10th November Tutorial

 

This week I have been thinking a lot about the context and audience of my work. My interests lie mainly in textile art, and I think that in terms of presenation an installation would be the ideal way that I would display this unit of work.

If I was to describe this unit and the way I think about it I would say that the development I have been doing is a representation of modern architecture through creative knit and embroidery techniques distorted and disected in response to the idea of blurring the boundaries between architecture and art- inspired by the book "art and architecture- a place in between" in which this relationship between artists creating public art and architects is explored.
 My focus is largely on the use of layering and revealing through extreme darks and lights of yarn and transparent fabric which represent those seen in modern architecture- to create intricate and sensetive pieces that would be viewed and experienced as a series of textiles which would fill a space by suspension at distance from eachother, allowing them to be experienced by the audience in a way that textiles aren't traditionally experienced.

A lecture from textile artist Michelle Stephens who has also been teaching photoshop workshops this term has really inspired me in terms of my context and how I see my work on the outside world. The way she creates installations along with public art, sculptures and wall mounted pieces really interests me and is definitely something I'd love to aim for the future.

If I was to actually exhibit my final work, I would need to decide on a scale of the pieces and I think that ideally the pieces would be so much more effective and interesting at large scale- possibly A2 size. I have been doing some presentations plans of how the work could be displayed in different ways if it was.

(sketchbook scan of plan drawings)




This week my samples have continued to develop into a set of fabrics that are working well together and I think that this upcoming week will be spent fine tuning my development samples through more experimentation and development to then be able to pick out which I will push forward as my final samples for this unit.

 

 

 

As mentioned in las weeks tutorial I this week I created a monofilamnet piece on the dubied with stuffed pockets. Although I do really like this tecnique the samples is really messy as I wasn't aware that casting on and ending the sample in lyrca is required. So I will definitly do this on a larger scale this week with use of lyrca to recreate a similar piece as I think this could be a really nice piece.

 

 

Making this sample larger and e wrapping more of the squares in has made it so much nicer and succesful. I think I'll definitely be doing one of these samples as one of my final pieces on again a larger scale as the overall look, feek, compostion and tones supports my visual research really well.

 

Another sample that I think could me made much more succesful by simply increasing the scale of it is this e wrapped piece which has a much more drawn feel about it due to the shaping and the planning out of the composition directly from one image. I love the highlight that comes from the different tones of blues and the small section of white- showing this idea of the extreme lights vs the extreme darks of my visual research.

 

 

 

 

 

I have again been playing about with embroidery onto more sheer fabric this week and again although the embroidery is working really well with my other pieces I don't feel like the fabric I'm using is giving me the look I imagined  when overlaying. I have been thinking about buying some transparent PVC this week to solve this problem as I think that will give me so much more transparency and a better weight to work with and overlay with my knit pieces.

 

 

The sample in which I have woven acetate through ladders are a piece I'd like to improve with a lighter background to improve the quality seen from the strips of acetate and also through use of fabric glue to hold the strips in more securely.

 

 

3rd November Tutorial

This week I've been developing my samples on the domestic knitting machines taking the feedback from last week into much consideration. This has made me much more confident and decisive in knowing what I want my samples to reflect (which is the feel of my drawings)  and I feel like I'm progeressing in a good direction to acheive this.

 

 

A favourite sample from this week is this black 2ply mercerised cotton piece which i e wrapped sections of with a turqoise vibrant blue and an emerald green on every row. E wraping in sections has created lots of floats on the back of the sample shown in the image which is something I really like. Also, the black line created by the part of the knitting that hasn't been e wrapped. I think the success of this sample is down to the improvement of colour after the feedback last week- this vibrancy definitely reflectts my drawings much better with the extreme lights and line of extreme dark.

 

 

This sample with the e wrapped sqaures of colour that have been softened around the edges to reflect the cut away sections revealing colour in some of my drawings could be much more succesful on a larger scale with more repeaing sections of the e wrapped squares. So this week I will definitely explore this idea much further and in larger samples so that its possible to see whats going on in the piece much more.

 

 

 

 

 

The use of monofilament in my work attracts me due to the transparency it adds to the structure of the knit. And as im really keen on the idea of overlaying in both my visual research and in the outcomes of this project I think this material could work really well. Experimentation with monofilament on the dubieds this week using the circualar knitting technique will hopefuly allow me to create full pieces of monofilament knitted with strips of colour stuffed into pockets created.

 

I have also scanned some of my favourite drawings and printed them onto acetate to weave in and out of knit samples which contain lace holes or ladders as an experimentation and development of this transparent effect in my pieces. Im hoing that the strips of drawings on acetate will add a really nice quality and structure to my samples whilst reflecting my drawings really well as they actually contain pieces of them.

 

To communicate the feeling of the layers in my drawings, I'm really liking the idea of over laying piece of fabric over my final samples for this unit almost like compositioning a drawing with my pieces of knit and fabric. I create this piece of embroidery onto a sheer fabric this week and I'm quite pleased with the outcome. I like the use of colours and shaping in the piece as I created the piece referencing a single part of one of my drawings. One thing im not happy with is the transperency of the fabric, as when overlayed onto one of my other samples it does not allow us to see the knit clearly. However, it has been suggested that  I could have a couple of these embroidery pieces not overlaying but supporting my other final samples which I think would be really nice.

 

 

I have so many more ideas to push my sampling this week thanks to this tutorial in terms of technique, colour, embroidery, overlaying and scale. I think that I really need to think about the scale of my pieces especially the e wrap squares piece as it could be made so much more interesting.

I'm going to really push the e wrap techinique as it's working really well in what I've created so far and could be used in so many different ways. In terms of colour, the tones and composition of colours are working well together and I have been told to keep changing the background like I have been doing to represent those changed between extreme lights and darks in my drawing work.

 

 

 

 My sketcbook continues to be a working book in which I am generating and piecing together my knit development and samples.

 

 

 

 

27th October Tutorial

The decision to move into an A3 sketchbook this previous week has definitely aided me in seeing realtionships between my drawings and research and has helped me to start planning and making choices about what I want my knits to look like. I have been trying to sketch out some ideas to get an idea of composition and technique, and I have also done some yarn wrappings thinking about quality of yarn and what kind of texture and overall feel that I want to come from my knitting.

 

Despite doing a variety of samples on the domestic machines this week I haven't got any that im particulary fond of, and this is definitely due to the yarn choices I have made. The thick white double knit cotton that I used as a background for most of them came from the white that is the background of some of my drawings. However, white in my samples is not succesful at all as white can be very hard to get right, and I feel like it just looks dirty and is very boring in my sampling from this past week.

 

 

 

However, I am enjoying the e wrap technique which I've been experimenting with and I feel like this is a technique that could be pushed and experimented with much further to create different patterns or textures over my knits, as there are some reallyt nice areas of detail in my drawings that could be represented through heavy e wrapping.

 

 

A sample which I thing has some success from this week is this e wrapped monofilament with the blue 2ply cotton. Although the samples a bit tatty and too small, the quality that the monofilament brings to the piece I think works really well. This idea of having some transparency against the solid colours of the knit really interests me and is definitely something I'll be bringing into my work a lot for this unit.

 

This weeks tutorial has given me so many ideas on how to develop my knitting more. Colour is definitely something I need to work out, and I think that instead of using the white as background, I will vary the backgrounds from extreme lights of blues/greys to extreme darks of blacks, blues then bring in flashes of other colours through the piece. Working like this will be much more reflective of the qualities of colour in my drawings and will work really nicely. In terms of technique, I will be pushing e wrap much more along with weaving in,  the use of monofilamet, grid systems, lace and ladders , partial knit to create spaces and punch cards to break pattern up over the piece. Furthermore, I need to beging thinking about what elements of embroidery I'm going to bring in to this sampling and how I will work these with my knit.

 

I also need to make sure that my yarn wrappings and therefor the yarns in my samples have an element of vibrancy in them, as the ones in my sketchbook so far don't seem to capture the vibrant elements of the colours in parts of my drawings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20th October Tutorial

This past week has been spent developing my drawings using the points from last weeks tutorial to improve them and make them more exciting ready to go into sampling. I think that this experimentation I have been doing with different kinds of paper, transparencies and colours of baskground has definitely improved them and I'm really happy with the way they are looking. I love the use of layering and different levels of transparency blurring sections, and this is a quality Im going to be keen to transfer into my samples using both knit and embroidery techniques. 

 

 

A tutorial today has made me realise that in order to start to develop and transfer ideas from all the visual research I have done so far I need to start working in an A3 sketchbook. This will be so helpful in generating ideas and choices in terms of colour, composition, yarn choices and technique and also having the space to plan out samples in a sketchbook alongside my visual research and contextual research will make me much more productive when getting on the knitting and sewing machines in this apporaching week.

 

 

 

 

PDP Tutorial.

A one to one turorial with my specialist area tutor was really good in helping me to recognise how I can develop my drawings further this week before I begin transferring the ideas and properties of these drawings into my knit sampling.

An important thing that I was told that I need to think about before I go into knitting is the concept behind this project althrough the brief of "urban influences" has aided me in my drawings in order to go into knit a more considered concept is definitely needed. This will be key in the techniques and use of yarn, colour and compoisiton that i use in my samples, as I will be trying to communicate this concept through what I am knitting. From my drawings, I think that the concept will be based around this idea of the disection or distortion of architecture, due to the layered, broken, collaged effect of my drawings that have come from my drawings from around the city. This week I'll definitely be thinking about this concept through use of a spider diagram to think of some key words that explain this concept and aid techniques I can use in my knitting.

In terms of drawing development, we both agreed that my drawings are succesful and are much better now that I have been thinking about tones of colour and colour compettetion, and have also been developing them as collage type compositions. To push these further, Laura recommended to experiment with changing the backgrouunds and push the colour a little further to create more interesting pieces without that becoming a bit "samey". Experimenting more with composition and layering will also stop this happening
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In terms of contextual references, I'm still massively inspired by the drawings of Daniel Libeskind due to his use of abstraction and quality of line that represents his architecture. I think that my disection and distortion of architecture through my compositional type drawings reflects this inspiration.

 

 

Also, the paintings by Cathy Read really captured my eye and instantly reminded me of my work when I saw hers whilst researching. I think it is her use of colour that I'm interested in along with the structure her drawings contain.

 

 

 

 

 

9th October Tutorial

Getting the chance to have a tutorial with a textile artist was definitely a great oppurtunity for me as that is where my interests in terms of my context and where I see my work lies. So this was really helpful to get this different feedback.

(small sketchbook scans)

This has given me losts of ideas and inspiration of how to push my drawing further and prepare to go into my specialist area.

 

 

Although I have introduced some use of colour this week through blues, greens, blacks, masking tape yellow and whites, I think that experimenting and investigating tones of blues and greens will definitely help me to be more sensetive and thoughtful about the use of these colours in my drawings.

 

I am also going to experiment with photoshop, using my drawigns to create interesting new compositions to work from.

It was also suggested that I push the cut work much more, which I also think is one of the most succesful points of my drawings, so to push this further and experiment with it will be interesting.

Furthermore, although some of drawings have some intersting areas of detail and colour, I need to try using different sizes of fineliners in order to produce a better range of line quality. I feel like this will add a new dimension to my drawings and make them much more interesting to look at.

My collage idea is something that I also need to push, using parts of my original drawings and mixing them up to create new surfaces and backgrounds to then draw upon, creating layers of different surfaces and different transparencies.

 

2nd October Tutorial.

After continuing with visual research all week in response to the "urban influences" brief a tutorial has definitely been inspiring in helping me know how to move forward this week.

When out on location in Manchester I did some surface rubbings. These are something that was mentioned in the tutorial as a success due to the nice quality of line and texture within them. I think that I will develop my drawings making use of these in collage, as something to work on top of and create structural line drawings out of, as this is where my interests lie.

 

  In the drawings I've produced so far, I think that there is definitely room for improvement in terms of line quality, as the lines in my drawings so far are looking a bit "samey" which I know is down too lack of different medias whilst out on location. So I'll definitely be getting more experimental in terms of drawing tools this week as this will make a massive difference.

 

 

Colour is definitely something that I need to think about after this weeks work mostly being monochrome. I think that I will use my photographs for inspiration in terms of colour but also tones of colour. As a textiles student, I think that colour is somethig that I really need to play and expeirment with as it is so important.

Being inspired by mainly modern architecture makes me think that the colour could be quite complex and washy, due to the reflections and the changing of light in the glass that a lot of modern structures contain.

Daniel Liebeskend Drawings.

After visiting the Jewish Museum in Berlin over summer I have become really inspried by the work of this architect and I find his drawings really interesting. However, my drawings at the moment don't really contain the right properties of line and layers to reflect this inspiration and I think that by making the improvements I have already recognized that I need to make will definitely allow me to show this influence through my visual research.