Initial Ideas - Locating Unit

This unit we have been set to challenge ourselves by completing a live brief/work placement as well as a self initiated brief. I am going to start with one idea and apply this both briefs. I have chosen to use the Bradford Textiles Society competition for combined processes as my live brief which is to create a fabric for either fashion or interiors which shows and innovative combination of textile processes. This is to be submitted before the 13th of March.

I began last week by looking at different ideas that interested me. I came across a post I found on another blogging site, that contained images rice terraces in Japan. I really liked the shapes created by them and the drawn-like marks made on the ground. I then researched these more, finding a variety of other images also displaying these terraces. Although I'm not sure where I want to go with this idea in my live and self initiated briefs, I feel these images will inspire me in some way.
                                         

                                                                Japanese Rice Terraces


My tutorial on Monday helped me find my initial direction with my work. Which will enable me to produce a body of work over the Christmas holidays that will help me in the weeks to follow. It was suggested that rather than focusing on the rice terraces themselves, that I look into the ideas from them that interested me in the first place; the shape, pattern, and drawn quality. During the next couple of weeks I aim to produce drawings that replicate some of these ideas.

Evaluation

In this unit I found it quite difficult to find an area in my initial drawings and visual research that I wanted to develop further. However, throughout this difficult process I have learnt a lot about myself and the way I work. From previous units it has been clear that I am very comfortable using a monochrome colour palette but this unit I wanted to challenge myself by introducing colour and being able to produce a refined colour palette.

I feel like this challenge was a success and that I incorporated my chosen colours well into my drawings and samples. I would have liked to have challenged myself further by creating samples on a much larger scale, however with little time left at the end of this unit I felt these may have been too time consuming to complete.

Given more time this unit, I would also have loved to have made more use of the Ethos computerised machine program. My induction for this was timetabled quite late on in the term and so only had a couple of weeks to try out different designs for myself. With the machine in high demand, it was quite a challenge booking a slot. However, given the opportunity, I would have liked to experiment with different designs of my own, with different materials that hold dye better than others, and also seeing what effect this has on the final outcome when the design is applied on top. I will keep this in mind for future work.

Despite the difficulties I experienced at the start, and the things I was hoping to do towards the end, I still feel that this unit has been a successful one for me. I have particularly loved combining different 'hand processes' with machine stitch as well as using each separately. Photographed below are a couple of boards displaying some of my final successful samples.

Finalising samples

This week has been about finalising and choosing my 6-8 final samples. After my last tutorial this week I was confident that I knew how to proceed, ass well as knowing the strengths and weaknesses in my sampling i.e. what needed to be developed.

Last week I focused very strongly on producing mainly black and white samples. I now needed to introduce my colour palette. Through looking back in my sketchbook for inspiration I noticed a particular drawing I did using crayons that created a similar effect to the embellisher when using thin yarns. I could also see similarities between these two and the work of Cy Twombly. In this unit my work has shown quite a few similarities to his. I have been very inspired buy the way he works, and the marks he creates. As a new sample idea I combined the type of mark he makes with the similar marks I have made in my drawings. I was very pleased with the outcome of this. After creating these marks I then combined another of my drawing with this; couching geometric window shapes over the top.

thin yarn embellished onto dyed cotton, thick black

 wool couched on top (design from drawings)

'Returning from Tonnicoda'

Regardless of the differing colours, I really like the drawing quality of his work. It was this aspect that was the inspiration to produce the sample above.

Initial Samples

This week I started producing some small samples that incorporate various aspects of my drawings. Again I began by working in black and white. I find that by working in this way I can see more easily what is working well and what isn't.

Looking at the drawings in my sketchbook, I have incorporated tracing paper quite a bit, to replicate the faded quality that I've shown all the way through this unit. When choosing my materials I made sure i did not loose these qualities. The netting and mesh that I chose show the links to my drawings well. I also like that there is a contrast between the translucency of the mesh with the rigidity of it too. The strength in these materials is a quality I really like and will follow through in the rest of my sampling. It shows good connections to my drawings where structure is prominent. The combination of these elements has made my initial samples a success.

Photographed below are a few of my initial black and white samples.

hand stitch

machine stitch

Concept and colour palette refinement

Throughout this unit I have struggled to find an area that I have been confident in developing. Despite making good progress with my work on graffiti and man-made marks, I wanted to incorporate different elements of my earlier work and find a colour palette that works well with this.

This week, I feel like I have finally found the area I want to focus on. Again I looked back through my initial drawings sketchbook where I was immediately drawn back to my work on buildings. I took the advice of my tutor and started working in a larger sketchbook. The large scale drawings were definitely more successful than the smaller ones I had initially done. I started working in black and white again, being careful not to over complicate my colour palette early on. At this point I was still very interested in the colours I had looked at when working looking at graffiti and wanted to possibly bring these into my next drawings.

Starting with black and white copies of my earlier drawings, scanned in and enlarged, as the basis of these drawings made it easier to refine my colour palette. 

black and white building 

colour palette added to the above drawing

scaffolding

Photographed above are two my first drawings, on a larger scale. Drawing in this way brought me out of my comfort zone and got me to think more closely about what I'm drawing, and placement.

As can be seen from the second image above, I have now worked out a distinct colour palette of reds, pinks, orange, and yellow. This came as a slight accident when I was printing some of my own photos off using my personal printer. As the cyan ink cartridge had almost run out, the image printed in mainly these reds and pinks. This reminded me of some of the photos of graffiti I had that I looked at in my earlier work.

The series of drawings to follow, incorporated buildings and other building structures as well as my new, well refined colour palette. The more drawings I was doing, the more I had a sense of how I wanted to develop them into sample later on. I was predominantly focusing on the shapes in the buildings; looking at a more geometric aspect rather than looking at them as a whole. The later drawings in my sketchbook include the reintroduction of the graffiti work I had done earlier. I felt that although some parts of them worked well, they didn't link well enough to the rest of my drawings to make sense developing this idea further.

Experimenting with materials

This week I have been developing my work based around graffiti and the man-made mark. As was discussed/mentioned in my previous post, the advice I was given in my tutorial was to experiment more with different materials and the way I process them. So I cut up a couple of squares of different fabric and applied bleach to them. I really like the outcome of these and so used the same process but applied it to paper, tissue and material that I had already made marks on, using black ink. These also turned out as well as I had hoped.

denim marked with lines of black ink, bleach applied on top

 One material that the bleach had an interesting effect on was dark leather. The outcome is photographed below.

appearance when bleach is first applied

2 minutes after bleach was first applied

5 minutes after bleach was first applied

Going back to the work I did a couple of weeks ago, where I was experimenting with different media to recreate the faded qualities of old black and white photographs, I found whilst experimenting with applying different substances to materials, that oil on paper gives it a translucent appearance similar to that of tracing paper. I love working with this.

The marks I was making with the bleach reminded me of the work by the artist Cy Twombly. I also found his work to be quite similar to some of my earlier drawings. This piece 'Untitled 1, 2005 (Bacchus)' (photographed below) interested me the most. I love the movement, colour and scale comparable to the marks made by graffiti.

 'Untitled 1, 2005 (Bacchus)'

Initial Drawings

This week (week 2) I explored the ideas of buildings and other building structures further. I took another trip back into the city to revisit the areas I found the most interesting. I started with some quick on-the-spot and blind drawings and mark making. Photographed below are pages from my initial drawings sketchbook.

experimenting with mark making

building and building structure drawings

This second week I found it difficult to develop my ideas further. I think I also found it difficult to move away from working in a small sketchbook which was probably holding me back from exploring other ideas. However I do really like the work I have done based around buildings so hope to later find inspiration to incorporate it again.

Beginning week 3 I started looking back at the other photographs I had taken and found an interest in mark making and the irregularities on surfaces in an urban environment. So I began by doing a couple of drawings from my photographs and some on-the-spot. This gave me the chance to get the birds eye view perspective that I had found interesting when it was suggested to the group at the beginning of the unit. However, I found this to be limiting in being able to develop the idea ambitiously. At this point I was feeling quite uncertain and unsure about how I was going to progress in this unit; but carried on doing more drawings inspired by the areas of the city I was interested in.

Following my tutorial, it was suggested that I add some colour into my drawings and so far they have all been black and white. I talked about exploring the idea of graffiti as a man-made mark on a surface. This was not only development of work I had done earlier in the week on mark making but was also introducing sparks of colour. I was starting to feel more confident about the direction of my work.