What is Concepting With Craig Smallish

On lynda.com while watching the video, Craig Smallish talks about how to develop a project and come up with an original idea.

The Concept Building Processes are: Core Values, Free Association, Descriptives, Rough Sketches & Investigate Variation. Smallish also says that creating many ideas can help

Figuring out who your client is also makes you more likely to gain their trust. Smallish suggests giving a client brief to get the basic information about your client. Make sure to meet the client in person and even better at their own home, which can reflect their own personality.Basically anything where you can see body language Sketching notes can be helpful. Though provoking questions are key.Maybe ask them what their greatest achievement is or lessons they've learned and the best decisions they'v made. Remember this information should be the foundation but not the whole of your project.

Once you understand the basics of your client, ask yourself what solution you are attempting to provide to them. Smallish also suggests project briefs where you can really get a feel of what you're doing and meet in person like the client brief. Again notes & sketches will help.

Chalkboard Paint

link

I also like this idea, painting the lids with chalkboard paint and giving them labels, I have a friend who recently painted her room with chalkboard paint so maybe she would have some extra paint. 

Supersauce

Many people in the class are using super sauce, which is a liquid slime that transfers images on metal, wood and glass. Jordan and Lacey have transferred images on aged pieces of metal. Jordan's image on the metal was more effortless because she slowly pulled of the paper from the corner, Lacey's image teared a few times and where she had touched the paper there was a finger print, which I think is kind of cool. Stephanie also tried this process on wood and it worked out terrific. I also think that Brittany's idea was cool because she put an image on glass and it looked cool on both sides of the image.

Anthotypes in General

Two girls in my glass attempted to do anthotypes but both of the process just left behind a blank piece of paper unfortunately. Stephanie's process was supposed to stay in direct sunlight less than Taylor's (which I already mentioned) because she didn't use cabbage but it still didn't turn out the way it should have.

American Horror Story Jars

http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20121114182653/americanhorrorstory/images/f/f0/Opening_Credits_for_Season_1


Maybe you watched season 1 of American Horror Story and liked the eerie jars as much as I did which are shown above, which inspired me to put images on mason jars or any old jar that's around.

 So here's the final result that I found here. They put olive oil in the mason jar and I really like the look that it gives off. If I did this I would put olive oil in it and I also saw another site put old rose petals in the olive oil. I wouldn't be able to just put the image on the glass because as you can see on that picture, mason jars have letters and numbers on them that protrude from the glass. So making a sticker like Rosy's process wouldn't work for mason jars, but If I wanted to do  that then I would have to use any other jar, which I do have. So I'm pretty sure that this will be my final project.

Styles and Themes

I'm really interested in creepy photos that look old and spooky. I think one of the best inspirations for this theme would be the book "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children." The images are actual images that the author, Ransom Riggs, found and tied in with the story. All of the images are older and peculiar in some way. Here are a few from the back of the book.

 http://www.ransomriggs.com/storage/back.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1294441733489

Helpful Youtube Tutorials

I found a tutorial on youtube that can tell me how to get those images that have that nostalgic look to them, and almost look like an instagram picture. I really like this look, I'll probably link the video later because youtube is blocked here. I'm really glad that it shows me on photoshop too and I don't have to get any obscure program. It's actually quite simple too, with just a few steps. I found the link. Click here

Quilt Project

So we need to find alternative ways to print an image on fabric because we're making a class quilt, which personally, I think is really cute. Since the process I did used gel medium it wouldn't be a good candidate. (It makes the fabric a bit stiff.) Side note I put it in the washer and some of the image came off. Anyways, yesterday I borrowed a fabric transfer kit and I'm wondering how that would turn out. I also searched for a way to print images on fabric and I found a process that used a plain ol' inkjet printer, the only draw back is  that it has to be 8 1/2" x 11" which is probably going to be too big for an individual quilty section. Here's the link if you want to check it out. So that's what it looks like, actually I take it back. It could work but you would be wasting fabric, unless you printed like 4 at a time. Yeah that would probs work.

http://thegraphicsfairy.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/How-to-Print-on-Fabric-GraphicsFairy71.jpg

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Look a this photo! It's of an opossum. I think it's great, just wanted to share this. I really like peculiar old photos.

http://www.nicephotomag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/A-possum-and-a-movie-camera-1943.jpg

Taylor's Alternative Process

Taylor did Anthotypes for her alternative process and she used cabbages. You can use any vegetable as long as it is fermented. I don't really have a good sense of smell but apparently it smells horrible. I wouldn't use cabbages, but it did come out as a pretty purple color. The process seemed pretty simple and she taped it onto the window, because that's what you do.The directions are here if you want to try it out (Taylor used a canvas)

Alix's Alternative Process

Alix did cyanotype and her directions are here. The outcome in the class I believe didn't even come out because you need to use hot water and there might not have been enough light. You also have to mix chemicals and if you mix them, together they only last for about a few hours and try to avoid light, but she also said a tiny bit of light is okay. The longer that you keep the image under the glass also will result in a lighter hue of blue.

My Alternative Process

So as I said in an earlier blog post, I was going to transfer images to a T-shirt. If you want the directions they are here. So I realized that you need a lot of gel medium. Like a lot. So Mrs. Underwood suggested adding about 2-3 layers of gel medium, just like adding coats of paint to a wall. You apply it, let it dry then apply gel medium again. Make sure you get the edges and don't put any gel medium on the opposite side of the image. Also instead of just spraying water, soak the whole T-shirt in water, this helps peel off the paper. I think that avoiding very glossy paper might give you better results and I've found that newspaper seemed to work the best. I also used some very old newspaper about 50+ years old and I wouldn't suggest that because the paper is very hard to take off. Next I'm going to see how well it works in the dryer, hope this helps.

Rosie's Alternative Process

What Rosie tried to do was print a black and white image on glass, but unfortunately it didn't turn out the way she wanted. To do this you need contact paper and you stick the contact paper onto the image. Next you soak it, both the contact paper and the image when they are stuck together. So then you rub off the paper then let it dry. Once dry it should be sticky again, then you stick it on the glass. So you've basically made a sticker. What Rosie did next kind of was when the project went downhill. She smashed it with about 3x, which you should probably only do once. Then Mrs. Underwood put on some India Ink, but it turned out that she applied too much India Ink and most of the image was turned black. So that was the main problem.

Tessa's Alternative Process

Tessa used a similar process to mine except she used mod podge instead of polymer which I'm using for mine. She transferred the image on a small canvas. First she took newpaper and coated it with mod podge on the canvas, along with adding some stamps from her stamp collection. When the mod podge dried clearly, she had another image of an old world map and applied mod podge to the side of the image with laser ink on it. She stuck it face down in the center and again, when it dried she took the paper off by spraying it with water and using circular finger motions to rub the paper off. DON'T PEEL, that could pull the ink off. I'll add a link to Tessa's blog HERE. She also added the process on her blog so you can check that out, because you can literally do this on anything. Conclusion: Mod Podge is awesome.