Expressionism

After going to the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces: European Masters and seeing all the paintings, it made me want to get back into painting. I hadn't painted anything since VCE which was about 4 years ago and was never a good painter to begin with but I've always loved the way people can express themselves through the medium of paint and that there is no wrong or right with art.

I thought I'd start small with a small canvas and some basic acrylic colour paints. I've always wanted to do a splatter painting (preferably on a large scale but due to lack of space, I settled for a small canvas).

I began experimenting with different techniques on a piece of newspaper just to get a sense of how things would turn out. I tried to flick paint off a toothbrush and off a paintbrush. I also tried to flick paint off a spoon. These all gave me very small splatters and I wanted to vary the sizes of the splatters so I literally filled up a spoon with blue paint, watered it down with water and flung it at the canvas in one splat. It came up beautifully so I continued doing this with red then yellow, flinging them in different directions and from different heights to get a variation of shapes and sizes.

on the left newspaper you can see the initial testing stage

After I had the main splatters down I finished off the painting by flicking blue, red, yellow and green paint over the top using a paintbrush. This gave me the speckled effect over the top.

I'm really happy with how this painting turned out. I love the layering of paint and seeing the paths of travel from the way the paint has hit the canvas.


This exercise was not just a physical painting but more of an emotional way for me to get creative and see what I could produce.

One day I would love to have a giant canvas and literally throw paint tins at it but that's for another rainy day....

A whole new chapter...

I've been out of the design world for a good 6 months now (by personal choice as I just simply needed a break) so in order to find a bit of inspiration I decided to begin where all my best ideas come from, my bedroom.

I wanted to begin exercising the right side of my brain again and decided a constant reminder of what I love doing was the way to go. I saw from a design friend of mine, a photo of the word 'design' spelt out in his room sitting on his bookshelf and so instead of simply buying the letters straight out I went to spotlight and decided to do a bit of DIY arts and crafts.

I bought the letters of the word 'design' and decided to spray paint them black, all except the letter 'i'. The reasoning behind this was because as an interior design graduate, I wanted to remember that I am not just a designer, I am an interior designer, hence not spray painting the letter 'i'.


The positioning of them was carefully thought out as I wanted to be reminded of it so above my bed was the way to go as I would be it last thing I saw before I went to sleep and first thing when I woke up.


I know that spray painting a few letters and sticking them up isn't much but it certainly reignited my love for design.

Greg Hatton

Melbourne furniture designer/landscaper/stonemason, Greg Hatton.

The simplest way of understanding Hatton's design philosophy is through the materials he uses in all his designs.

Where do you shop in Melbourne for the tools of your trade? (ie recycled materials, hardware, fabrics etc?)
Hatton: Side of the road for materials apparently its illegal but what isn’t these days.

Timber from Bowerbird timbers out towards Warburton, recycled and windfall timbers, lovely people to deal with …worth the drive.
Recycled Timber and things from Hughes demolition in Oakleigh I actually scrounge most of my materials, it’s part of my business plan , reuse recycle repair. It’s amazing what people throw away.


I love the floor lamps, the play on light and shadow. I love the quirky ways Hatton works, placing a light which you'd usually hang from the ceiling onto the floor instead, using tree branches as a lamp stand.

Love this chair and the room itself. Looks like you're sitting in an indoor park or forest.

What a cool creation!

The four poster bed looks amazing but I wouldn't want the chandelier of sticks of fall on me during my sleep.

Video Assembly

Quick assembly time of 30 seconds :)

Branding

Subtle yet noticeable...

Final go!

This was it. I had sent my file off to the laser cutter and picked it up and it was beautiful. I had to do the tab bends by hand though because it was on the other side of the board. If I had the time to make another, there are still things I would have liked to change such as perfecting measurements but apart from that, I'm so happy with the way it's turned out :)






Another thing I like about my design is that a group of them can be stacked neatly together as that would make storage and stacking much easier.

Attempt #1: Calculating and adjusting...

I began to make my 1:1 model in zanita board for the first time and hit a few bumps along the road.

The first was that when assembled, I hadn't considered the thickness of the zanita board in some places, causing the stool to have gaps in places where it shouldn't and not enough space where it needed to be.


It also ripped at the corners because of a build up of folded zanita so I had to cut out space to allow the zanita to bend freely.


There was a huge issue with the bending of the tabs and calculating the slotting location because it had to be precise in order for it to work.


Aside from the small details, I was very happy with how the overall look turned out. It is also quite sturdy and strong which made me realise I wouldn't need the internal supports after all. I also removed the bottom flaps because after realising the thickness of zanita board, it only made the stool more likely to wobble, hence I removed it all together which was a great move because it now sits very flat, nice and firmly.


Throughout this whole process, I notated on my pattern all the changes I needed to make for the final stool.