This journal is intended to record, discuss and archive a collection of personal projects that were done by myself. It will contain photographs and scans of paintings, books, documents, research work, and several others that were done by me. These can be found by links that go directly to the "DAPHA Projects" Facebook group. I hope that you find the content in the group enjoyable.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Saturday 20 July 2024)
[T2, W:03 – WD:10, (Td:4)*].
Dear Diary,
On the bus route, “Mr. Edwards” came out of a bus and we travelled to Valsayn in the same maxi. Roti's met us and he stayed back chatting with Daddy. The office was dark and empty as usual, and two parents patiently waited.
As I was finishing up my spicy chicken pie, “Choo Choo” shared a lovely chocolate cupcake with me. I didn't even remember to take a picture of it. She did ask me at some point if I to bring another for me tomorrow. I said yes. Then I told her thank you.
I met “Jess” in 2L. She had the seats and chairs rearranged to make a seating chart. The class was divided into groups by the columns to sing the college song, and do an act, and were marked out of 25. Participation 5 points, lyrics 10 points, and pitch 10 points. We walked to Miss Gitten's after. I remained to help her review booklets and pieces 1-3 from students. She asked me to do an independent markup.
At recess time, I got the new syllabus appendix with the rubrics printed. We had to figure out the tables for creativity, design, and IE. I still have to find out what IE means. Piece 3 had different tables. I went to see Dr. Allison, but she asked for half an hour. I got lost away helping Miss Kittens. We finished with the documents that had to be printed and the amount. It would be better to have Miss review and have them print.
I went back to see Dr. Allison. She was out in the office and she asked if I was here for the lates and absences, but we rescheduled for tomorrow. After school, Miss and I continued to work. We left the compound at 5.14 p.m. I had eight envelopes, stapled, trotted, ruled, and labels would be done tomorrow. We had to travel out and meet Daddy.
That night, I had a lot of work to do. I had something else to do and finish first before the labels for the Visual Arts students. The last work was to t-shirt payments form for the MTC unity work. Miss found it better to type in the names since it would be plenty to write in.
We also discovered that people with 3x sizes needed another column, so I had the form revised and then added WhatsApp over to Miss. I enjoyed more cheese balls and got a call from another about a job at President College out the road by me. Hopefully, I get the time to call and find out about the job.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 26 January 2024)
[T2, W:04 – WD:14, (Td:2)*].
Dear Diary,
I was sick at home today. I got a call from Ms. Mustapha for help to make two forms for the marchers. One form was for the marchers and another was for payments. I decided to make a form that fused all the information to make one document.
I had to call Mrs Santana first to ask for a list of the students from Mitchell House. Before I sat down to get started, I got a call from Mrs. Gittens. She said that the baby came at 12:39 am. I'm very proud of the form; it seemed to be workable.
It took me the entire evening to fix the two lists before making the form for Ms. Mustapha. I had the new list emailed back to Mrs Santana so that she could add it to her archives before creating the payment form.
Link(s):
List of Mitchell House Students (2024) - Remade.**
List of Mitchell House Students (2024) – Year Group.**
The finale was indeed a long and tiring event to watch. There
was a feeling as if all of the work was given to us to do. This particular
chapter of the book was extremely tiring, including the finale sketch and the
important works section.
The Top 3 designers were given 3 and a half hours to go
shopping in any store around the city that they wanted with a budget of ten
thousand dollars. The difference from the other season was that the designers
were asked to create eight looks instead of ten and the duration of the working
time was eight days instead of three full months.
The designers were given one of the eliminated contestants
from this season as an assistant. Bishme worked with Prajje, Laurance worked
with Kara Saun, and Brittany worked with Fabio. It was nice of Prajje to
comfort Bishme in the final moments of the final presentation. Bishme was announced
the winner of the season. I liked the lovely tribute made to her sister in the
end.
The judging was done by Nina Garcia, Elain Welteroth, and Zac
Posen in place of Brandon Maxwell, and the guest judge was Billy Porter in a
beautiful blue outfit. Many of the comments came from the judges and also from earlier
on the show by a gentleman named Marc Karimzadeh. I decided to keep the section
for the designers’ recorded comments during their runway presentation.
MY
DESIGN
This design did not seem easy to create. I understood the
feeling of pride that the designers got when they had a reflection on the
season’s work as I laid all of the work that I did for the season on my couch.
I was very proud of some of the work that I did. I could see that I tried in
some of the sketches that did not look as if they would make it to the High category.
The first vision I saw for this
design was a pink fabric in the form of a dress. When I looked at the lady’s head,
she had a hat on but it was a toy boat. I found that the boat would have been
suitable since there was an avant-garde challenge using toys. The tenor pan
handbag was recycled from my second avant-garde challenge from episode thirteen,
“The Sky’s the Limit”.
I took the earrings from the
client Challenge episode nine, “Below Decked Out”. The short skirt to the front
was wrapped with a similar pattern from episode six, “The 90s”.
I was not sure who the person in vision was
but trying to measure her appearance on paper was not easy. However, I began to
see how it related to Miss (Bernadette) Paul without even realising it. I learned on
Saturday that her nickname is ‘Pinky’ and the dress is Pink and she is thinking
of going on cruises and there is the ship on the model’s head. So, I thought it
fit that the dedication would do to Miss Paul.
The penultimate episode came and finished in a blink of an
eye. One more challenge to go before and the winner will be announced. The
episode was shown on the night of our Independence Day (Trinidad and Tobago). I
had to do a second recording of the episode to get everything covered for my
chapter.
Tonight’s episode came with a trip to Summit: One Vanderbilt.
The designers were sent to a floor with many windows through the ceiling and
floor. I loved the silver balloons around the room. A surprise challenge was to
make another avant-garde look based on architecture. There was a lot of fright
for me with Rami and things didn’t look so bright for him coming down toward
the end.
Sadly, there had to be an elimination and he had to go. There
was a very long first model fitting section. Some of us had a good laugh
watching Christian try on Brittany’s jacket. The challenge also reminded me of
Coral and this same challenge. I found that she should have been given that win
in her season as a winner was announced tonight.
MY DESIGN
The drawing for this challenge was not planned. At first, the
finished sketch was not something I was proud of. I envisioned the model from
season 19 who wore Zaden’s last outfit in a blue top with orange and
blue straps woven together at the upper chest level. There would have been rec pockets
with a very light and sheer pink mesh as the flaps to cover the pockets.
The stomach area could not have been done properly but it was
supposed to be fabric with circular stitched ‘beads’ that shone in the light,
as the glass reflection of windows in the building towers. The skirt too would
match the upper chest area.
I took the idea for the bag as a tenor pan that was supposed
to mimic the silver balls in the silver ballroom. The same would be for the top
but mimic the sun and the moon that moves over these building towers.
I chose to have arm writings and they would be cut in un even
rectangles just like one of the previous Miss Universe crowns to mimic the
shapes of the towers. I spent some time thinking of Mr Kolb to get some ideas
for this and hope that he enjoys it if he gets to see it.
This week Christian came out on the Runway with a
giant fan resembling Peacock feathers. That would have been the style for
the challenge. It was extraordinary to know that there was a style of clothing
called Peacock. We are down to the Top 5 contestants of the season: Brittany,
Rami, Bishme, Prajje and Laurance.
While at Mood, Laurance was given $200 extra to shop
as a prize for winning the previous challenge. I liked Rami’s outfit tonight
with Jeans and his jacket. It looked good. We also had nice laughs from
Laurance but throughout the episode, I felt insecure for her. Male models were
used for the challenge.
We got to see Prajje do more prints on his fabric. At
first, I did not realise there would be symbols for voodoo. There was a
last-minute catastrophe too where Bishme cut his hand and blood messed up the
entire pants. It was interesting to see how he would have countered the
obstacle. We also got to see Brittany chatting with her husband on the show.
The presentation was a success no matter who was in
the high or low categories. I liked each one of them. The guest judge for this
week was MR Coleman Domingo. I did not know him previous to the show but I was
grateful that he was able to make a lot of contributions to the comments
section. In the end, Prajje was eliminated.
These past few days I’ve been trying not to think
about who would be eliminated and who would go on to the finale. Next week a
new challenge and even tighter competition. Each of the next few challenges
might become more and more work with the comments section as I suspect. I pray
that God gives me the strength physically and mentally to do them. As school is
about to begin closer, work on the books will have to come to a long pause
until the Christmas holidays.
MY DESIGN
The top was an idea from Bishme, Laurance and Rami. I
wanted something breezy and not too tight. I found that the right half of the
upper chest was a big gamble for me. The belt was covered with the same
glittery fabric from the pants. The zipper was supposed to be an easier way to
get the jacket top to open out.
The inner fabric of the pants was the same as the top.
The pants would stop at the bottom of the calf and some bottoms as Brittany
would use. The model was supposed to be a particular actor but I was not sure
of their name. I couldn’t get the particular curl in their hair so it remained
flat.
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Friday 23 March 2024)
Dear Diary,
The following is an account of my personal work with the Girl Guides Anthem. (This journal entry was composed in the weekend after the YouTube upload.)
THE SCORE.
** Monday 21 August 2023 **
This evening, I was visited by John to review some work for school. He showed me some of his scores and I soon came across a handwritten score for the Girl Guides Anthem. I did not know at the time that Girl Guides had an anthem.
I began to sing the melody by melodic solfege and it did seem interesting enough to make a good song for a steelpan arrangement. I was able to get a scan of the score that he had for when I was ready to start working on the song.
SPECIAL FINDINGS
** Saturday 27 January 2024 **
I knew that the words from the score John gave me was missing. I went to Google and started doing my research for this piece. I was lucky to find two scores for the same melody on a webpage. There was one in English and the other in English and French.
The French lyrics required a quaver on the third beat in some measures to end the remaining syllable from words. There were also a few more syllables in the English text. Thankfully both scores provided chord symbols that were taken immediately into the Musescore file.
Before the night was over, at my decision, I had the melody from the English version transcribed into the Musescore and took the chords.
Work for the steelpan music was done and completed today. It took a similar format as the majority of my arranged notations. A lot of research had to be done. I had to find out the name of the composer, the year that the song was done, the name of the lyricist and the composer of the melody. Fortunately, the two lead sheets found earlier provided some of that information. I wanted to see if Girl Guides might have known. I will have to see if I can find their email address to message them.
However, the song does sound amazing. I feel very proud of it and hope that it will be useful to the Girls Guides in the future. There was a big challenge with the introduction and the ending as usual since many recordings did not have them. I discovered a beautiful piano-accompanied version on YouTube but refused to take things from it to avoid plagiarism.
Link(s):
Piano Accompanied Version – Girl Guides Anthem.
EMAILING GIRL GUIDES.
** Thursday 08 February 2024 **
Tonight, I found an email to the Girl Guides Commissioner and another from the Website. I got the email address for Girl Guides in Trinidad and Tobago. But the homeland email address unexpectedly ended up bouncing. I'm not sure if the address provided on their website was no longer in service. There was a nice electronic response saying that the email was received. I hope that in time a response will be given.
GIRL GUIDES LOGO.
** Friday 08 March 2024 **
I was planning to upload the YouTube video for the music that I did on the song. I would need an image of the Girl Guides Logo but after my previous sets of research, it seemed like when a certain country took Girl Guides, they had a certain twist to the logo.
The Girl Guides logo would be taken and arranged to suit the country’s Coat of Arms or could be embellished to look different from other countries.
I decided that the Logo from the United Kingdom’s page would be best suited since it came from there. However, there were many versions some with better quality of colour than others on the internet. I took one with a black background and one with a white background.
I thought that the white background logo should go first and match the white with the rest of my videos and the black could be used after in the video either just before the score appears or towards the conclusion. There was a third logo I found with the first making in turquoise but the image was too blurry. I kept it but did not use it.
GIRL GUIDES ANTHEM – YOUTUBE VIDEO.
** Sunday 10 March 2024 **
Today was a painful and emotional day. I waited for the night to come to upload the anthem to YouTube. No email or response was sent and it resulted in me having to go ahead without approval or any feedback based on what was shared.
Three attempts to record the video were made. One video upload was done but it was deleted because the information I was looking for was right in front of me the entire time (see Webpage link). With the new addition of information to the score, the music had to be recorded a fourth time and then edited a third time.
That time I knew that the anthem was finished and ready. I was able to find out that the anthem’s melody came from an existing composition by Jean Sibelius. The name of the piece was “Partiolaisten Marssiquot” (March of the Scouts); Opus 91b. There was a piano and a choral version of the song on YouTube.
I learned that the song in its arranged version was approved by Girl Guides in 1950 to be their anthem. This was the year I took to be the year of composition for the anthem on the score.
A very silent and empty
feeling occurred at the beginning of tonight. There was no Kara in the group
anymore. Christian tried to cheer them up but dragged the remaining designers
(Top 6) to the runway arena where Miss Elaine waited to give them the
challenge. It was the same night after the elimination. They were given the
idea of double minds and I appreciated the little definition that was provided
on the screen.
The next morning the
designers were given breakfast and were allowed to sketch before going over to
Mood. They were given four hundred and fifty dollars and thirty minutes to go
shopping. During the working period, a lot of things occurred. We got to see
hints of the designers getting very tired and stressed. Prajje tried to work
out his edgy and Elegant. I loved the colour and origami. It was weird to see
Brittany in spiral snake earrings. It reminded me of Shantall from last season
and her prints.
Apart from Page, there were
insecurities for Rami trying to figure out what he would do in the last moment
running up to the runway presentations. The jacket he made somehow did not
work. Bishme was in a larger crisis. He said that his garment was not working
out the way he envisioned it and the fabric that he had from Mood was only
enough for the rest of his idea.
In more positive memories, it
was surprising to see Rami whining and dancing with all the others in the
workroom. I loved that Laurance brought another interesting way of working with
a roller cutter. I’ve never seen something like it before but I love the way it
cut the fabric so neatly. Sadly, the television stuck four times during the
recording of the show. This recording was done downstairs at Old Government
Road of Scarborough in Tobago. I had another laugh when Brittany was hiding under
Korto’s table and asking for extra fabric.
Christian had to chase Rami
and Prajje out of the workroom to get to their models outside. This was not a
runway I was most excited to see. The feeling of regret and insecurity was too
high. Tonight’s guest judge was Batsheva Hay. She too I did not know so well. I’m
glad that she was able to contribute to the important words section. Not many guests
have been doing so. All of the designers were asked to stay as the judges
wasted to speak to the Top 6.
The designer to be
eliminated tonight was Korto after Laurance was announced as the winner. I too
agreed with Korto about the mixed messages from the judges. Elaine at that
point of the conversation looked shocked but it happens a lot. Instantly I
could recall Delvin and so many others in these three seasons that it occurred.
I await the comments in the Facebook groups to see what others might discuss. I’m
not sure how many more episodes there will be to the finale. There are not many
of the older seasons’ designers remaining in the competition. Not sure what’s
going on there too.
MY DESIGN
Right away, I knew two extra
ideas would not have been given to me to do this challenge. While sitting and
taking notes from the episode while recording it, I decided that the two ideas
I would be working on would be from the designer that was eliminated. Korto was
the eliminated designer and she was given Formal and Casual as her two ideas. I
did not do a recreation of her work but chose to do something of my own.
I decided to do a purple jacket
that mimicked a vest with a short teal vest below. There be green leather pants
below also with an elastic waistline and two pants chains to the front. A straw
hat would rest gently on her head. This reminded me of Laurance this week when
the idea in our mind was great but the output didn’t much so much.
The inspiration for this
idea came from the very tall Project Runway model Jessica Millin. It took me a
long while to find out the spelling of her surname. The hand pulse was supposed
to be dark blue but the colour was not found in my case. The
name of the suit came from the pants.
SELECTIONS BY
CATEGORIES
The designers with HIGH
scores tonight were Brittany and Laurance. Both Brittany and Laurance
were awarded hearts. Brittany’s piece was chosen for both Personal and
Challenge Selections. I placed Laurance’s design as a Challenge Selection.
Designers with SAVED
scores were Prajje and Rami. Prajje was awarded a heart and he was
chosen for both Challenge Selection and Personal Selection. Rami was given a
tick and placed as a Challenge Selection.
Designers placed in the LOW
scoring category were Bishme and Korto. Korto was given a heart and
Bishme was awarded a tick. They had both tied for the Personal Selection and
Challenge Selection.
This week the designers were
met by the Christian in the backstage lounge of the runway venue to receive the
new challenge which was a first. They were informed that the runway would be
held at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedom State Park. Bishme was given the
model cards from Christian to pick the first one. The challenge was to create anything
they wanted with two days that comprised fifteen hours (ten the first day and
six the second day.) He took a long time to pick one and gave a very beautiful
speech about his choice.
The next morning, they were
taken to Mood. I was a bit shocked when Laurance took the purple fabric. It was
a beautiful colour but we still didn’t see what she was going to do. I felt
insecure for her. Prajje gave us another topic to research from his practice of
Voodoo on the deity called Vambala (half snake and half person entity). There
was a very weird occurrence of Brittany doing a similar top that he did in the
last challenge. This gave him some concern. In addition, I did love Prajje’s screaming
reaction and Brittany’s whine and dance reaction about the challenge for this
week too.
There was no Christian for
the first model fitting segment. Korto made a quotation from Opera Winfrey
about who gets a model. That was a nice surprise. Another funny surprise was
when I saw Laurance hammering something into her garment. That was interesting
to see. Usually on the show, you might see people sew something but I will keep
that one in mind.
The designers were sent home
and brought back at 5o’ clock in the morning. Somehow that felt fake. I’m not
sure anyone might ever be able to tell me if the designers walked out and then
they filmed them walking right back in to make it look like designers came back
from the hotel to the workroom. I loved Bishme and his trick on Christian about
having nothing else for the runway. I also loved getting to see Ms Lacey Ready back
in the show. I hope Mr “Quendy” too come back to do the models’ hair and
make-up. I missed them both.
Just as the make-up artists
and hair stylers were doing the final bits they could before the presentation (at
the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedom State Park), the rain came down. Everyone
ran under tents and models, judges and designers were all given plastic
transparent umbrellas to sit out in the open. I wonder what some of the things
were in their plan for in case rain fell? It was nice to see Christian join the
judges. Since Season Eighteen that was a wish of mind to have the mentor and
the other guests that were in the episode be invited to the final presentation
that they would have contributed to aiding the designers.
MY
DESIGN
This design was done the
evening after episode eleven in Scarborough of Tobago (Old Government Road). The
challenge was the freedom to create anything we wanted. Everyone focussed on the
word freedom and the garment that I saw was a top and skirt in green that mimicked
the ‘Suhari’ leaves.
The model I saw was Mimi and
she was a plantation slave being given their emancipation. If this was to go
down the runway, firstly, the ankle bands would be removed as a symbol of
chains being removed. The slave would be set free. Secondly, the face mask
would be removed to show the identity of the slave revealed and removal of the green
skirt would be the removal of the slave clothing.
This design made me feel
like Rami at the end of episode eleven, where he was running out of time and some
things were not working. I too decided that I would draw this the best I could
and try hard to not make it look costumy.
SELECTIONS
BY CATEGORIES
Designers with HIGH
scores tonight were Rami, Laurance & Bishme. These three designers’
designs were the last to appear on the runway. Rami and Bishme’s designers were
given hearts and Laurance’s Design was given a tick. Rami’s design was chosen
for Personal Selection. Laurane and Bishme’s designs were awarded the Challenge
Selection.
Designers with SAVED
scores were Brittany & Korto. Brittany was given a tick and her
piece was taken as the Personal Selection. Korto’s design was given a heart and
she was awarded the Challenge Selection.
Designers placed in the LOW
scoring category were Prajje & Kara. Prajje’s piece was given a
heart and it was awarded the Challenge Selection along with Kara but she was given
a tick. Kara’s piece was also given the Personal Selection.
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