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Designing for Surface Decoration Short Course

Course description

Refine your hand drawing and painting skills and explore how surface decoration and pattern design can be used in a range of products such as textiles, ceramics and wrapping paper. This beginners course will take you from idea generation and initial research through to finished artwork for a variety of different artefacts.

Who should take this course?

This course is suitable for anyone who has some background in design and is interested in developing their skills in 2D and 3D form.

Equally it could be a great place for you to refresh existing skills or make the transition from managing designers to designing yourself.

Ultimately, the course will support anyone who is full of creativity that they wish to explore with like-minded people.

Related courses

This course can be a follow-on from the Drawing and Painting for Textile Design course, or it can be taken independently.

Entry requirements: None

Level: Beginners

Please note: This course is for students aged 18 and older

Clear, easy to understand lessons:

  • Our tutors will explain things in easy to understand, accessible English. If they need to use any special terminology they will make sure they explain what they mean.
  • New methods will be shown to students through live demonstrations, in a way that’s crystal clear and easy to understand.

Experience life on campus

  • Network and share ideas with students from across the globe
  • Access the technology and materials relevant to your discipline
  • Shop in our college shops for any materials you might need
  • Ask questions of your tutor in real time
  • Receive feedback and critique on your assignments
  • Experience the many sights of London on your down time

All our on campus courses include:

  • Network and share ideas with students from across the globe
  • Access the technology and materials relevant to your discipline
  • Shop in our college shops for any materials you might need
  • Ask questions to your tutor in real time
  • Receive feedback and critique on your assignments
  • Experience the many sights of London on your down time

All our online short courses include:

  • Live and interactive online lessons with classmates from around the world
  • The same course content and learning outcomes as our face to face courses
  • Lesson recordings, for review, so you never have to miss a class
  • Access to the virtual learning environment with course content
  • Forums for support
  • 2 weeks online access to the recordings of the live classroom sessions
  • Ask questions to your tutor in real time

A certificate of completion:

  • You've put the work in so we want to make sure you have something to show for it!
  • As long as you attend a minimum of 80% of your classes, we will provide you with a certificate of attendance.
  • However we always recommend you attend all of the classes so that you get the most out of the experience!
  • Certificates are a great addition to your CV

Available dates

It can take a few moments for our course dates to load - if there are no available dates, please contact our customer service team who will help you find a course or email you when new dates become available.
Make an enquiry or call us on 0207 514 7015.

Details

Topics covered

There will be short projects set by the tutor for you to work on. Alternatively, you can work on a longer project or on a particular idea of that you wish to develop.

You will be encouraged to develop your own ideas as creatively as possible using a range of specific drawing and painting techniques as used by designers in the marketplace.

Although computers will not be used in the studio the projects you complete can be further developed on computers in your own time.

Upon completion of the course you should take away with you new practical hand drawing and painting abilities and a portfolio of new ideas.

Materials

Onsite short course materials

Please bring with you to the first session:

  • A4 sketchbook
  • Glue stick
  • Scissors
  • Apron
  • Palette
  • Water jar
  • Windsor & Newton Gouache Starter Pack or Acrylics
  • Selection of painting brushes
  • Selection of coloured pencils
  • Selection of coloured felt tips
  • HB pencil

On this course you will be given a project brief to design a textile collection for a specific purpose. In order to fulfil the brief in the time given it is essential that you conduct some preliminary visual research beforehand. So the most important part is to decide a theme which may be simple ie. flowers, fruit, or more abstract ie. time, space, movement, or an ethnic theme ie. Indian or African art, etc. Primarily the subject needs to be something that you find interesting. When you have decided upon your theme, gather together drawings, images from magazines or postcards, colours, small pieces of fabric, packaging etc - anything that you feel will inspire you and keep your interest during the course. These materials will be used to make a 'storyboard'' which will form the basis of your design collection.

Online short course materials

You will need the following materials to complete this course

  • AB, 2B, and 3B pencil
  • Paper scissors, and a scalpel / craft knife
  • Selection of acrylic paints, and watercolour inks
  • Selection of paintbrushes including one flat 4cm acrylic brush
  • Palette to mix paints and inks (well will be essential)
  • Regular A4 cartridge paper (e.g. 90gsm)
  • Liquid masking fluid and wax candles

n.b. Photoshop and other digital editing tools are not required (although students are welcome to experiment).

To take part in the Online sessions you will need:

  • An up-to-date web browser (we recommend Chrome)
  • Microphone and headphones (a headset with a microphone function is recommended. The built-in microphone in your device would also be fine).
  • Webcam
  • Strong Internet connection - we recommend a minimum of 2 Mbps download, and 1 Mbps upload, faster if possible. You can test your network speed here - https://www.speedtest.net

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Refine your hand drawing and painting skills and explore how surface decoration and pattern design can be used in a range of products such as textiles, ceramics and wrapping paper. This beginners course will take you from idea generation and initial research through to finished artwork for a variety of different artefacts.

£
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