PE TASK

Contextual references to me are of great importance within any project that I produce, whether it is inspiring my ideas, drawings, sketchbook, samples or final piece. I think that without this research and inspiration my work would not be as successful as it is, as it would be lacking in focus and drive due to not being inspired by things I have seen.

Jeremy Wood.
My drawings for this Sampling project based on Data, have been heavily focussed on line quality and negative space.  One of my main inspirations for these drawings and further work was Jeremy Wood. Wood is an artist and map maker who pioneered GPS drawing too investigate the expressive qualities of tracing his daily movement digitally. The imagery that Wood creates from this process are so interesting and unusual, and the main attraction for me to his work was the inverted look of some of the imagery. Rather than being traditional black drawings on white background, he makes use of white drawings on a black background which look so effective. Also, the idea of a drawing being the outcome itself is something I find inspiring as a student, as drawing to me is very important and my main drive through a project.

Negative space map drawing.

Christine Mauersberger.

Another important contextual reference within the unit of work for me was the artist Christine Mauersberger. As I have said previously on my blog, installation art is something which I find really appealing and inspiring, and is definitely something I would love to do in future work. I think that if we were to create final outcomes of this project would progress into large scale pieces of embroidered fabric, rather than a garment or interior piece.  Mauersberger’s use of line and fabric is what attracted me too her work, as my samples and drawings have been heavily focussed on line and mark and the impact these have on a piece of fabric or paper. I love the way that her pieces look quite simple and plain at first glance, but at full scale they are beautifully embroidered and well thought out and composed.

Tailor tacking sample with satin zig zag stitch lines.

Karen M O'Leary

Artist Karen M O’Leary’s paper cut maps have also been a big source of inspiration to me in this unit of work. Mark making has been a big focus within the drawings I have produced from start too end of this project, after a drawing workshop at the beginning of the unit I realised that mark making with objects not always associated with drawing is a very useful way of creating drawings filled with unusual marks and textures relating to ideas and themes we already have in mind. It was the use of colour blocks and the filling of negative space in O’Learys work that attracted me too her work, as use of negative space and filling or drawing with negative space has been the theme of my drawings and sampling for this unit.

Mark making drawing- map lines.

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.