Sketchbook Review

I have been talking about doing a sketchbook review for a while so here it is!!

I have scanned a few pages in from my sketchbook and I will explain what I have done on the page what I think has worked, what I like and dislike and how I could have improved!

I started my FMP on Tuesday 12th March as the day before I was so ill and did not feel well so I just rested for the day. On the Tuesday I was still not 100% therefore I decided that I would do some secondary research and watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age and draw from the film.

This is the first page in my sketchbook. I have created a fabric swatch drawing of the detail that was in the dress that I had drawn as I did not want to ruin a lovely continuous line drawing. I will admit it and say now that I DID pause the film so that I could see what it was and what angle I wanted to draw from. I have also along the bottom which you can not clearly see quoted part of the film from this scene that I found interesting/important and wanted to make a note of. The colour on this page has been created simply by using watercolours.

This again is a continuous line drawing from the film. I have mainly concentrated on the colour blue as it was a main feature in that scene. I feel as though there might be something missing from this page and unfortunately it is not the whole of the double spread as it would not fit on my scanner so I am sorry about that! I think I should have possibly added some form of text or a background or something else as it feels as though she is floating on the page and to me it feels slightly boring. 

 

This is one of my favourite pages that I have created! I have used this image in my CAD mood boards which I posted about, if you have not seen that post then <Click Here>. I think that the yellow is really bright and vibrant and I just really like the way that I have set everything out on this page and the pattern which is on the left of the page was an over head shot in the film that I really liked. This page really pops out and is very much a stand alone page. Although there is a lot of information on my page, I think that it is nicely set out my the use of the yellow shade. Queen Elizabeth is in painted in a brighter harsher yellow and the pattern is placed on a more washed out yellow. This is purely due to the fact that my paint brush was not large enough to fill the page the way that it should have and it leaves this nice wash out/ streaky background.

This page is also another image that I used for my CAD mood boards. I decided that this page was right for my 'Ice Royal' colour scheme spread as it is all blue and white with slight colour. I really like the way that the ink has run in this image and how the lines look soft but with shading.

*This technique is really simple but effective, to do this you will need an inky ball point pen, a paint brush and pot of water. Firstly draw you image like you would any other, using a wet paint brush with ONLY water (be generous) you paint along the lines. Quickly after doing this you get your pen and draw over the line below, the ink will then blend with the water but still show your line below. Repeat this until you are happy with the way it looks. I will also put up a demonstration tomorrow :)*

I really like the layering of this page. This page originally only had the smaller drawing on it, however I felt that there was something missing and later on in the film Queen Elizabeth was wearing another blue garment so i made it seem as though this was the main feature image and added more violet and blue into the water colouring.

On Wednesday 13th March I went to London with my friend which I have previously posted about, <Click here to go to that page> While I was there I took advantage of all the primary research that was around me. I loved that day although it was rather hectic and I had to take my medicine with me... BOOOOOO!

These pages are a lot quieter then the ones above from the film that I watched, however I have not used a lot of watercolour and I have concentrated on just line, tonal, dotty drawings. I tried to incorporate all the skills that we learnt in the first term of this course.

This is all that I am going to show for now as I do not want to bore you and I have missed a few pages out so I shall try and get that done for tomorrow.

So either Good Morning, Good Afternoon or like me Good Night 

Melanie Katelin

xo

Blog Lovin'

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Shoes Shoes Shoes!!

Okay now I have a serious love for shoes, I LOVE THEM more than any other item of clothing, I love how shoes can simply change the way that you are feeling and how they can make you the most confident person in the world by just placing them onto your feet. 

Even more importantly, Shoes are the main referance in films, No matter what you always notice peoples feet. In Cinderella she looses her shoes, there is obviously the film In Her Shoes which has the most amazing closet full of shoes! DREAM! Then lets not forget Gossip Girl, now some of the shoes in that TV show are AMAZING!! There is The Women where the whole of the opening credit ONLY shows SHOES! The Devil Wear Parada, Do I need to go on?

SHOES SHOES SHOES SHOES!!

unfortunately you only have one pair of feet but hey you have a WHOLE life time and that's a WHOLE lot of days!!

So anyways I was just having a little read of the news and I just saw these shoes, I haven't even read the story yet but WOW WOW WOW!! BEAUTIFUL! Oh and they are they are the WORLDS MOST expensive shoes.

Just look at them though! 

These Stunning shoes cost a whopping £276,000! WHAT! CRAZY! But its understandable. This single pair of shoes took Kathryn Wilson over 50 hours to create and thats just over two days WITHOUT sleep! But if she made them from 9-5 it would have taken her over 6 days!

As you can see in the image above she had to attatch each diamond by hand and the end result is so breathtaking that you don't know what to say! I'm pretty sure that at some point during this project she was probably like why on earth did I even consider doing thing?! This is purely due to the fact that this is exactly what I say to myself when I decided to do a project that your then getting ready to cry over! But look at that end result, that dedication DEFINATELY paid off and they are AMAZING!!

They look like a Cinderella shoe, I know that her's were made of glass, but I'm pretty sure that diamonds attatched to some really nice shoes to made them even nicer comes TOTALLY close!! Their are Swirls of Diamonds, Lace, Beads I'm quite sure that EVERYTHING white and shiny and beautiful imaginable is on this shoe!!

And to continue with the Cinderella Shoes, I give you the one and only Christian Louboutin...

And how beautiful are these?! WOW, just WOW!! And I mean being able to see the red sole just makes it that much more magical. Look at the way that they sparkle, I'm pretty sure that they come as close as they can to Cinderella slippers I mean even Disney created an advert with one of his creations.

Oh and if that is not enough then why not feast your eyes on these Solid Gold and Diamond badboys!!

These spectacular heels were create by Christopher Michael Shellis and I think that they speak for them selves

So Goodbye and thank you for reading

Melanie Katelin
xo

 

EASTER!!

Woooo its finally Easter!! I'm so excited even though I do only get one week off!! Today I was woken up at 7.15 by my mum because she wanted me and my brother to come and watch the Iron Giant hehe. So now we have a day of chilling out and TV planned! We are currently watching The Polar Bear 2 purely because I am COOOL! hehe Later were watching Bugsy Malone and we might go for a nice walk around the lake which is a nice idea or go to the gym! :)

I am currently STUFFING my face with the summer fruits crumble that I baked yesterday which is so so so yummy! I'm also writing on my blog obviously!!!

I have just had a sneaky little peak at the River Island and I have brought a nice holdall for Uni which is rather practical and I have brought a lovely pair or pink boots.

Images courtesy of River Island

Both in the sale and both really beautiful! I am really into boots, I tend to have at least one pair a year and I currently have a pair of Carvela wedge lace up boots in brown leather which are pretty ruined :( But I love them and they are my most treasured shoes and I have worn them literally every day throughout winter! And to add to this they were only £19!! SALES BABY! they were supposed to be £160 and they were two seasons out dated but beautiful and NECESSARY and I LOVE LOVE LOVE THEM!! Before you ask why I got such a good bargain I need to point out that my feet are a size 3 so I'm pretty lucky in the shoe department especially in the SALES which is literally the only time I buy shoes. Last month I brought 4 pairs of sandals for £40, around £10 each, BARGAIN! 

However the boots above are in ALL sizes and only £17! 

OH, OH and not to forget, I have started reading Beautiful Darkness, therefore expect a book review SOON!!

OH I DO LOVE THE HOLIDAYS!!

CAD - Last Day - Outcomes

I have really enjoyed doing this course! If your at all interested in fashion, graphics or just like computers then it is something to look into. I have decided to do this course purely for the fashion side of things and to improve my portfolio, however, it just so happened to land perfectly with my FMP and now I have some professional looking designs to take back to college with me and I have the knowledge and skills to get by if I want to create any more styles or colour schemes. Actually pretty much anything!

My tutor for this course was Erica Godfrey and she has been such a wonderful tutor. She really knew what she was talking about and she made it so easy to understand what it was that you were about to go and do or what you should have done. Erica really showed me some cool tricks to do on Illustrator and Photoshop and I have had such a great time and she is so talented int what she does it's crazy! And if you click HERE you can go to her website!! OMG, OMG, OMG its so EXCITING!

This was created by Melanie Katelin, Please do not take credit for my work. Thank you

This is the first mood board that I created was for my colour scheme 'Revenge' which is Gold, Black and Red. I have scanned images in from my sketchbook and used them as you can see with the yellow illustrations that are slightly dimmed. These images do have effects on them which were created on Adobe Illustrator with Live Trace on CS6 and I used the 6 colour effect.

On this board I also have all my illustrations which clearly show the front and the back as well as the stitches and seam lines. I have put a brief description and I have created colour blocks which are shown along the bottom of the page.

I also did a Blue, Sliver and White board that goes with my colour scheme which is called 'Ice Royal'. I have tried to use a different lay out for this board to make it more interesting and to make it seem as though it is of a different design.

This was created by Melanie Katelin, Please do not take credit for my work. Thank you.

All that I have done with this board is change the layout completely. I have made half of the page an image and on the other half shown my ideas with a small description. Again with this mood board I have used my own illustration from my sketchbook which was simply scanned in and then I have edited my image on Adobe Illustrator and put my colour scheme circles along the edge of the page.

I think that both boards are slightly different in layout and style and I have worked with all my components that I had to work with. Please feel free to use my examples as inspiration or as a guide but do not claim this as your own as I have dedicated a lot of time to this project and to my CAD course. Also if you want more inspiration visit http://www.coroflot.com/people#keyword=fashion I found so may inspiring boards that have helped me create the two above which I am so proud of!

Let me know what you think and if you have made any boards please leave a link so I can see your amazing work :)

Melanie Katelin

xo

CAD - Day 3

Yesterday, I made my Blouse (front and back) and I finished off my FMP shorts which took a long long time and when I went home I started making a dress. I am currently finishing of that dress and this afternoon I will be making my mood boards which I will post on! And I will go into detail about everything I have learnt this week.

xo

Mary Queen of Scots inspo... Hells yeahhh!

Chanel Pre-Fall 2013

So the other day at college, one of my friends found an article in i-D magazine and she said it reminded her of my project, so she printed it and she could not have been more right!!

Karl Karl Karl, why are you just so magnificent?

So in typical Lagerfeld style and of course Chanel style, the house seriously went hard on this collection and location and boy did they not fail to impress! 

So the show was just casually held at Linlithgow Palace, Scotland which was the birthplace and home to Mary Queen of Scots until her cousin once removed or something along those lines Queen Elizabeth I executed her due to treason and plotting against the Queen. So this Castle has so much history behind it, it has a story of sorrow and cruelty. It is also the place in which Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel spent precious moments with her lover the Duke of Westminster, so this Palace holds so much rich history for the Chanel brand. Oh and not to mention Lagerfeld also had the weather listening to him as to make this night even more magical and sorrowful with remembrance as well as joy for a beautiful collection the sky almost cried away beautiful delicate snowflakes that kissed it's guests as they arrived for the show.

Now the collection, what can I say just like Chanel herself it showed elegance but yet a slightly boyish spin on every item in the collection which showed rich, soft and beautiful Scottish Cashmere from The Barrie Knitwear Company, and let’s not forget that their of course was the most amazing and exquisite embellishment on most of the garments.

Here are some of my favourite pieces from the collection:

Some of the key elements that I find so inspiring about this collection are for example the 'Bows', how much detailing do they have alone?! I mean you may think bows are simple but realistically and to get them to hold like that, it is not so easy and it reminds me so much of the Fashion bow from the V&A which I wrote about on a previous post. I also love how they all have a jewel inside, it is beautiful.

Also have you noticed how all the models are in flats? I read somewhere that apparently, Lagerfeld did not feel as though it was right for the models to be strutting around in stilettos in such a historical place like Linlithgow Palace and decided to make his collection all in flats... That shows so much respect for the historical building and the history. 

I also love all the ruffs and gathers and puffiness that is in all of the garments, they look so historical yet modern and contemporary which is something that I am aiming to achieve with my FMP collection so thank you so much for this inspiration Mr Lagerfeld!  

 

 

 

CAD - Day 2

Ooooo Look at what I have just done!!! Looks so professional don't you think?

I'm having so much fun doing CAD!

CAD - day 1 outcome

So these are the shorts that I made yesterday that I was telling you about.

I'm so pleased with the outcome and today I will be starting on my FMP and making my designs into CAD format which I will write all about later.

Melanie Katelin

xo

Boooo Hooooo!!

Boo Hoo Hoo Hoo :'(

I am so upset right now, I have not had the chance to read any books (that are not factual or picture books) since the start of my FMP I have just been so busy! The worst thing is that I have the second book for beautiful creatures waiting for me upstairs in my book case but I haven't managed to find the time or brain space to start it! My aim for my one week of Easter break is to start and finish this book! I adored the first and I know I will the second its just needing the time!

I also have not even finished my 6 Gossip Girl box sets and I'm still stuck on Season 5 Disc 2 which means I am going NO WHERE! However, I have watched the whole of Season 1 of Game of Thrones which is absolutely fantastic and why have I only just started watching it?! Am I CRAZY?! So this Easter I am going to completely STUFF my face with chocolate in bed with a good book/TV show/laptop/ depressingly Sketchbook :'( But This is the MOST important part of my LIFE right now! with out these grades, I AM NOT GOING TO UNI!! SO I need to STOP with my moaning and pull my finger out and great the BEST collection that I could ever imagine!!

I will keep you updated on everything and hopefully there will be a review of a book on here soon!!!

Company #Style Blogger Awards 2013

www.company.co.uk/stylebloggerawards2013

Hey Guys,

I have decided to have a go and enter The Company Magazine #Style Blogger Awards 2013 for Best Fashion Newcomer.

Please Vote for me :)

I've entered as I saw it the other day when I was reading the magazine and I thought why not? Whats too lose?

Thanks
Melanie Katelin
xo

Somebody save Meeee!!

OH MY DAYS!!!!! I have been downloading Adobe Illustratior since 18.30... its now 9 o'clock!!!
 And im telling you that the bar has NOT even MOVED!!!

Well there was my idea of having a little mess around with CAD a little more before tomorrow out of the window... ME and my not so BRIGHT ideas ay!!!!

So now I have time I have decided that it is time to catch up with my blogging while I sit and WAITTTTT!

Someone please please please SAVE ME :(

Life is CRUEL!!

CAD - Day 1

Today has been my first day learning how to use CAD for fashion. I am doing a short course at Nottingham Trent University as I feel that this is a skill that is worth knowing and I know that it will help me when I am at University. (CAN NOT WAIT NOW!!)

So today we were working on Adobe Illustrator which I have managed to get along with and I have had so much fun! I really really love doing this and tomorrow I am going to be creating designs for my FMP so wooooo! This is so relevant and hopefully it will also help with my grade.

Today we were just getting used to the basics so - Pen Tool  (TOTES my new bf! it just gets me ;) hehe )
We also changed the lines to show Top Stitch, Twin Needle Stitching and Seam joints, I also added in fabric creasing to make it seem more realistic. Unfortunatly I do not have my copy of what I have done today on me so when I get into the Uni tomorrow I shall try to upload what it is that I am currently doing. BTW I CADed (made up word) some High Waisted Shorts which I am rather proud of!!!

Have you done/do CAD? Tell me of your expreience!!

Melanie Katelin
xo

Chatsworth House Trip

Ok this is real late! On Thursday 21st March, I travelled to Chatsworth House with my friend from college so that we could get some primary research for our FMP. Now I have been here before but I was a lot younger and I couldn't quite remember it. But WOW!! I think that this trip was the best that I have done!!

It took us 3-4 hours to get around the whole house as we took so long drawing and taking pictures and just simply looking around but I have NEVER seen so much gold on one building apart from Buckingham Palace but that is the Queen's home!!!

We went through the main entrance and into the hall with the staircase which was just breath taking!! I spent a good 40mins drawing just the golden stair case. The amount of detail on it and the carpet that leads up to another staircase is ridiculously beautiful! I loved it and the whole room was one big mural! and the celling! just WOW! Also just to add note my sketchbook page from this room was AMAZING, best one of the day and I will another day do a sketchbook review.

<<<  To the left is the detailing of the golden staircase, I loved the swirls on each motif that ran along the stairs. I think that when you see detailing up so close, pictures can not do it justice especially not with this house! If you look closely at my picture, you will be able to make out the leaves that are coming off of the swirls and you can not notice how thick it is! 

>>>  To the right their is an image of the whole of the staircase and you can almost see what I mean about the detailing of the carpet. It was so thick and the colours were so vivid. Also in this image you can see how much gold their really is!!

After this room, we entered the drawing room I believe which was covered entirely of gold! It was EVERYWHERE. It had two silk covered thrones, two marble tables, lots of paintings and a really cool door with a painting of a violin on a door which looked like another door and I am going to have to put a picture up otherwise I can not explain my self! 

In this picture unfortunately you can not see it quite as clearly and it certainly does not do that door/painting justice. I didn't even realise that it wasn't real it was so good! it does just look like there is a violin casually hanging there!

Also from this picture you can tell what I mean by it is a golden room! The whole room is like this, gold everywhere you look it is pretty incredible.

Adjacent to this room is the King's Quarters I believe it was called, and this room was so rice in red and gold and blue. I also found out some rather cool facts about this room which I shall tell you all about. In this room I mainly concentrated on looking at colour and pattern.

This picture is not to the best quality, but this is because the room was so dark as they were not allowed to have the curtains open as this room is so old and precious that the sun would damage everything inside.

*Cool Facts*

 - The Duke paid £100 for a china vase which would have been filled with tulips to to remove any bad odours. Also this was in the days when £1 was your annual wage!!

- The Duke was NOT allowed to stay in this room as he was not from a high enough class and only the King was allowed in this room.

- King Richard did NOT like this room and the second time he came to visit, he asked to be moved room.

- As the Duchess of Devonshire (I am unsure which one) was the lady in waiting for a Queen, when she died, she took the Queens dressing table with her.

We also saw one of the most iconic painting of Georgina the Duchess of Devonshire and may others, but I was mainly interested in Georgina as I watched The Duchess the other night and I loved it and then I had to Google her (good old Mr Google knowing EVERYTHING! What would my life be with out him?!) and I fell in love with the story and I have found out that their is a biography about her which I have to go and buy!!

....ANYWAYS.... Did you know, that this was only one of many homes for the 5th Duke and Duchess of Devonshire? Although I was told that they visited Chatsworth often. 

Also which is pretty awesome is the fact that the current Duke and Duchess of Devonshire allow the public to look into their private quarter and into their rather impressive library which I would die to spend just a few hours in! The books are so old and I bet they have so may secrets would be quite fun to read even if I wouldn't be able to understand their English/writing! Also the Duke is often seen as he regularly holds meetings in his library and he sometimes goes for a casual chat with people.

Now this was probably my favourite room purely due to the bath in the room, I mean this is where the terms En-Suite began! 

I love how its casually chilling in the wardrobe! could you imagine,

"Darling I'm just jumping into our wardrobe, don't mind me, I'm feeling like a dip in our rather modern bath!"

hahahahahaha

I LOVE IT! haha plus all the trimmings on the door are of gold and their is a mirror chilling in and out of the doors so you can have a little peak at how clean you look, oooo Darling hehe

*FACT MOMENT*

Did you know that the reason the bath is put inside the wardrobe is due to the fact that they did not find it proper for their washing area to be on display. 

Oh what I would do to live in those eras for just a month, not being greedy although I would like to have experienced it as a Duchess or Queen.

So this is the fun adventures that I underwent in Chatsworth House.

Do go its amazing fun although I must admit it is much more fun with your friend and sketchbook because due to the fact that you have to analysis it sooooo much you end up making really random stories and imagining the people who once lived there. Well my friend and I did anyway hehe

And for the Grand Finale, Chatsworth House

P.S. HELLO PINK VASE!!!! This was probably the highlight of my trip as Pink is my favourite colour in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD and look and that vase! Beautiful, Stunning, Spectacular!!

Cinema :)

This weekend has been SO much FUN!!

I went to the cinema on Saturday to watch Wreck It Ralph with my mother and brother and I must admit that I loved it more than a 5 year old and I really really want to watch it again. This film has such a beautiful message behind it that tells you that you can only be the best version of yourself and that being you is perfectly fine no matter whether your the bad guy or not!

I think that this animation is fun, funny and fabulous! (what can I say I do love a little bit of alliteration! hehe)

I'd go for sure whether you have a brother or not and hey if your embarrassed to go by yourself borrow a little brother or sister for a few hours! They will love it, you will love it and the parents will love you!

I have also just arrived from the cinema after going to watch Oz the Great and Powerful, which was just fun all round although slightly sad at parts. The special effects on this film is ridiculously amazing, if their were plants made out of emeralds and rubies I would LOVE to say hi!! and I would love to rid in a big bubble, that would be pretty amazing!!

I found it quite sad the way that Theodora (Mila Kunis) became the green evil witch as she only wanted peace and for everyone in Oz to live in harmony, however her evil sister made the dark side of her stronger than the light and she eventually gave in, so sad!

And in the end Oz found his true calling and stopped being selfish and helped other people for once!

SUCH good films go and watch them, I loved them and maybe you will too

Hope you've had a good weekend too,
Love
Melanie xoxo

This Week: FMP

Wednesday 6th March ( I know its not this week!)

I went into college today to decide what I will do as my Final Major Project Topic. I sat with my tutor and unfortunately it was not easy to decide which was best suited for me, therefore I did more research and decided that I would be able to find more resources and information about the Tudors and that I would more than likely prefer this topic idea. When I was younger I loved loved loved Queen Elizabeth 1 and the stories of Henry VIII and his six wives, so in a way it is really fun and exciting to bring my childhood memories into this project.

Monday 11th March

So so so ill! I spent today just sleeping and got nothing done at all! Such a shame.

Tuesday 12th March

I went into college for 1 hour to speak to my tutor and then came home and drew from Elizabeth: The Golden Age. I managed to get a lot of information from this film and some really nice sketchbook pages that I have taken a lot of time over (I was told to slow down and take more care!) and I believe that it has really paid off.

Wednesday 13th March

I went to London today with my friend Megan, it was really fun and we found a lot of primary research with is AMAZING!!

We went to the Victoria and Albert Museum where we went to see the Treasures of the Royal Courts exhibition which I found rather disappointing and although this is mainly due to the fact that I was not allowed to spend time in the room and draw from the exhibition and also because I had personally thought that there were going to be crowns and jewels, however I did see Henry VIII's Armour which was pretty cool! (boy was he fat by the way! and short, haha).

After the exhibition we went to the Fashion area of the museum which was so much fun we spent 2 hours in about a quarter of the room! hahaha so bad but the garments were beautiful! There was one which I loved from 1755-60 which was the Court Mantua (imaged below) which was so beautiful and detailed and I think I spent a whole hour just studying this garment!

I also really liked the menswear from around about 1790 and their bows! LOVED THE BOWS!  (pictured below)

Afterwards we went to the Natural History Museum across the road and saw the dinosaurs purely for fun and went to see all the stuffed animals which was research before heading over to Somerset House.

Now I was really disappointed by Somerset House when I read the website it has a whole section called 'The Tudor Palace' which I read and found out that Princess Elizabeth 1 lived there when she was younger and I assumed that the would be rooms set up in that sort of style. I got told that there were two but you had to book to see them! :( But on the plus side there was a Wool House Exhibition which was fantastic and really interesting! Loved all the rooms and the colab with Alexander McQueen for a beautiful wall hanging!

18th Century Fashion V&A

18th Century Fashion V&A

Thursday 14th March

I drew from Elizabeth: The Golden Age (finished the film off) and The Other Boleyn Girl.

Friday 15th March

I was going to go to Wollaton Hall, however my tutor said it would be nice if I did some secondary research. So I went to the library got loads of magazines and Tudor fashion and history books which are at home right now!! I also did a few sketchbook pages and came up with the title for my FMP (what do you think)

Divorced Beheaded Died Divorced Beheaded Survived

Simple and rather long but it rhymes and I think is quite catchy and it just fits in with the whole era.