I am currently studying at my final year of a BA (Hons) Textiles and Surface
Design degree. I am a surface designer and my specialist area is gift design, I
could spend hours in a shop searching through cards, wraps and tags.
My work
is all about colour, I feel colour is my strength. I love using bright and
vibrant colours in my work and I feel this is how I define myself and my work.
My colour palette tends to include oranges, yellows, blues, greens, purples and
reds. I have a quirky drawing style which I feel links in well with the colour
schemes which I tend to use and adds a unique touch to my work. As my colour
palette is so bright and my drawing has a naïve touch to it they link well as
the colours bring out the unusual characteristics of my drawings. Although my
drawings may not always represent the item, person or animal I am drawing in a
realistic way but I feel this is my take on how they look. As I am nearing the
end of my university course I am focusing on developing my style and working
very hard to develop my products.
My Final Major Project is all about
‘Crowd’ I have chosen to look at this in a very abstract way meaning I have
looked at shapes and objects rather than crowds of people, my colour palette is
very bright which links in well with my trend. Although I tend to specialise in
gift design for wraps, cards and tags I have decided to do something a bit out
of my comfort zone and make a rug! My rug is going to be made with wools and
will portray my final design. I am also making cushion designs and packaging to
go with my rug to show how it can be used in a room setting.
I have two
blogs but use my tumblr one more, they are: http://abbierussell.tumblr.com/http://abbie-russell.blogspot.co.uk/I also have a
facebook page:www.facebook.com/AbbieRussellTextileDesign
My work is very illustrative and centres
around naïve, quirky drawings and has a loose, childlike quality it. I like my
work to have a handmade element so I frequently bring in parts of screen print
and stitch.
The inspirations for my work mainly come from people’s everyday
behaviours and the objects around us.
My work varies from project to project
and I try to stay open to change by not restricting myself in designing for one
particular specialism.
The theme of my final major project is based around
the film Amélie. The film is about a girl named Amélie, who lives her life in a
dream like world, imagining a life filled with love and kindness. After
discovering a hidden box filled with childhood memories she finds and returns it
to the rightful owner and promises to herself to carry on bringing happiness to
others.
One of the most interesting parts to the film are the constant
obsessions that run throughout. All of the characters have obsessions of their
own and simple everyday things that make them happy.
My observation from
this is that the characters start to become defined by their own little quirks
and obsessions which is concept that I will be taking forward into my work. I
will begin looking into how people would define themselves if they had to do it
purely by object or the simple pleasures that they find in life and develop my
project from there.
