Preparing for my lessons

I have to cut out 180 legs out of plasterzote for the children to use in there next lessons also cut 60 rectangles of corex out and prepare all the wire and centercane with taping up the ends of all the wire so the children wont hurt them thelfes with the ends of them.

This was a very repetitive proses which with the cutting of the legs and coex became more therapeutic but the wire did anoy me a little as it was so finally to do but defiantly worth doing because as I was rapping the ends I was constantly getting scratched. It is these little things that you have to think of when going it a school with young children. Any messieurs to keep them safe is worth doing.

Also with the wire and centercane I bundled them up so there were four of each in a bundle. My Idea is to make the children get into pairs and work together to rap them, as it is a fidely task.

Prototyping

As I had made a mini prototype so I know what  I was already doing how I would make the prototype already. But I want to sure on the size and how big I should be for the children to manage and dance properly in. I also needed to address the issue that Karen my teacher has put forward about the hight of the legs on the children's backs.

After drawing a template and seeing how best I could get as many legs out of the plasterzote as possible. I figured out that I could get 8 legs out of one peace of plasterzote. This was good as It gave me more plasterzote for the dance leaders so I could do what the leaders of moving tides had suggested for the dance leaders but just making the backpacks bigger.

I decided to to the antlers 1m long but when I came to modelling them properly they would not stand up straight so these were cut shorter to about 70cm instead. I had used willow to hold up my eyes in the mini prototype but I thought it would be easier to use 3 peaces of centercane rapt in wire but unfortunately when it came to showing Adele our prototypes this did not hold up the pappermashe eyes so I had to go back to using willow which I had not budgeted for.

Apart from this I was pleased with how my prototype went down there didn't really seem to be any other problems and really. After fixing the eyes we went and had photos taken of everyones prototypes.

I am still not happy with the eyes as you can make them face the front all the time and I am worred that in the procession they will turn around in the back pack and not look as effective as I want them to. So I still think I need I find an alternative for this.

Lesson Plans

Planning the lessons was really tricky for me as I figured out that to create the back packs there is a certain order to do them in and I would have to do the actual cable tying of all the peaces to the corx for the children.

My first attempt of the lesson order: Lesson 1 - paper masha
                                                        Lesson 2 - Rap all the wire
                                                        Lesson 3 - Cut and stick yellow peaces onto the leggs. Paint eyes
                                                        Lesson 4 - Tie dey

I was not sure how to attach the back packs all together. If I could drill holes and then take it into the school and the children can put it together them selfs using the cable ties but it could be very fidally and I haven't budgeted for any spare cable ties and they all need to be done tight and really securely and with the two classes of 30 Im not sure if I would be able to monitor everything they do.  So I will have to bring everything back to bournemouth and put the back packs together my self and travel them back to weymouth finished for the children.

After having a meeting with Adele to figure out my problems with the lessons we came up with a better  plan of my lessons.

Date:	Procession section: shrimp	Lesson no: 1
	School: Radipole
Resources/ Materials:	Plasterzote Little random shapes Yellow Paint
Objective:	Introduction to what I am doing and what there costumes will look like To decorate the shrimp legs front and back.
Introduction:	Sow my sketchbook, Introduce what I am doing there and how I am Really show pacifically what and were the yellow spots go on the legs.
Main:	Children will paint the little random scraps yellow Then they will be stuck onto the legs not too randomly keeping to the top of the legs. Add glitter
Plenary:	Talk about the final out come and how each time I come in it will lead up to the finished product.
Outcome:	Have finished legs that can be attached to the back pack.

Date:	Procession section: Shrimp	Lesson no: 2
	School: Radipole
Resources/ Materials:	String Things to tie into the tie-die T-shirts Die Wire and Center cane Masking tape Purple scraps
Objective:	To tie-die 33 T-shirts Rap the antennas and eye poles in purple scraps
Introduction:	Explain what tie die is. Explain how to complete the process most effectively. Show an example Show how to rap the center cane and wire safely and cearfully
Main:	Get the children to tie the T-shirts as they wish with string as tightly as they can. Then put them into a cold water die solution. Tie all six lenths of wire and center cane to gether and rap with purple, remembering that the eye stems have 3 centercane and 1 wire.
Plenary:	We have learnt how to tie die T-shirts Rape wire carefully
Outcome:	One batch of the first colour die for the tie die T-shirts All the wire and center cane rapped

Date:	Procession section:	Lesson no: 3.
	School: Radipole
Resources/ Materials:	P.V.A glue Newspaper Balloons Balloon holders Rope Things to tie in the tied die
Objective:	For each child to papier-mâché two balloons each. Tie die the second colour on to the T-shirts
Introduction:	Demonstrate papier-mâché  to them
Main:	Show them how best to tear the newspaper make sure there not layering the balloons up to much as they will become heavy. Make sure they do the bottoms of the balloons as they are stood in a holder. Take some of the string off the T-shirts to reveal some tie die and then tie more up and redie them in the second colour
Plenary:	How to papier-mâché balloons How to tie die a second colour onto the T-shirts
Outcome:	Two papier-mâché balloons that can be left to dry at the school ready for painting. And T-shirts that I can take home and wash ready to revile them in lesson 4

Date: 30th May	Procession section: (e.g. Punch and Judy, jellyfish)	Lesson no: 4
	School: Radipole
Resources/ Materials:	Paint PVA Glue
Objective:	Paint the eyes Make sure everything is finished
Introduction:	Show them how to paint the eyes onto the paper mashie eyes Make sure every thing is done and covered
Main:	Paint the eyes Then have a trying on session so the children can see what they have made and what they are going to look like on the day.
Plenary:	Hope they have all enjoyed the lessons and are pleased with what they have produced Talk about what they have done.
Outcome:	30 finished costumes that are ready to go into the prosetion.

I think these are much better lesson plans even though I will have a lot to carry to and from the school this is the only way I can see it working.

Budgets

Budgeting was more complex than I had originally thought because you have to think of everything you need to make the 30 costumes pulse the 3 dance leaders. Even though I had made my mini prototype it was still hard to figure out how much of things I would need like plasterzote as this was going to be cut up into legs and this is very hard to judge how best to cut them out what shape to go for ect. It was even hard to calculate how much wire I would need I had to do more of an educated guess.

I have £10 for each child's costume and then £15 for the dance leaders so my total for the hole project is £345

I found it easier to create a list of what I need then find out where to get it from and how much I need.

I had a real problem trying to find plasterzote in purple as the two websites the Uni use do not stock it especially not in the 12mm thick plasterzote.
I tryed the Trylon website: http://www.trylon.co.uk/products/plastazote.htm
and the Kewell Coverters website: http://www.kewell-converters.co.uk/index.htm
Neither one of these had purple plasterzote at 12mm thickness so I started to look ells where and found this website: http://www.hindleys.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=7_57_60_91

Hindleys turned out to be the cheapest one out of all the plasterzote suppliers. I also got the coex plastic from hear as well. Just shows that you do have to look around and find other solutions.

To get the dies for the tiye-dye I need to use proceum dyes with soda ash as this is cold walter dyes.

This is my final Budget sheet:

Moving Tides: School Workshops Materials List

Student Artists Name	Ellen McQuaid
School Name	Radipole
Project Name and basic Description	Moving Tides
Number of costumes to be made	33
Material	Proposed Supplier	Quantity	Cost per item/ sheet	Total per item	Purchased by Moving Tides (MT) by Student Artist (SA) (to be completed by Sarah)
Galvanised Wire	B&Q	2	£3.98	£12.96	I will purchase
Centre Cain	AUCB	2	£10.11	£20.22	I will purchase
Plasterzote	Hindleys	30	£5.59	£168.57	Group purchase
Procion Dye	Alison	15 teaspoons	£1.20	£18.00	I will purchase
Soda Ash	Alison	6 teaspoons	£0.20	£1.20	I will purchase
Cotton	Haberdashery	2 meters	£3.00	£6.00	I will purchase
Cable ties	Wilkinson’s	7	£1.18	£8.26	I will purchase
KOBRA Aerosol spray Paint	Amazon	2	£2.80	£12.24	I will purchase
Corex	Hindleys	1 pack of 10	£26.07	£26.07	Group purchase
Scrap store bag	Scrap store	2	£6.00	£12.00	I will purchase
Cotton Tape	Haberdashery	2 roles	£3.65	£7.30	I will purchase
T-shirts	Polo-shirts.co.uk	33	£0.95 £1.79	£34.77	Group purchase
TOTAL				327.59

Items required to be supplied by the School (e.g. PVA glue, pencils, felt tips etc.)

PVA Paint

I found budgeting a little hard to get my head round but after going through it several times I think I finally got there as I had to remember to include VAT and delivery costs even if we have group purchased them these still need to be split between the amount of people buying the items.

I hope I have remembered everything and got the right amount of products to complete the costumes.

Meeting with head of Moving Tides

To make sure Moving Tides are happy with our ideas and thoughts for the carnival we gave a short presentation on were we are up to and our designs and they inputted there ideas on what they thought of our designs and how well they think they can be transferred into a class room environment.

I took along my little prototype to help explain to them what I have designed.

My feed back from this meeting was, to make the the hole costume bigger. I was going to do this anyway as it was only a little peace to show my ideas but I could defiantly see that they eyes would have to be bigger as when it was tried on by some one there head could touch the eyes and it did not look very cumftable so this was defiantly something to consider when building my actual prototype.

Maybe they need something on there heads as everything is senters all around there backes. They serjested bandagers that could be teye died at the same time as the T-shirts. I thought this was a really good idea and defiantly worth thinking about and even emailed my teacher to ask if they wanted anything on there faces inberticuler as my design had nothing to cover there faces at all. But she seemed happy with where the costume was going. S o I thought just adding the head band would be a nice touch.

Thinking about doing stencils for the eyes to make them all the same and simpler to each other as this could be something that just looks wrong as they are such a vital feature of the costume. I thought this was also a really good idea as I had not thought about this aspect of it at all that they would all be very different so will defiantly try different stencil ideas to make the eyes easier for them paint.

It was also mentioned that if I could not find purple plasterzote that maybe yellow plasterzote would do and having the spots on the legs purple instead.

All these ideas were really helpful and made me think much more about the actual taking the costumes into schools to hake and how they will achieve the final out come. My over all feed back was posotive and really only needed a few things ironed out which was good, and I was really pleases with there reactions to the design.

Almost prototyping

The ideas that I took foreword from my experiments with metals were the plastizote legs and doing it in a thicker plasterzote would be the best way as it would be more defiant and be seen form a large distance. witch is what I was trying to acheeve. As I want my designs to stand out and be noticed in the crowd. So the 12mm thick platerzote would be more aropreut for this. and I tested it out with some even though it is not the right colour you can defiantly see that it is a better idea than the other options I came up with.

The eyes needed to be more light wait that the plastic ball I had picket up form the scrap store so came to the conclusion of paper mashing ballons which worked really well so much better as there is less wait and strain to hold them up and something the children can do in there lessons that envolves them as well.

The sticks to hold the the eyes up I have demonstrated hear with willow and this works realy well I think also using centre cane like for the antenna's but just using 3 peaces on centercan and 1 wire would hold the eyes up but this would need to be experimented with.

The antennas can stay the same with centre cane and wire as they work really well as the children can mold them into there own shapes they want.

The back pack its self will all be contend in corex plastic that will be spray painted purple to match. The width of the plasterzote inbertween the corex means that there is enough room to but the antennas  and poles for the eyes so its is all neat and encaged and they tied up with cable ties.

Experiments

I found it really hard to come up with ideas on what to make my costume with so decided the best way was to go shopping and get ideas.

A visit to the local scrap store was the first thing to see if there was any think there that I could use.

Then round the local shops like 99p store, wilkinson and G&T's

Then I started to experiment with the different materials I had found to create something I had envisioned.

Theses are some of my first ideas. I really wanted the eyes to droop and dance around when the children walked along. So I thought garden hoes pipe with wire inside would do the job. This was not strongnuf so a rethink hear was in order.

The antenners could be made out of centre cane and wire then raped in purple scraps of fabric to get the purple colour. I think this worked well and really court the essence of what I wanted out of the antenners.

The legs needed to be a bit more of a bold than the ones made of different materials although they can move and look more realistic you have to remember that I am designing for a carnival and carnivals need to be big and bold. So I think the plasterzote side worked better and the children can put yellow spots onto them. I would defiantly be thinker that the plasterzote that I have demonstrated with to have a big impact on the costume.

This was defiantly a good way to experiment with the materials for me as I couldn't imagine what the costume would look like in my head. Imagining what the different materials would look like. so for me this was defiantly the best way.

Design Development

Looking at everything that I have researched I started to design my final designs.

Carnivals

Researching into Carnivals I found Peter Minshal who is one of the leading carnival designers. He makes effective costumes for large scale processions, getting as much detail into the costumes as possible but still being really effective and not over powering. he has been apart of designed three Olympic games 1992,1996 and 2002. Looking at his work really made me think that the detail does matter.




They do have to be big and bold but also have the individual touch off the person making it and that it is more of a journey than I first thought. making the the costume putting all the love and care into it, then the joy and fun of wearing it on the actual carnival day. Walking down the street feeling proud of what you have managed to achieve.

Rio Carnival really made me think about how colour blocking is really effective and as we have been assigned a colour I think I will try and keep to Purple as much as possible with only a few hints of the yellow and blue.