SDP Romantic Tutu Design

During this unit I will be learning the specialist techniques needed to produce a professional industry standard romantic ballet tutu, as well as some other techniques.

Our tutor has drawn this design and this is the design I will be making. All the costumes willl differ slightly by having a different colour of petals scattered across them, the tutor said that the decoration should "look like it has just blown across the tutu". In other words he meant that we have to have a very delicate hand when adding this part of the costume.

The design will look a bit like this when finished.

SDP Work Plan

SDP Work Plan 2012 Ballet Lindsey Catlin

Week Beginning	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
12th March	Swan Lake Pavillion Bournemouth 1930	POP lectures and essay writing		0930-1630 Ballet Workshop
19th March		POP lectures and essay writing		0930-1630 Ballet Workshop 1700-2000 Screening	Completion of workshop tasks Catch up on blog writing
Easter Break Finish BFTW costume, write up History of Ballet for sketchbook and other sketchbook work, catch up with any outstanding work and make sure blog is up to date. Start forming comparative essay.
9th April	Detailed week work plan and blog writing Hand in BFTW costume	POP lectures and essay writing	1700-2000 Screening Essay writing for SDP	0930-1630 Ballet Workshop	Completion of workshop tasks Sketchbook work
16th April	Detailed week work plan and blog writing	POP lectures and essay writing	1700-2000 Screening Essay writing for SDP	0930-1630 Ballet Workshop	0930-1630 Ballet Workshop Sketchbook work
23rd April	Completion of workshop tasks Detailed week work plan and blog writing	POP lectures and essay writing	1700-2000 Screening Essay writing for SDP	0930-1630 Ballet Workshop	Completion of workshop tasks Sketchbook work
30th April	Detailed week work plan and blog writing	POP lectures and essay writing	1700-2000 Screening Essay writing for SDP	0930-1630 Ballet Workshop	Completion of workshop tasks Sketchbook work
7th May	Detailed week work plan and blog writing	POP lectures and essay writing	1700-2000 Screening Essay writing for SDP	0930-1630 Ballet Workshop	Completion of workshop tasks Sketchbook work
14th May	Detailed week work plan and blog writing	POP Hand in 1930 Matthew Bourne@ Lighthouse Poole	1700-2000 Screening Essay writing for SDP	0930-1630 Ballet Workshop	Completion of workshop tasks Sketchbook work	Finishing all work for hand in	Finishing all work for hand in Evaluation
21st May	Hand in 1130-1200

Updates and Scheduling

Although I have not written on my blog for the period of the Easter holidays, its not to say I haven't been busy. Quite the opposite.

I spent many hours in the first week completing the two metallic corsets- yes I finished them both and they are fabulous...pictures will follow but I would like to do them justice. While they are not a project linked to any of my University units, they underpin everything i am doing at the moment and are helping me to refine my skills and work towards my goals of improving my eye for line and intuition for beautiful aesthetics.

The BFTW costume is nearing completion and I have been hand sewing sequins onto it to give it the wow factor. There is still about 10 hours work to do on it between now and Tuesday.

SDP im afraid to say has taken a back seat so far, which is not what I wanted at all. The only consolation to this is that once Tuesday is over and BFTW can finally be put aside I can focus my attention on this unit.


I would like to start by uploading my planned work schedule and then adding photos of the design we will be producing and the work I have done so far.
On the sidelines I have bought a book called "How to Dress Dancers"  which actually was a bit of a let down. But I have also been doing some research on tutu decoration by having a look at the work of  tutu.com on Facebook.   https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/TutuCom/54783047781
which has some really fabulous examples.

Lots to do then.

Self Directed Project

The final term of my second year is upon us...


The previous term Concepts in Context involved me making an extremely specialist costume for an aerialist who will be performing as part of a large ensemble for the official Olympic Opening Ceremony in Weymouth: Battle For the Winds. Although I have handed in the academic part of this project (a large workbook detailing all processes and design decisions etc) I still have not completed the physical costume, so this will be running alongside the first few weeks of SDP and I will need to factor this into my work plan.

So, this brings me back to this term.


Ballet.

I will be learning under the tutelage of a man with a great amount of experience in this area and has worked for the royal Opera House. I was really pleased to find out that over the coming weeks we will be learning some of the following techniques:

Female and male bodice drafting
Female bodice draping and construction
Sleeves
Decoration
Romantic tutu drafting and construction

This is then likely to be followed up in my final year where we will undertake the making of a full classical plate tutu.

SDP is a unit where you choose from a selection of opportunities in an area that you wish to explore further, setting yourself a learning agreement of how you are going to proceed with your work and being strict about your own personal work methods as a practitioner. I am my own driving force for this unit and it will have to be done in a manner that is academically sound, to meet the criteria for assessment.


As I have been driving my work and learning within costume for many years now this is nothing too startling for me. Indeed, I have abandoned my old blog and started afresh. This is a unit to really be honest about the way that I work independently and scrutinise my work methods and ethic in a bid to hopefully improve and therefore improve upon the quality of my work.

When looking at all the options for SDP I considered what I wanted to learn in terms of new knowledge, and knowledge that iImay never again have the opportunity to learn whilst I have access to the vast experience of my tutors.
The ballet unit appealed not only to my love of large classical and fantastically costumed performance but also the chance to learn some really precise and coveted techniques, and yes, the sparkle.
I have a passion to cloth the body, in beautiful shapes, and textures, just like I do with corsetry, and although not strictly historical costuming(my other passion) the classical Ballet's were danced 100 years ago, and the re-interpretation of this is exciting to me- and I want to bring this energy into this unit and see how far I can propel myself  when I am in charge of my own learning withing my degree.




This week I have a learning agreement to write and I need to make a schedule for my work plan.