Monday 19th January.

Over Christmas, I spent time exploring the city and capturing contrasts through photography and drawings as a starting point for my visual research for my self initiated project. I'm happy with how this went, as the process of exploring the city and recognising things that are usually overlooked when walking through the fast pace of the city is a really interesting and inspiring practice.

Sketchbook development of imagery page.

Example of creating coloured textural pieces.

 I am keen to use this imagery in an abstract way, as I don’t want my visual research to become very structures and building like, as previous work contains a lot of that type of imagery. Instead I would like to focus much more on developing into these images with colour, and dissecting them into segments of interesting line qualities and textures. These fragments of imagery will be as important where they are not (empty spaces/transparencies) as where they are, as this distortion and absence reinforces and suggests my concept.

Fragemented image weaving using colour connotations.

In terms of the branding project, I have made a decision that the brand I will be focusing on and creating a collection of samples for will be Issey Miyake. This has come from an interest and inspiration that I have always had from the work of Miyake, and my love for structural fabrics. I am particularly fond of the s/s15 collection, due to this new heat set process Miyake has discovered, and so I will be focusing on using my own version of this with my knitted fabrics.

Brand Awareness Board.

Self Initiated Project Concept- Monday 15th December.

Sketchbook concept page.

After being shocked by the articles shining light upon the scale of poverty in Greater Manchester recently, I would like to recognize and highlight this idea of the city of Manchester despite benefiting from economic recovery, and succeeding in areas such as redevelopment and culture like a city is typically perceived to do so, has this dark, weakened and deprived under layer. This holds connotations of negativity and sadness due to economic recovery not being felt ‘evenly’ across the area, which I believe is something that should be recognised.
This concept is something that I intend to communicate through my knitted pieces focussing on particular colours, techniques, textures, structures and pieces of imagery that flow and develop throughout the pieces which will communicate these opposing connotations and representations of the city.
Over the christmas break, I  intend to began visual research through a series of photographs, capturing contrasts in the city of Manchester. By exploring the city, seeing and capturing points that would not typically be recognized by an average person in daily life-  this imagery will enable me to develop and experiment into drawings and paper works in relation to the conceptual ideas that I have explained.

Poverty Scale in Manchester 2014- colour darkness represents scale.

Live Project.

Alongside this self initiated project, I will also be under taking a branding project. Having the oppurtunity to produce work in the context of fashion which is something that I do not usually do, will be a great oppurtunity for me to challenge my skills and knowledge. My initial ideas on this are that I am very interested and always have been inspired and interested in the work of Issey Miyake, espcially the pleats please collection, so this would be a great brand to refer to.

Monday 8th December.

After receiving my feedback for the intentions unit with some really helpful advice and ideas in terms of continuing through to next project I have started to collect some concept ideas through researching and thinking about the context of my work.

Contextualising practice this term has been really inspiring to my way of thinking about architecture and public art within the city, and the way in which the city is a subject of constant development and holds many possibilities of inspiration for a creative person like myself.

Contextualising Practice- Key reading.

This week I plan to think further about my concept, and what it is I would like to recognise, and communicate to an audience. Despite developing some ideas last week for this, I still feel the need to properly find something that I am passionate about, and therefor be able to push throughout this 8 week project. By doing this, I will then be ready to begin visual research and development over Christmas, to be ready to sample when we return. I definitely want my pieces to challenge the preconceptions of knit as a textile form, constructing, disecting and transforming pieces, which consider and reflect this concept based on an issue that is not typically associated with the textile world. I see my pieces as a canvas on which I can communicate these ideas and suggestions. Pushing these boundaries is something that I find really inspiring and interesting.

Project Reflection.

Looking back over this whole unit of work from my initial urban sketches to my final mounted pieces I feel like the project has been a project that I have learnt a lot from and got a lot out of. This is not just in terms learning knew techniques within my specialist area but also in terms of context and how I see my work would fit in the world outside of university and furthermore, about risk taking through experimentation and learning from mistakes made.

Focussing on this idea of “risk taking and experimentation”, I believe that I have evidenced this throughout the project in various ways but I feel that there is so much further that I could have pushed this if given the time. I think that this experimentation is clear through my cross disciplinary approach to the project, specialising in knit and experimenting with new techniques, but also bringing in techniques that I learnt last year in embroidery. I have always intended to use the knowledge that I have in both of these areas so I am glad that I pushed this idea throughout the project. Not only this, but experimentation occurred right at the very start of this unit under the “urban influences” brief to go out on site and try out observational drawing. For me this was a big step as it is something that I have never felt confident enough to do, but looking back, I am glad that I did, as the drawings that I produced in that week fed into some of my best visual research for this whole project. If I ever was to do this unit again, I would probably try to be even more experimental, and this whole idea of constant experimentation and sampling is something that I find enjoyable.

 

In terms of the whole concept of this project, I feel that there could be room for improvement in future projects when producing a concept for a project. I think that being split into groups at the very start of the project and choosing the “urban influences” seemed like a positive thing at first due to my interests in modern architecture, which is something, that I have always been interested in. However, getting this “urban influences” brief did at times make me feel restricted especially when moving into my specialist area and being asked to explain my concept. This meant that I had to think about a concept for the drawings, which I had already produced, which I think would have been much easier to do at the very start of the project. However, in a way I am thankful that this happened, as I will definitely be more aware and be more thoughtful of my concept at the very start of my future projects. So, my concept of dissecting or distorting architecture through these detailed pieces of textiles has been supported through my project from artists research such as Daniel Libeskind, Cathy Reed and Serge Ferrari which have given me great inspiration within my drawings and sampling techniques.

This leads me on to the context of my work. Getting this chance to start thinking about my work and where it sits within the outside world and how I see myself in terms of a career has been a highlight of this project for me. I have always seen my work fitting into the broad area of textile art, which would be for a gallery space or commission work due to my interest in the audience and experiencing textiles in an unusual and interesting way. I have been greatly inspired by the artists Michelle Stephens and Lucy Brown throughout this project, as the way in which they work and present is where my interests lie.  I love the idea of people seeing textiles as something different to how they usually would in a fashion or interiors collection, and I feel like this project is the start of something that holds the possibilities to be explored so much further through lots of experimentation and development of ideas that makes me excited about future prospects.

Lucy Brown

Michelle Stephens

I feel like I have become much better at being much more considered and reflective throughout this project as I was in the first year of the course. This is through communicating ideas in my sketchbook in a way that actually aids my practice as a working sketchbook than a sketchbook to be presented. Also, my weekly blogging has helped greatly in realising where my strengths and weaknesses where each week in my drawing or my sampling or research, and being critical in reflection definitely helped in this process.

 

 

Furthermore, I feel that this project has left me in a position where I am full of inspiration that gives me lots of ideas and a sense of direction in which I would like to take my practice which I think is really important. This constant sense of development and movement that flows from one project to another is something that I think is key to finding a career path in the future.

17th November Tutorial

This weeks tutorial has made me feel confident that the final development I have done and the pieces that I've chosen and that I'm producing as final samples are going to be a successful set of final samples.  I just need to ensure that my final pieces are as neat and proffesional as possible when being presented which is obviously key when presenting.

 

As i mentioned last week, I decided to make use of PVC for its weight and transparency to reflect these visible layers which are in a lot of my drawing work and used embroidery along with foils to add some of the vibrncy of colour into the pieces which will lay over some of my other final samples. I'm really happy with they way these PVC pieces have turned out, and I love the use of foils on them which work much better on fabric than they did on my knits to add this vibrancy seen in modern architecture that i captured in my drawings.

By simply increasing the size of previous samples such as this e wrapped piece in a dark cotton denim I am really happy with the outcome for one of my final samples. Like with the initial samples, I really like the shapes and representation on my visual research in this particular piece, and by being much bigger this makes the detail and composition much better to view. Something else I'm really interested in in some of my final pieces are the way in which both the front side and the back side of the knit or embroidery piece are interesting, meaning that if they where to be viewed as I'd like them to be ideally 360 degrees around then they would be fit to do so.

 

Use of lighter yarns in this acetate piece with strips woven up between ladders has improved the overall look really well and this enables the details of the drawings on the actual acetate to be seen much better than previously. I think that if I had more time to develop this project I would definitely push this idea further as out of all my final pieces this is one my favourites due to its experimental nature.

 

I'm glad that I decided to have a couple of my final samples as simple fabrics with very detailed pieces of embroidery on them which will be mounted on their own, as I think that these connect my pieces of knit and overlays of embroidery through the colour and compositions which relate as well to my visual research as my knit pieces do.

 

 

Composing final pieces.

 

As I have intended throughout the project to have these overlays of fabric with details of embroidery and colour on them I have spent some time this week experimenting with different ways of doing so. This has obviouslt been really helpful in decision making in terms of what will be mounted together and what works well together.