I am very lucky with this exercise because ever since starting with OCA I have collected lots of papers!

I have a bag for life crammed full of different papers and cards! There is old packaging in there, plastics, greaseproof papers, brown wrapping paper, sustainable bags, accidental scans, typewritten pieces…

Watch the video and have a look!

I mostly find myself scanning a lot of textures and papers onto my laptop and then importing them into Photoshop to use as cool textures and backgrounds for my designs. When I have had assignments and exercises surrounding experimental typography this bag always comes in useful! – as I mentioned in the video, it is the gritty textures of rips in packaging that make for a really urban, edgy looking design. A lot of the materials and papers I have collected are also ideal for collages and mixed media which is where Assignment 4 is heading… I love the experimental work of Chris Ashworth and I listened to an interview with him talking to Chris Do about how he creates a lot of his artwork from different materials he finds, collects and then just uses in really weird but cool, effective ways! – he once cello taped some paper to his childrens shoes so that when they went about the day playing in the playground at school and trampling through muddy patches etc what he ended up at the end of the day were really gritty pieces of art he could import in and work with to create some really cool designs! Just a really simple idea but it worked! He also cello taped paper to the floor of his garage so that each time he reversed his car out and parked it back in there it would leave tyre marks of wherever the car had been that day – over time it created again a really gritty cool piece to scan in and work with!

I also have a typewriter (called Oliver!) that I bring out to play – I might bring him out to play again for the concrete poetry exercise – but in the past I have created bloopers with him and I have kept them to scan in and use as random text to play around with in designs!

I also made Chris over the summer help me go and pick up a set of trays and drawers (much to his dismay at where to keep them in our house!) which I now have organised my papers and sketchbooks in!

I have drawers organised for each paper stock – white card, coloured card, foiling, tracing paper, transfer papers, grey board, metallic papers, corrugated card/papers, foam board, watercolour pad, acrylic paper, lined paper, plain A4 paper, A3 paper, layout paper! Lots of papers!!