sgidia.

Here are some of the shoe sole pictures i have received by people. i also did receive information about the shoes - where they origionated from, what their main purpose was and wher had they been, but ive not yet decided how to use that information within the wok.

project name.

As I've decided to create a blog of some sort will a collection of images of insoles that i will collect from people, i thought it would be important to try and produce one as professionally as i could. That meant coming up with some sort of name for the blog so it could represent some sort of 'logo' for the project.

I started experimenting with different names , after researching into some of the names i had come up with i noticed that some of the best ones such as 'sole 4 soul' already existed as charities. Some of the ones i thought of were also a bit lame. But eventually i did come up with ones i liked and started experimenting with backgrounds or how i would display the name.

My two favourite were 'discover my sole' and 'share your sole' as i thought they seemed to explain the purpose being the project quite clearly as well as being catchy am memorable. I also experimented on photoshop with different backgrounds and colour, keeping it simple and trying out different layouts.

I wanted to keep it as simple as possible and minimal as i wanted all the attention to be on the photos of shoe soles and if i decided to have writing next to them or not. I quite liked the idea of no identity to the shoes too to make people's imaginations work.

I liked both attempts- the digital photoshoped logo and also the hand made sewn one.

adar.

cychod.

Boats in the docks. Dubrovnick. Croatia.

Close up of stitching.

my insoles.

I decided to start experimenting with working into insoles in different ways.Painting, pastels and stitch to see if they turned out successfully and if it was an idea that could evolve into something more. I drew some as pictures and took inspiration from images i took over the summer of different places. I made some drawings beforehand then tried to adapt the images to fit onto the insole as well as trying to keep the texture of the insole.

Elan.

I enjoyed working onto a different surface and a strange shape, it forced me to work harder at choosing what i wanted to show by editing out some things that weren't relevant and that wouldn't ass anything to explaining the story behind the sole.

hel syniadau.

During the summer i began to gather thought on ideas for my final year project. I produced allot of work combining photographs, sheep wool and stitch. Carrying on with similar work that i began to produce for my exhibition at the end of last year. I came across allot of interesting work and exhibitions in wales as well as on my travels to different countries.

I wanted to work with an object, so i started looking at shoes, and the bottom of shoes and insoles. I began to think how a shoe could tell so much- a story of where it had been, what it had seen and so on. I did some research into charities who collect shoes, shoe designers and historical shoe history. I also thought back to a piece of work i saw in the Eisteddfod in Wrexham over the summer, a piece by Bedwyr Williams. Carved wellingtons, alongside photographs and sculptures.

His carved wellingtons,stuffed with straw had little images all over them. I liked the idea of them telling a story or showing what they had been up-to/used for, and along side the photograph of the Hill farmer witch indicated the theme, the combination for all the pieces worked well and there was a strong welsh vibe achieved with simple pieces.

I wanted to achieve something similar with my project, a simple idea nut with strong impact.I started thinking about creating some sort of website where people could maybe post stories alongside pictures of the bottom of their shoes, or even donate me their insoles so i could produce work using them. Pretty quickly i realized how difficult making a website was, and started thinking of other ways of getting my hands on what i needed.As well as starting to think of a name for my project that didn't already exist.......!