Tahlia Paige

Dinas rock is not far away from my home, I was able to go here last summer and collect photos for research for this module.

Dinas is the supposed hiding place of Welsh Folklore legend Twm Sion Cati, described as the Welsh Robin Hood. I have never made it all the way up to the cave before but managed to do this this time, and got to see the inside of it, covered in old lettering from many many visitors before me. These photos show a lot of different plants and leaves that I found along the journey.

I also took some videos, I thought this would be useful to help me have more of an idea of what an animal may experience, the sights and sounds of this forest area.

These videos do show the noises quite well, the river in the background mostly and the rustling of the leaves. It would have been quite cool to have a monitor showing my videos as a display with my end of degree show I think too.

Driving a little further away and finding these woodland, riverside walks were really nice, I found a lot of the type of research that I wanted to as well, rocks and riversides are very relevant to the woodland theme too as the two can go together very often.

The moodboards are an important part of the process as they should reflect the module and the work I am aiming to complete. For this module, I have done a theme board, a colour board, a customer profile and a competitors board.

The theme here shows the final four woodland creatures I decided on for focus in my collection, after a lot of research narrowing down the animals. I thought these four are reflective of what I want to achieve in this module, raising awareness through my designs and forming a start to what would be a much larger collection in the future, if I was to expand into other endangered or declining animal species. I live very rural in Mid Wales, hedgehogs are well-known in the garden and we are in the buffer zone for the Mid Wales Red Squirrel’s project, meaning greys are controlled in the area to keep them out of the safe Red Squirrel zone. I also see hares if I venture towards the mountains a little, with the restrictions at the minute I cannot go far, but I do go up that way looking for eggs instead of going to a shop. The Dormouse is the only one that I have not had a personal link to, although where I used to live, near Pontypridd, in recent years had a new bypass built through a countryside area, little bridges were built across the road, costing thousands. They are designed for Dormice to get about cross the new roads safely as they prefer to stay up in the trees anyway.

My theme board also represents the woodland area they live in, as well as some of the plants and things that inspired me. I think it’s important to include some of the habitat, the things they eat and the things they encounter on a daily basis as this could also educate what plants and things could help encourage them in your own garden.

The colour board is an idea of the colours I want to use, a lot of them will be more natural based on the colouring of the animals, which will be a range of browns, oranges and creams, as well as the greens and pinks inspired by leaves and berries. I thought the texture of the animals is interesting too, the hedgehog is totally different to the hare, and with the leaves, the texture of them as a collective is different to the texture of the veins on an individual one. These colours need to be experimented with in my drawing books, making sure the creatures can contrast with the rest of the motifs enough too.

The customer profile describes the idea of the person I am aiming this collection at, the idea is a young professional, around 30 – 35 years old and female, with a steady job, who enjoys the countryside and may be familiar with some of these creatures. The profile also describes an artistic person, working in a creative related job, who enjoys gardening and fitness in her spare time. I imagine my customer would have disposable income, so the types of products I want to produce would be something they would buy for themselves or as gifts for friends, as giftware and lifestyle is the category I would define my work as fitting into.

My competitors I have wrote in depth about in my research file, but by using a range of companies, from small home-run Etsy stores, to established companies with a store front, I found something in each that I wanted my designs to reflect too. Illustrate produces a range of styles and designs from a number of artists, most of which focus on animals, Etsy store Beverly Fisher Studios produces small products that I would like to design for too, and even has done some of the animals that I want to focus on, such as the red squirrel. Purrfectly Woofly is based on dogs, but I think the patterns work well, combining realistic colouring for the dogs and more contrasting bright colours around it, she also designs for exciting giftware products. Alice Caroline caught my eye because of bold patterns, she also produces a range of products, such as beauty and bathroom products, inspired by florals which I really like.

I was so excited for the final module of my whole three-year degree, the freedom and the ability to just work on this one project, for months on end. You could imagine my disappointment when I became ill for a few months, and fell behind in my other modules, so had to make the decision to go part-time, and complete this module next year instead.

Coronavirus changed everything, I was already well-adapted to working at home when everyone else began to, and I found I made a lot of progress in my Consultancy module, in terms of learning how to design well and getting things ready well before the deadline. After some phonecalls and chats, it was decided that I could return to my full-time status, with an extension to get my final module done.

This was in itself a tough decision too, next year I would have more access to the studios and equipment, I enjoy digital stitch and have not really had a chance to use it this year either due to illness. I would also be able to take part in the show next year. I thought about what I would do after I finished this year, I wanted to move in with my boyfriend ideally, but would need to commute when January came then, and find somewhere to stay a couple of nights a week to reduce my travel time. When I accepted this part-time status, the idea of a post-graduate degree completely left my mind, doing an extra yer again may put my life plans on hold for even longer, so I feel like now I could graduate, have some time to try and develop my own business and possibly do a postgraduate the year after.

I have encountered some problems working from home already, including my workspace, a fight with my mother over her puzzle table resulted in my own table, which does fill up very quickly if I am switching between laptop work and painting. I am finding gaps in my supplies too, missing a couple of thread colours is normal but for this module, I want a full range of naturals and browns, so I have had to order these, so ordered some more colour scheme colours as well and some embroidery backing, I do not like using newspaper.

On the plus side, lockdown means I cannot see my boyfriend, or friends, the weather has been nice which has meant my family is spending a lot more time outdoors so I get some quiet as well. There are a lot of hours in the day and I spend a lot of them working, but enjoying it as well and just stopping for a little walk in the garden or some food when I feel like it. My sleeping pattern has got a little later lately, I always phone my boyfriend at ten every night and usually go to bed after this but I do not sleep early, so I end up waking up in the late morning, I think working on this will give me more of a normal working day, with more sunlight!

I plan to do a post every Sunday night planning the next week ahead, for now, the next week or so will be researching into the theme of endangered species in the UK and doing general customer, competitor and product research too, as well as editing my self-set brief and creating moodboards.