My final samples

                            

 Latex samples. These represent the agar plate and the area on which mould grows. I added paint and cotton wool to these as they were drying to create more texture and to show the idea of organisms growing onto a medium.
 Cotton wool samples. I made a lot of these near the end of the project because I had simply rolled them in water and paint so they were easy and quick to make. This was useful because we needed to bulk up the amount of samples towards the end. I also embroidered into them which I love, but they were time consuming and the camera didn't pick up the detail ayway.

 Crocheted circle samples. These were used to bulk up the amount of samples by the end because they were small and quick to make. These are just a few of them, I made about one hundred in all.

 Crocheted and french knot samples. I loved making these because they were a different technique and showed skill, and aso linked in with the slow in beautiful theme thrugh the slow hand processes used.

 Cotton wool buds and paint. These were good as they tied in the surgical and sterile element of our ideas and the idea of adding paint represented the contaminating of Gavin's lab in Microbiology with our mould growths.

A quick overall image of all the samples I managed to make in the time. I feel as though I made a lot of the samples when others maybe didn't feel it as important to make as many. I  am glad I did though because the overall film really benefitted from a substantial amount of samples to play with.

Image through the Microscope

I like the way there is a dark circle around the image. This could work well in the film to suggest an agar plate.

Sketchbook work

 Sketchbook page. I  used cotton wool buds to paint with. It created a really interesting texture and the colours mixed really well.

 Adding water and paint to cotton wool. I like how the paint is such a stronger colour on the wispy edges.

 Page out of sketchbook. I made small drawings next to the large one like looking through a microscope. This represents well my vision for all the groups made samples put together. I'm excited to see how they will look.

Slime Mould Farming Article

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-01/20/slime-mould-smallest-farmers

I love the idea of mould having a mind of it's own. Of course it is a living think, but I love the idea of it having a life and a 'job' almost to feed itself.

This could influence the way we show mould moving on the body.

Seeing the Mould Cultures

So a week on, we have gone back and looked at the mould cultures we collected from different places and photographed them, and seen them under microscopes.

 This one is the most different because it is like a fuzz across the agar instead of a 3D shape and it links in witht the textures I used previously. Also the colour is beautiful.

 These two plates bring in new colous witht the dark green and the peach orange, and mustard yellow. These could be a good contrast and something to set off the powdery blues.

 Using the mould as a filter where you can see Manchester behind. This could be a way of linking the city with the project.

 We can now start using the colours we have from tht mould to inform our colour palettes, thankfully my colours already linked in with the moulds, especially the one above. There so many otherexciting colours we can add though! I love this luid green just oozing out of te top of this culture.

These are going to encourage me to start working more 3D. I don't want to just recreate the mould I can see though, so I am planning on drawing very frrly with the shape, texture and colour as inspiration. I want to create small scale on a big scale, really detailed. We are planning to draw collaboratively from the images on friday but I would like to start some of my own before hand.

I need to star making a colour palette with thread and gouache!

Drawing French Knots

I also wanted to draw the french knot samples before moving on with the making.

I painted in a very similar way to before with the mould, and then added details of the stitches in afterwards with fineliner. I really love working in this way.

Drawing the making

After working very loose and drawing very freely and expressively I decided to control my drawing and produce some pencil drawn detailed images.

These were really fun to do because it was my opportunity to create something realistic and I gave myself time that I would not normally give to draw one piece and really capture the shape and shadows.

These were then loosened up a bit to add colour and movement. I like drawing with pen and then adding colour loosely over the top; mixing the paint on the paper and I would like to do this more, on a larger scale.

Drawings of mould

Visiting Gavin really inspired me to work more on my project, but I still had none of my own visual research so I carried on using the textures and blue for inspiration to create more abstract drawings that would inspire my making.

The colous I ended up using are far nicer than the ones I had used before. I love how deep they are. They are meant to be, not just a tentative afterthought. Laying down a thick water colour, then adding water after in splats creates a beautiful looking texture and reflects well the idea of a mould and it growing outwards.

Visiting Microbiology

Before the tutorial on Monday we went to see a PHD student Gavin Bingley in the Microbiology department to discuss whether we could grow our own moulds so that we could use our own images to draw from and get inspiration from.

This is an image of us in Gavin's room collecting our Agar plates.
We then took these and left them in different places for an hour so collect germs and bacteria, then we took them back to be incubated so as to grow mould we could work from ourselves.

I loved doing this. It was so interesting going to a department I hadn't been to before. It was so clinical and clean and white and we had to sterilise our hands and wear lab coats. I love that we have collaborated with a different department and have actually sought out the help we needed ourselves.

Drawings of mould inspired by photo

 From the starting point of that last image of the powdery blue mould, I started drawing the textures and shapes I liked out of it. I found the fluffy and soft aspect interesting, and also this sort of jelly bean shape. The colours were also fun to experiment with, I added a lot more green tones then I could see in the images because they lifted the image.

This image is interesting because I dropped a large quantity of ink onto the paper and then added water and from looking at the photos I have taken of moud the shape fits in really well.

 Here were my forst attempts at adding 3D into the drawings, actually creating a texture out of toilet roll which would also soak up colour amazingly.

This last image shows how I have treid to link the drawings back to my original ones using the spiral element which I feel adds a large part of the movement to the image.

First Mould Drawing From Images

First drawings of microscopic mould found from the internet. At this point we still didn't have our own photos so they had to do to just start making and drawing and getting some ideas of what we want to do next.

This image at the bottom inspired me the most because of the unusual texture, sort of fluffy. Also the colours were so disticnt. This powdery blue which faded into white. The 3D element was also really interesting, and something i would like st start looking at in more detail.

Lichen, living and growing mould

These images are my starting points of looking at the movemet and textures of lichen and other mould like organisms that are vital for life. I love the amount of different coulurs and textures which can be found in one thing.

These lichens have such similar shapes to mould cultures and show how so many living things in nature reflect this same shape of growing.

This looks like it could be an agar plate, however it is the lichen growing on a grave stone. It is interesting to see the connections between the two.

Beautiful texture I could reflect in drawing and making because it is so small but so detailed and full of beautiful light and shadows. Almost like an elaborate outfit with frills and lace!

First Mould Drawings

 These are the intitial drawings of mould. I liked the idea a spiral demonstrating the direction of mould and being like a force spreading outwards. I also incorporated this idea into my next drawings where I had drawn something more literal. Also the colours are typical mould because we do not have our own images to work from yet to finalise a colour palette from.