Cement and Emulsion

Following my crit after Easter it came to my attention that some of my samples were too flimsy and small. My tutor pointed out to me that my work was much stronger when I made samples on a larger scale and didn't hold back with bold ideas. Therefore I proceeded to think of ways to enhance this quality. I turned to using heavy DIY materials such as cement and emulsion paint to see how this would make a difference to my work. I took a trip to a local DIY store and bought both of these items as well as some tough fabric to work with. 

Incorporating an idea from one of my previous samples where I braided lengths of different textured yarns and secured them with a couple of stitches, I created another, almost identical to this but on a larger scale (below), and proceeded to coat it in cement and then emulsion paint to give it rigidity and a neutral colour. I felt that in doing this, it gave a stiff quality that reminded me of some of my paper samples.

By this point I had removed my colour palette completely from sampling as I felt the pieces I was producing worked better neutral; being able to focus more on the texture than the colour. Below is the outcome of the cement and emulsion paint applied to the braids in the above photo.

I discovered that the more emulsion I applied, the stiffer the sample became and the colour became more of a block white than being patchy. I like this quality as when I tried to manipulate it by bending, cracks were formed and small pieces of paint and cement came away which added more texture.

This process is one I will be taking further to a final idea as I feel it has been a success; incorporating the progression work from my sketchbook to create a 'final piece' or collection of 'final samples'.