Tutorial

This week I had a tutorial with Nick. I have to say I was nervous to hear his views on my work but the tutorial went well, I left feeling very positive and with some good ideas of how to continue to develop and move my work forward.

These are the notes Nick gave me:

Once I got home and had time to let the comments sink in I made my own notes, enabling me to think about what Nick had said and for me to put my own ideas down on paper.

Notes

• Try using illustrator to create my patterns, this may help designs become clearer and help with colour changes I make.
• Make some digital designs which have just 3 colours. this will make the designs more suitable for a client to print.
• When creating digital designs think about the devore process I will use in the print room considering the placement within the design. Consider a different colour or pattern which would appear along side the devore section of the sample.
• Use the sublimation printer with the idea of collaging patterns together by cutting the paper designs before I heat press them onto the fabric.
• Think about using different fabrics e.g. cotton, jersey and chiffon.
• Make sure every design repeats. Use books to look at different repeat structures I can create. 
• Give some designs more structure by using stripes and lines.
• Continue to develop a wide Colour palette maybe introduce some new colours look at trends for inspiration.
• For black and white samples try printing directly onto Silk Viscose instead of Digitally printing as the dye bleeds.
• Experiment with using paper stencils with my geometric screens to create designs similar to my digital designs. Combine this screen printing with devore and foiling to see what effects can be created.
• Continue to develop Black foil with devore on black and white samples the effect is very interesting.
• Look at new inspiration when drawing Black and white Geometric designs. Maybe visit the V and A for inspiration, possibly looking at African Masks.
• Continue to develop Floral drawing styles in particular both painted and felt tip pen designs i have created.
• Develop floral imagery by looking at a wide range of inspiration from Tropical flowers to cottage garden flowers.
• Consider different scale of florals thinking about very small flowers as well as large motifs within digital designs.
• Continue to develop drawings out of my sketchbook. 
• For the Degree show consider making Fashion outcomes like I did for Ba7.

Drawing on a larger scale

Since my recent visit to the Fashion and Textile Museum in London I have been keen to start drawing and painting on a larger scale. To do this I have invested in an A1 sketch pad. This week I have started to draw on a larger scale develop my drawings out of my A3 sketchbook.

I have continued to take inspiration from Collier Campbell, Zandra Rhodes and Celia Birtwell within my drawing style. I have used varied mediums to create my drawings including, gouache, watercolour and felt tips.

I have to say I really enjoyed the change of working on a larger scale and I am going to continue to work on this scale.

Putting Designs In Context

Since I have been working on my Bradford Boards I have started to think about how my designs would work for a fashion context.

I chose to put my Designs in the context of fashion in a shift dress style as this fits into my 60s theme. I am pleased with how these first initial context images look.

I am also going to put my designs in the context of interiors to see how versatile these design are.

Bradford Competiton

Over the weekend I have been working on ideas for the Bradford competition. I am planning on entering the P1 catagory:

I am planning on entering 2 A1 boards. The first board will have my inspiration on it, which will be images of drawings/collages from my sketchbook.

The second board will have my design on silk satin sized A2, with an image of the design in context.

This planning has allowed me to be organised ready for the deadline of this competition which is Monday 10th March. During this week I will turn these plans into actual boards.

Experimenting With Hanging Samples For Stew

With the majority of my samples for stew being finished I have started to experiment with displaying the samples and the composition I am going to use for the Stew Exhibition.

My hope for the exhibition is to show my colour palettes my designs and my patterns. I want my pieces  to reflect the contrast that I set out to create. My aim is to show my use of colour, scale and motif from my three collections. I am pleased with how these first experiments have worked out and I am hopeful my exhibition of work will look effective.

As well as the fabric designs I am also going to do some paper designs which I plan to display on hangers suggesting the context of fashion.

Stew Samples In The Print Room

Over the past week I have been developing my Samples for the Stew gallery By working into some them using Foiling and Devore.

 I am really pleased with how these have turned out, I still have 3 velvet samples to devore which I will be doing in the print room this coming thursday. Sadly there was a mistake in the dye used to print the samples so when the prints came out of the washing machine all the colours had bleed. This is why I haven't worked in to the samples yet as they had to be reprinted. Luckily I had booked into the print room for this week as well.

Website Update

Since getting my Photos back from the photo shoot I arranged of my work, I have been updating my website getting it ready to publish before the stew Exhibition.

Home page - I have added images which Martin took of my Samples from Ba7. The images show my use of colour, pattern and detail.

About page - This page tells the viewer about me and my style of working. The image on this page is of my Ba8 samples for Stew Gallery which I took myself.

Contact page - this page allows for the viewer to leave feedback on my work, or get in contact in regards to a job or a commision.

 Portfolio page - This page has images from my last three project. This allows me to show my style of work through three separate projects. The image of my work for Ba8 where taken myself the rest are from the photo shoot Martin Grayling (http://mgphotography.smugmug.com) did for me.

 CV page - This page is still under construction I am planning to add my written cv which I am still in the process of composing. 

 I am pleased with how my website is coming together, the new images have created that professional look That I was wanting to achieve.