Influences

Ellie Saab

   

   

   

The Ellie Saab Spring/Summer 2012 collection really appealed to me during London fashion week. The pastel palette of colours used, delicate chiffon materials, flower ruffles and embellishments really captures the current season of Spring for me.

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Pantone Colour Report Spring 2012

Colour has a huge impact on my work, from initial research to the finished result. This is the Colour forecast for Spring/Summer 2012. It follows a fresh, pastel trend with bursts of bright colours.

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Leila Menchari

 
 

Leila Menchari is a window designer for the fashion house, Hermes. Her displays are admired world wide and are a huge inspiration for me. I like her use of different materials and props she has collected on her travels, but also the way she doesn't use the shop products in her displays, instead creating a beautiful and inspiring scene to inspire the customers and people passing by.

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Jade Peglar

 

Jade Peglar works predominately with paper, wax, textiles and organic materials. Her processes of folding, binding and squashing have really inspired me and I have begun to research paper-folding and origami.

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Vincent Floderer

Origami/Crumpling artist.

I a really interested by the natural and organic shapes he makes from simple and everyday materials.

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Valérie Buess

wild lace

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amazonenhelm

Another artist working with paper to create natural shapes and textures.

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Peter Gentenaar

 

  

Gentenaar works with still wet hand-made paper and moulds it around bamboo sticks-resembling leaf structures, to create his large sculptures. I particularly like the ones that are suspended as they remind me of fallen leaves.

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Field of Light

 

The Field of Light installation at the Holburne consists of over 5,000 bulbs of light planted in the grounds of the Museum and flowing into the Garden Cafe. Acrylic stems are topped by frosted spheres which are threaded with fibre optic cables and lit by a colour projector. I a really interested by this piece and think that the bulk and amount of individual lights is what makes it so impressive.

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The Fragility of Time

Ignacio Canales Aracil has created this piece out of plants and flowers from parks in the UK. The blossom is then flattened and woven one by one over a mould. No adhesive is used and the whole piece delicately supports it's own structure.

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Dandelion Ceiling

German artists, Regine Raseier, created this installation from over 2000 dandelion flowers, which were sprayed and fixed with a gentle adhesive. This is another example of a piece which is made of simple objects, it is when they are shown in bulk amount which makes the impressive.

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Fedor van der Valk

String Gardens is an innovative way of owning plants with little space for a garden. They are suspended and living in their own 'bubble' or soil. I think these look really lovely, especially layered up and at different heights.

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Gardening without a garden

   

 

New houses being build often have very small gardens, so people are finding many interesting ways to create gardens without actually having much outdoor space.

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Pothole Gardener

http://thepotholegardener.com/

The pothole gardener is a guerilla gardener who creates small gardens and flower arrangements in potholes and similar spaces around London. He claims; 'the pictures and gardens are supposed to put smiles on peoples faces and alert them to potholes'. I really like this idea and peoples reactions when they see them.

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Guerilla Gardening

This is a movement which I have recently become aware of which highlights the frustrations of gardeners trying to beautify their neighbourhoods. They secretly create gardens and allotments in public areas to highlight the lack of nature in their area. I can relate to this, growing up in the countryside and now living in an urban city.

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Terrariums and Vivariums

 

 

Terrarium, simulating a dry habitat, for instance desert or savannah. A terrarium can also be formed to create a temperate woodland habitat, and even a jungle-like habitat. This can be created with pebbles, leaf litter and soil. By misting the terrarium, a natural water cycle occurs within the environment by condensation forming on the lid causing precipitation. I love the idea of creating and sustaining a whole eco-system inside a glass container, and aesthetically some can look very impressive. I particularly like the Victorian-esque conservatory style containers.

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Brooklyn 5 and 10

 

I really liked this idea of being able to send someone a postcard which still has a use after it's been read. It pops out into a paper structure and contains cress or grass seeds which are planted and grow very quickly to create a mini garden.

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Thierry Boontje

Boontje light shades come as a flat pack and are hand made by the owner, meaning each one is different. I really like this idea and think they look really effective as lights.

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Yu Jordy Fu

 

 

I find this paper work really exciting and interesting. I especially like the tangled and delicate feel of the work, they remind me of forest vines growing around each other.

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Mia Pearlman

 

 

Pearlmans pieces are all hand painted with inks and then hand cut out of large sheets of card. To me, they look like large storm clouds and vortexs swirling out of control.

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Chris Natrop

 

 

 

 

Chris Natrop's work has been a huge influence on my paper cutting experimentation. I really admire his large, organic paper installations, particularly the intricate detail on such a large scale.

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Helen Musselwhite

 

 

I really like Musselwhite's use of bold colours in her work. I can see connections in these colours to the ones predicted in Pantone's colour report for Spring/Summer.

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Cynthia Ferguson

Ferguson introduced me to the term Scherenschnitte, which is the German art of paper-cutting. She draws her templates digitally and cuts them from a single sheet of paper, by hand. I particularly like her delicate insect cuttings.

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Alphonse Mucha

Mucha was an illustrator who was a predominate figure in the Art Nouveau movement at the end of the Victorian era. I particularly like his distinct style of drawings, with his floral bouquets and arrangements.

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Wallpaper

Floral and Victorian style wallpaper is very on trend at the moment.

I have looked at current wallpapers, which copy the vintage ones.

I have also looked at authentic Victorian illustrators and wallpaper designers.

I really like the addition of smalls birds and insects in William Morris's wallpapers.