Embroidery introduction.

This week, I have been introduced too initial hand embroidery techniques such as chain, ladder, French knots and running stitch. I’ll be using these throughout the samples I will be completing over the Christmas holidays. These stitches are very flexible and will give me the chance to interperet and use them in many different ways inspired by by drawings.

 I have been developing my idea of mapping from my route to Manchester city art gallery, by working in my sketchbook from maps I have off google maps. These will be inspiring my samples along with the initial drawings I did last week such as the spirals and mark making drawings.

 I think that the drawings I’m doing are going well, and have many development opportunities that I will continue to explore. I am very interested and inspired by the lines, marks and shapes found in maps and this is what I’ll be translating into my embroidery.

Textiles World 2: Embroidery.

This first week in embroidery focus has been on drawing in different and unusual ways to create new exciting and interesting drawings for this unit. From a drawing workshop focussed on drawing spirals in uncomfortable conditions, in a continuous line with each like 3mm apart- too mark making with materials like kitchen scourers and fuse terminals.

These workshops have been really useful, educational and inspiring to the way of working and thinking.In future, I will take a different approach to my traditional drawing techniques, pushing myself out of my comfort zone and setting myself tasks, as this creates much more interesting and unusual drawings, with unusual lines and textures as produced in this weeks workshops.



Spiral drawing made by using an oil bar resist technique, stood over a table.



Spiral drawing done with ruler meausing precisely 3mm in between lines, stood over table.

 

Mark making "map drawing" focussed on line quality and negative space in maps.

 



Feedback Week: Task 2.

The second task of this feedback week was about discussing and sharing my own experience with other students who have been in different textiles worlds for this unit of work. 
I found this a very informative and interesting task, as I not only got lots of information and guidelines on Embroidery which is the next textile world I'll be going in to. I also had the chance to tell other people about Construct and the work I produced over the last 6 weeks within that world. 
I realised that  the drawings which I have been producing this week could be developed into much more mark making based things, in order to inspire my embroidery work, as looking at other students embroidery work, there samples work best when focussed on a drawing with lots of marks/textures in them.

Feedback Week: Task One.

During this feedback week, we have been set two tasks to complete whilst not in any workshops or tutorials which will enable us to move on from our origins unit and progress into our new unit: Sampling.

Task one:

The aim of the first task set was to develop different ways of communicating imformation and ideas by visiting a musuem or gallery and during the visit ,aswell as looking at and recording the information seen, notice, observe and find ways to record some of the less obvious aspects of going to a gallery or a museum.

Mapping and Measuring are two words given to us as starting points, the focus was on noticing everything about how you make your journey, move around the space in the museum or gallery and how your eyes move around a piece of work or an object.
In response to this task, I decided that before my trip, I would plan out the route I would be taking from my house to the Manchester City Art Gallery. I did this by going on google maps and getting the route highlighted on the map, i worked from these images and parts of the map to create drawings of my route focussing on line and marks on the map in large and small sections.

As well as this, whilst at the Art gallery, I did some observational drawing of my journey through the gallery and also of the work which I looked at in the exhibits making notes on what I thought about the pieces of work and mapping the layout of the exhibit.

Overall, I think that in terms of the successfulness of this task, I think that the initial mapping and route planning which I did before my journey have created much more interesting pieces which I could develop much further with more drawings and also in embroidery samples. Although I enjoyed taking notes and making the observational drawings within the gallery space itself I think that i should have spent more time drawing the path i took through the gallery rather than focussing on the different pieces I saw, as these drawings and notes are not as interesting in my opinion as the route drawings.

Evaluation of origins unit.

Looking back on the work which I have developed and completed for my "origins" unit, I think that this unit of work has overall been successful. I have developed my work and ideas through research and practice from my initial photographs and chance card drawings to my knit and weave sampling. These photographs and chance cards have been the main aspect of this projects work, taking inspiration from the line and composition found in these along with colour and marks. I edited and selected pieces from certain photographs and drawings to focus on in my knit and weave development, such as certain marks, lines and space. 

 

Importantly, through this project I have learnt so many knew things about working at this level. For example, the colour palettes which I created from my mood board inspired by the colour wheel and shoes/tones completed in the Friday drawing day, is something which I have never done previously at A Level or Art Foundation level. Although getting an idea of the colours I was going to use within my knit and weave samples from these colour palettes was something unusual to me, I found it extremely useful and informative to my development within this project. Another lesson I have learnt in this first project is that I need to stop over thinking my sketchbook work and let it flow with my thoughts, to represent my thought process much more and display the relationships I make in my head between research, my drawings and photographs and samples. I think that as my sketchbook work went on I did show these thought processes better than the beginning but I think in my next sketchbook I will try to be much less precious over the presentation and focus more on the ideas. 

 

Something I believe that I've achieved through this project which was unknown to me before is simply the actual process of knit and weave. Although I've used a knitting machine briefly in Art Foundation I had never been taught any of the techniques I've been taught in my three weeks on knit. I've never had any previous experience of weave at all, so to get the chance to learn so many things and create a range of different samples using different structures I believe is an achievement. 

Having a wide range of contextual references throughout my sketchbook from artists to fashion designers has definitely helped me in my development of this project. They gave me lots of different ideas for sampling alongside my drawings and photographs in terms of colour, texture, form and line.

 

In terms of time management and use of my independent study time I think that I am using it well, but there is probably some improvements that I could make. For example, planning the week ahead and booking into workshops or onto machines if needed at the start of the week to ensure a space will be available for me at that date. Also, I could probably be generally more organised with my work with everything like keeping my sketchbook up to date alongside my sampling and thoughts or keeping a journal to take down notes or plan things that need to be done in the week ahead.

Textiles World: Week 6

This last week in the textile world construct I have been focussing on completing my weave samples on the different types of looms and cutting these off and steaming/heatpressing them if needed. I am also continuing with my sketchbook development work until deadline so that I can add these pieces in and show the relationship between these and my imagery.

 

An example of some of my weave samples:

 

Overall, looking through all of my weaving samples now that they are off the loom, im very happy with them. Although due to the different colours/textures of the warps on the different looms the colours do not all relate to my particular colour palette, I still really like the lines and techniques I have used in each piece and im some cases like the first one shown here I do like the different colours. Due to time constraints and the thin qualities of my choice of yarn for the weft of each piece my samples are all quite small in size, however I don't think for sampling this matters as there is still enough weaving to see the differnt patterns and lines in the weave itself. One of my favourite samples is the second one displayed here which i used floristry wire in as I did with some of my knitting. I really like the way in which it is maliable and can shaped when moved. I think all the pieces portray and relate to my photographs, drawings and research in some way due to their lines and architectural theme.

 

Friday Drawing Day: Deconstruct/Reconstruct.

Todays drawing day was focussed on mark making and assemblage techniques making use of a fragmented 3 dimensional object (a kinder egg) in order to create a series of 2 dimensional, 2 dimensional and spacial drawings. 

Part One: Mark Making.

This part of the drawing day was all about making a series of drawings by creating  marks with only your 3 dimensional object by deconstructing it and creating drawing tools along with different black and white media such as ink, charcoal and paint. 

Mark making like this is something which I have done before and I always enjoy it, I love experimenting in many different ways to create so many different and unusual marks. I think that on the page this variety of different marks look very sensitive and unusual. 

Part Two: Assemblage. 

Part two of today was about using only the fragments from the deconstructed 3 dimension object to create a 3D drawing or a series of drawings using assembly techniques to connect the components and rebuild the object/object to produce new structures and surfaces.

I decided to make this 3D drawing my drawing out the different pieces of the 3 dimensional drawings inspired by the work of one of the artists we were shown during the presentation of the brief, who drew the many different pieces of 3D objects like a camera. Although I like this piece, I think that I struggled to get my head around what exactly this task was asking us to do which is why i only had the time to do one as it took me a while to figure it out. I think if i had the time to do it again I would be more experimental in approaching the task in actually making a 3 Dimensional drawing.

Textiles World: Week 5

 

This week in weave I have been continuing roating on different looms within the weave workshop weaving with the different techniques given to us in relation to my drawing, photography and research within my sketchbook and I'm happy with the way it is going so far. I have also been developing my sketchbook much further to show the thought process and relationships I am making in my head between my imagery, previous knit samples, colour and  yarns. I think that this will be something I will be continuing with up until the very end of this unit of work as it helps so much with my thinking and developing.

 

 

Friday Drawing Day: Narrative Through Objects.

This weeks drawing day was about sentimental objects and drawing the narrative that comes with them. The object that I chose to draw was an angraved mirror given to me as a gift for my 18th birthday.

 

Here are a few of my favourite drawings which I completed during today:

 

 

I really liked this drawing day due to it being sop personal and the sentimental value we were trying to narrate through the drawing. This is why text appears a lot in my drawings as i wanted to try to express the way the object that I was drawing made me feel or the emotions/words i associate with that particular object. I used a variety of media which allowed me to create a variety of different marks and textures in the lines I drew and I also dreq on a variety of different collected papers to give the drawings this old, sentimental feeling in addition to the drawing made on them.

 

Textiles World: Week 4 Weave

This week I have started my second roation of the Construct world- Weave. In order to get ideas abouut composition, colour and line in my weaving I began by making a variety of compositions in my sketchbook using my own drawings and photographs along with contgextual research and snippings of my colour palette and mood board.

 

Task Three: Colour Interpretation and Compositions.

 

Here are a few examples of these compositons focussing on colour, form, line, shape, marks and texture. I think these will be extrememely useful in starting my weave to get ideas of the colour composition texture and types of yarn I want to use. I think to make these more succesful I could do more later on next week or the week after using scanned in imagery of my knit/weave samples to show the relationships I have made between my photographs/drawings/research into these pieces.

Research: Collapse Weave Anne Field.

This book my Anne Field really inspired me through its structure and composition and use of colour and negative space within the weave. The unusual weaving techniques and loose structure seen in this image is something I found rerally interesting and would like to relate my own weaving samples too, taking careful consideration over composition and colour and making use of different yarns to create different lines/marks.
 

Contextualising practice: Challenging preconceptions:The uses of time.

This lecture was focussed on different ways that time can be used in creative ways, along with  the use of history, autobiography and biography (personal histories) as well as speed and slowness as a way of reconsidering "making".

Maxine Bristow.

Bristow opposes the industrial speeds of making and focuses on the slow speed of craft, making all of her work by hand, including thousands of button holes which she stitched herself. This to me shows so much skill and creativity, compared to the industrial process of making something which looks so simple like a button hole. These pieces would not contain so much meaning and emotion if they where done by machine as they do knowing Bristow has spend so many hours making them by hand.

Bristow is also fascinated by textiles being part of this anomalous world- this idea of the slowness of craft compared to industrial processes' speed- what if furnishings like the seats we sit on every day where hand woven? Would this slow down the type of lives we lead?

Heritage and tradition in fashion.

Tradition in relation to fashion - timeless pieces? Continuity versus change. Is tradition a living thing? Could it be a way of thinking rather than an actual object? Basis of tradition within fashion - does it go anchor this idea of fashion being constantly changing? 

Although the idea of heritage and tradition does make us think that it is going against modern fashion and being much more about continuity- but is it? Although garments being made by companies such as Pringle which is all about this heritage and traditional pieces, if we where to compare the garments being made right now to ones back when the company first opened- they would probably be very different, so is it really going against this basis of fashion being future forward? 

Drawing Day: Image and cut up.

Todays drawing day was all about collage and narrative, it was split into two tasks:

Task One: Collage from observation.

In this task we were asked to make some templates of shoes which we brought in and other peoples shoes which where then used to collage onto using a variety of different papers.

In my collages (shown above) i wanted to focus on texture,detail and form within the shoes I was representing. I'm quite happy with my pieces as I like the way the paper that i have collaged onto the templates looks and adds a depth and texture to the piece. If i was to do these again I think I would spend more time making much more detailed pieces maybe of part of the shoe rather than the whole shoe. 

Task Two: Pattern and/or composition development. 

From these collaged templates, we were then asked to use collage techniques to "abstract" these collaged pieces. The focus was on shapes and combinations of colour which we liked in our pieces then arrange them to create compositions. These could focus on pattern, narrative, repetition and where focussed on exploring space on the page considering negative space.

I think that this drawing day has been informative and useful to me within my practice. I have never experienced using collage in this way and I enjoyed having the chance to create narrative through composition and collage. I think these skills will transfer through to my work in the origins unit in my textiles world: Construct when i am composing imagery and text in my sketchbook swell as in samples. I think I am becoming more aware of being aware of composition and the way it can change a piece so dramatically. Also, negative space is really important in things like this, as they are in my samples within construct. 

Textiles World: Week 3

 This week within knit my main focus has been developing in sampling aswell as sketchbook work. After getting much more for a feel for colour and line in my samples, I created a variety of samples using different techniques inspired by my visual imagery ( research, photographs and drawings).

 

Knit Sampling:

E wrap technique.

 

E wrap technique.

 

Two different yarns.

 

E Wrap with wire.

 

Looking over the samples I hae done this week I think they have overall been succesful. I like the E wrap technique samples especially as I like the patterns and lines that are made with this technique especially with the wire. I feel like these different techniques could be developed so much further if given the time or if I was ever to do knit again in the future.

 

Progression into weave:

Now that I have my colour palette as reference along with an idea in my head of what look I am trying to get across in my sampling I am ready and looking forward to transferring my ideas over to Weaving. I think that my colours, lines and structure ideas work really well within the weaving process.

 

Contextualising Practice: recording, exploring and communicating.

This lecture was based on the status that drawing, photography and other forms of recording have in relation to the finished work of the designer. How does this recording affect their final outcomes? We also focussed on the way that designers communicate their ideas. 

The design process can be seen to have 2 sectors:
 Public and Private.

Private sector: Recording and Exploring.

Public Sector: Communicating. 

Drawing was the main focus of this lecture as a type of recording:

There are many different types of drawing/mapping/recording.

Christy Brown.

Brown uses drawing to create environment which has his sense of claustrophobia, which produces these strange sculptures as an outcome. This is an example of how drawing can shape the output of the designer.  

Observational Drawing: trying to explore and engage with the world around us, a slow and considered process.

Michael Taussig "I swear i saw this."
Taussig the anthropologist wanted to make a note of something which he help witness too, so decided to start creating observational drawings whenever he came across something of interest to him or something to do with his work. This shows this relationship between memory and drawing.

Photography: different from observational drawing. It is much quicker, almost instant. But does it lack the exploring and engaging with the world around us?

Could we reconfigure the design process?
Instead of the early stages of design- the recording and exploring- being private could these be public?
For example private sketchbooks being exhibited with the final outcome or these being the final outcome in themselves. 
The relationship between drawing and writing could be investigated through these sketchbooks being presented. Could a drawing extend from the sketchbook off the page and onto the wall in an installation type exhibit?

Drawing day: placement and composition.

Today's drawing session was based on getting a sense of composition and placement within our drawings, with focus of negative and positive space along with making composition out of objects. The objects we where asked to bring in where two pairs of our own shoes, which we drew both singular along with in compositions with other peoples shoes. We were given different instructions to draw in response too when looking at these shoes, such as a l minute continuous line drawing, drawing from touching the shoes with eyes closed or drawing the negative space with gouache.

Drawing from touch. eyes closed.

Continuous line drawing, 3 minutes.

Negative space with gouache.

Composition drawing, 5 minutes.

These 4 drawings are some of my favourite pieces from the drawing session. Overall, I found this day really informative and interesting. I liked the way we were instructed to do certain instructions within a short time frame, as it made me focus on the quickness of drawing something and helped me to not be too precious about my drawings which I sometimes am. Although drawing shoes isn't something ill probably progress with again, it is the concept of compositional drawing and drawing certain objects which I definitely will develop within my own work like my drawings I'll be developing alongside my textiles world unit.