reminded me of Toronto?!

I'm just too cool.

x

Carousel Circus

So this was another one of my projects from my Advanced Higher last year. My theme was based on the circus and this was also inspired by a carousel. Its probably one of my favourite pieces, probably the hardest to make but the most rewarding and visually appealing!! I used two kids hula hoops to create the structure of the piece that was to represent a circus tent but also a carousel. A lot of measurements had to made for this!

I had limited materials to use and I had quite a low budget really and kept it to plastics, cards and paper and some other materials! The front of the design is to represent the front of a circus tent where these 'circus shapes' are also featured to add mystery. I then attached braces which I bought on ebay so that it could be worn on a person and Flora kindly modelled for me again! It was a lot of work but certainly very fun to make! I went through a lot of development to arrive at my final outcome and my work finally paid off.This design was highly inspired by Manish Arora which makes crazy designs!

Also got my results back and I passed all my projects in first year at art school so I'm a very happy girl!! And got accepted to do Jewellery and Metalwork Design as my degree in 2nd year!

Thanks for reading

Kaela x

Animalism Project

This project was based on animalism and how we can take inspiration from animals and make pieces of art from it. So my inspiration were bees & wasps, not exactly animals more insects but I was keen to be influenced by their habitat and what they look like visually. You can see from the patterns on my design that I was going for a honey comb effect which of course is associated with bees. I experimented with different materials and colours. I actually used bubble wrap to create this pattern, just shows how experimental you can be with limited resources.

After creating the honey comb patterns, I put these into laminating pouches were I always inserted wire which holds the shape and structure of the piece. I love wire!! After each pouch comes out of the laminator you can cut and fold each piece into what ever shape you want. I created these cone shapes or varies sizes, colours and I experimented with transparency. These were to represent the wings of bees and wasps and to show that they are very fragile. After creating one cone, I made lots and eventually it developed into creating this structure. I have used wire again to place each cone onto and wire holds the shape very well. As I have made individual cones, it allows the design to take hold of alternative shapes in which you can move all of the cones to show it is not a 'fixed' design.

I think I have been successful is creating a design that is very visually appealing with using the limited resources I choose to work with. Thank you to Flora for modelling and editing the photos for me! This project was one of many many project I have done this year in my first year at art school, I collect my results on Friday so wish me luck!

Kaela x

Oh we do like to be beside the seaside

So not in a bikini or anything as don't exactly live in 30 degrees heat but this is what we can put up with and it was freezing! Still pretty nice though, this is a beach in Broughty Ferry outside Dundee in Scotland.

I bought this fun 'camera' bag for Flora from Asos as a Christmas present but I borrowed it for the day :) 

Love my aviator sunglasses, they reflect everything! Also like the cut out shoulder detail in this top along with the sequinned lightning bolt!

Picked up this cute ring in H&M two days ago for £1.99!

I've been wanting these tiger earrings from Topshop forever so when they finally went on sale I snapped them up straight away! They've got a pretty good jewellery sale on at the moment.

What I'm wearing:

Jacket: H&M

Top: Topshop

Shorts: Vintage Levi (Flora cut up Mum's old jeans!)

Boots: H&M

Handbag: Asos

Sunglass: Asos

Ring: H&M

Earrings: Topshop

Thank you for reading!

Kaela x

Pink on pink

 Had a pretty chilled out day today, dropped off my little brother at the cinema to see a film with friends then went shopping with Mum. Ooft forgot how blonde I am now! These pictures were taken at University of Stirling campus and its probably one of the nicest campuses in the UK. 

 Mother feeding the ducks!

 I'm wearing a blazer that I picked up the other day in H&M and I love the shade of pink which I think will go with a lot of outfits! Also wearing a slightly metallic cropped top I got in the sale in Topshop which is where the slightly high waisted jeans are from too. I looooove these jeans, just a nice pop of colour to brighten an outfit plus the weather was pretty dreary today so I needed to wear something to make me cheery. I'm wearing brogue wedges that I got in Zara and had my eye on these for agees but couldn't afford them so when they went on sale I snapped them up! I love them, always get compliments on these shoes!

 When I was shopping today, Topshop had a wee jewellery sale and thought that these earrings matched perfectly and I live the sort of dip dye/ombre effect, also had my eye on these earrings for ages! Will be wearing them all the time.

(Blazer: H&M, Top: Topshop, Jeans: Topshop, Watch: Emporio Armani, Shoes: Zara)

Love getting out the winter clothes now that its coming into Spring!

Kaela x

If you go out in the woods today, you're sure of a big surprise

 I couldn't believe my eyes..it was actually snowing after all that great weather we've had. That's unpredictable and typical UK weather for you. Even though it was freezing we found this spot to take pictures in which was beautiful! One day Flora decided to look at my Grandma's clothes which are all so lovely and picked out this vintage Burberry trench coat which I LOVE!!! She actually asked who's coat it was as she hadn't worn it in that long and let us keep it! This is a classic piece that will never date which has the signature Burberry pattern on the inside of the coat.  My footwear was not very appropriate for this weather as I was sinking into the ground, however its all in the name of fashion. They are a pair of very high, black, court, fringe heels from Miss KG by Kurt Geiger.

(Trench coat: Vintage Burberry, Shoes: Miss KG by Kurt Geiger)

Tribal War

As mentioned we are also going to show some of our own artwork as well as our fave outfits! I have just finished 1st year at art school in Dundee and it has been one amazing year. I'm hoping Flora will also come to art school in Dundee next year to join me! This was my end of semester project 'Reconstruct and Deconstruct,' so I decided I wanted to work with wood as it was a material I have never experimented with before. As you can see this piece has been inspired by African Tribes, so wood was the perfect material, other materials include bamboo canes, leather cord, wire and this other material that feels like potato sack material haha. 

The circles were drilled out of planks of wood that I managed to get my hands on and this was very fun as I get to work with big machinery in the wood workshop. I felt like such a girl in there as its full of lads haha. I also made different shapes with the wood such as half circles, squares and made a few wooden beads of my own. I bought the bamboo canes at 3ft long which I then chopped up into different sizes and drilled 2mm holes into every SINGLE bit!!! I thought I was going to go insane. 

The structure of the piece is all down to the wire which holds the shape very well. I was able to disguise this as I felt wire was not an appropriate visual aesthetic for this project. The wire also allows flexibility in the pieces to allow you to move and play with other shapes. I had used potato sack material and leather cording to disguise the wire that also gave thickness to the structuring. I have used yellow, blue and orange beads to give the piece that pop of colour that it needs. I feel these colours were appropriate to represent African Tribal jewellery. After cutting, drilling and sanding each circle disc I felt that the shade of it was far too light so I used linseed oil that I rubbed into the wood to give it a far more vibrant colouring to it. You can also see that I covered some of the circle discs in potatoe sack material (sorry will find the proper name for it) to give varies surface textures. Weight was also another important factor I had to consider, and through the development process I was concerned this would be too heavy for the wearer but it turns out it was the perfect weight!

You can see that the piece are made up of varies part all varying in different sizes. I did this in order to be able to layer up the different pieces to create one big statement piece. So that's me finished the General Foundation course that you complete in first year and I'm hoping to specialise in Jewellery & Metalwork Design as my main discipline for 2nd year :) I feel that I have been successful in this project and fingers crossed for my assessment results in April!

Kaela x