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.