Sunday 29 March 2015

My Illustrations for my White Project

My white project has meant drawing designs could be difficult - colours won't translate to bright designs or patterns but more subtle textures. Illustrations could be down in simple black lines, but might give the idea of bold contrasting yarns, weave pattern or colour - lending a sharpness to the drawings, that could have been difficult to create in my textiles or not translate at all.


I've made use of the skin coloured acrylics, black fine liner, white pens and white paint (some mother of pearl paint too)- on both sides of the paper - allowing for fainter black line details, solid colours with fewer layers on top of the paper.
This allows for more detail to be drawn on the semi-transparent paper.

Models with no backing card and the wrong side of the clothing
 designs, drawn on tracing paper. A lot of different mediums used.

These photos are of my latest drawings, Though I do have some older designs in my sketchbook and on boards, on paper and also tracing paper.

The style has changed a lot since I began drawing my designs - which I'll share later when I have some nicer images of the work. I had actually started with white chalk and black charcoal on tracing paper. I was surprised that the hairspray didn't affect the tracing paper very much, compared to wet paint or watered down paint.


This is the right side of the drawings. 






Saturday 28 March 2015

My Bradford Competition Entry


I've entered a competition a few weeks back and this was my entry. I entered the illustration section,  where I had to produce a fabric - here a woven white piece of textiles off my Textel loom - and produce a collection around this fabric.
I didn't have time to create a digital designs as well as these drawings on tracing paper, that I wanted. Which would have allowed me to create some more options to hand in and choose from. Any digital designs wouldn't have been made with photos of the textiles due to the difficulty with photographing and printing white on white designs. My digital designs, if any are produced, will need contrasting colours to create drawing of the textures.

I know you can't see the textures involved or read the text - this was just a quick phone photo.

I like how my illustrations came out. It's difficult to design in white, but I choose to try rather than use black line detail to illustrate my ideas on paper. Instead I used white paint, tippex (pen and bottled), white gel pen, etc. to get some interesting results. This also let me play with my mother of pearl paint. Which I have loved using or mixing into other materials.

I've also found that using black pen or some of my white paints on the wrong side of tracing paper when I have applied white chalk or pen or sometimes paint can have nice affects. Giving faint details or outlines. Whilst applying white paint on both sides allows me to layer the paint without letting cracking happen. Giving me a nice solid white with thin paints. I'll show some more of these illustrations in tomorrows post.

I also want to add good luck to my follow competitors, at my university or otherwise. I'd like to win and see your work first hand at the exhibit, but I know there's a lot of great work every year.

Thursday 26 March 2015

Dress In Print - YouTube ads

YouTube gave me ad -  for sportswear. And you know what I liked what I saw, even better it had something interesting for my work - research wise. I want to look into sportswear because of its structure and this collection/brand has a lot going for it design wise. Thus, giving me a lot more to think about.

Structure is something I want to look at because of my jacquard weaves where I  weave pattern pieces and want to create garments from them directly. Using the designs woven on them to help shape and decorate the garment. Sportswear could be a good source of research for this shaping and design. Especially with how to design something aesthetically pleasing whilst having this necessary structure to create the garment. Whilst I do not think this will lead me away from my collections purpose - indoor/leisure fashion wear. Creating some designs closely influenced by sportswear could appeal to my target audience more.

Weaving/knitting to shape is one answer, shrinking  is another possibility.

http://dressinprint.com/


http://dressinprint.com/collections/lets-get-physical


Tuesday 24 March 2015

My project of no name

My project for my final semester - is a project I have been doing for my final year, as I have continued my project over from my first semester. The research started over the summer in 2014 and  based on graffiti and the surrounding area (architecture and the 'canvas' used), only. I still have not named this project or the collection I am developing from it.

Geometric design has been something that's helped to build my designs, but I've tried to keep it bulky or sketchy in style to not have a fine artistic style to my work. Setting my work away from designs that only feature geometry in their work. So there is no minimalist style to the designs that make them look clean and neat. Something texture and graffiti paint isn't.

White became my palette choice after summer, to little the variety in my work and the help focus solely on the texture to develop my work. It became a feature instead. And in my final semester I have chosen to stick with it- only applying some amounts of grey or black due to the influence of materials and my theme of snow. Allowing for some experimenting with other materials not available in brilliant shades of white. 

The main issue I've faced is in sourcing white materials - due to the fact that I am avoiding most optic whites and cream shades so my work does not appear to look 'dirty' or mismatched. I have seen some of my work in natural light outside the studio and the differences can be seen very well because I am using white. Online sourcing is kind of scary and the studio is not stocked with many choices for those who are nit-picking. Though this has led to more experimentation on my part, and built on my development for colour matching and palette selection.

In a later post I'll cover my research points, issues and sketchbook to allow a more detailed view of the projects development. Also I will cover where this project is going. However my aim is to use this work to develop fashion wear for young women, 16+, for a mid-high end target audience. So higher than high-street fashion. This lets me create fabrics and see how they can be used for garments in my own collection. So design can be affected by use, rather than creating a collection selecting suitable fabric/s.

Monday 23 March 2015

New update schedule finally!

My blog has a new update schedule for all you checking it out;


Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. 


Beginning next week, so the first update will be Tuesday.
I am not planning on back dating any blogs, but if I do, I will be linking them on the Facebook page  if anyone has trouble finding them.

I've got plenty to post about; I've got trips planned, visual research and a new warp to do! Also only 8 weeks till I finish, so I plan on keeping people updated here and on Facebook - which will continue to be updated 3 times a day. So long as I am capable of doing so.

Also thank you to all those who checked out the blog after I posted on my new Facebook page about it. xxx

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My new Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/ChangingWardrobes

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Saturday 21 March 2015


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9 WEEKS

Monday 16 March 2015

Facebook and my Final Semester!

Facebook now has a new page for just my work this semester. 

https://www.facebook.com/ChangingWardrobes


This page is to look at my online research to collect sources and information I find on my computer at home and to catalog my daily goings-on with work.

Though most images of my work and designs will most likely be featured on here, rather than Facebook. I can build a body of text and information for this year's work on this blog showing the focuses of my work, those little ideas that might go nowhere and the changes I make whilst working these last few months of work.

But the advantage is that some research can be quickly referenced and sourced with Facebook - even saved for later or to share. I can also ask for those interested to give advice or criticism with work or research. 

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Wish me and my class mates good luck for our final year. We need it! There's little time left to our degree show and I'm more than a little afraid to add a count down on here. Though it's likely for the best.




10 WEEKS