G.O: Butterfly Doodles

I've mentioned my interest in Spoon flowers contests and weekly competitions - well I thought I'd share my work to draw butterflies. I actually went out of my way to but a little antique book of English Butterflies.  I posted an image of the book on my Instagram. 

This little book with its coloured plates of butterflies - claiming them to be true to size, allowed me to explore different sizes, shapes and colours of Butterflies.

I used felt tip pens with water - to dull the colour and then build it over layers. It also allows for  strong lines of colour and bleeding in areas. I used the pens like watercolours and it can create similar results though some colours are much harder to build upon (e.g. yellow) and grey/blacks are hard to keep strong without it bleeding into several other colours when too much water is used.

I also played with composition to create a much busier pattern, something I don't often do. I wanted all the colour and the clashing of all the butterflies. I played with scale, with different sizes and never repeating a pattern. Though this allowed me to play and explore more than create a final piece.

I am sorry, but I won't be sharing my final designs any time soon. However these 

studies and drawings will inform further work. This will be created using a digital

 tablet and software. I am really looking forward to continuing this work.               

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For those interested:

 Spoonflower's weekly contests

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G.O: Butterfly Doodles

Materials

I want to plan the samples for next week to keep myself very busy. However, for this blog post I really want to look at the materials I have used in the past and what I want to consider for the next lot of work. Something to add to this is that I have two viscose yarns to make up my warp. Neither are as shiny as I wanted but they are soft and its interesting to see the differences in the twist of the yarn too.



Materials:



PVC - 71% PVC & 23% Polyester & 6% Polyurethane
 I got a lengthen of white PVC tape yarn  of 0.8 Nm. I got this locally and was surprised by their selection of technical yarns available, and the amount of colours too. 

Lurex - This is also an item I got from Uppingham Yarns, the local shop I mentioned before. In fact got two cones; one is vinyl look and the other is opaque. Both are quite fine and fairly delicate - winding a bobbin for the boat shuttle can be a lengthy process

 Chenille - I haven't used chenille before this project but I've enjoyed using it a lot, however it ran out during my last warp. I haven't decided whether I should try getting more to work into this project with. Though if I do decide to source some more I will have to be quick doing so. This does not give me more opportunity to try some other materials in my work though.

Replacement -  I've been advised to bring more contrast into my Textel work, as the new Jacquard warp will be Black and White- like the first warp.
* show work from both warps to compare.

This development with more materials should be easier with the work I've been making on the Textel and Jacquard looms which have used darker grey and black yarns. Which will be more compatible compared the the first samples I made using any grey, which were soft tones. This made some interesting work but looks too soft against the Jacquards. So, I've hoping to use a harsher grey in my work, made of wool or a thicker yarn, to press this contrast in my work.
The chenille and mixed yarns have created tones in my other samples, the grey and lurex will make a stronger contrast.


 I also want to seriously consider my samples sizes and shaping. My new warp allows me to weave 60 cm, and its been wound on the mill to be 7 m in length. I could consider creating 1 m long samples as a norm, from now, which would be great to display, but limits how much I could create. Though with the time limit it could to my advantage.

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3 WEEKS

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Materials

Sketchbook pages ~ Current work

 My White Sketchbook's first page - as I have two, one full of colour based work and a second book, I am currently using  based on white work.

This page is quickly followed with similar work in watered down black mediums, though applied with more care and design. The layers in the work are to build texture and design - from a white page, building on the layers for contrast.

Work like this was to let me look at contrast and layering in my sketchbook specifically. 

 Close to the beginning of the sketchbook I also have some examples of lace that I tried - this I believe is stitch lace.

This is where designs are stitched onto a prepared closely woven fabric, some of which have cut out sections -  which I have also tried.

I enjoyed doing this because of my past experiences and interests in embroidery and sewing. This practice led me to continually look into other types of lace.





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 These textured drawings of paint, glue, inks etc. were experiments in how to apply texture to my drawings. These drawings were inspired by my previous work for my spray paints - where I used a lot of geometric designs to accompany other parts of the designs. This work then began to feel like it had a 'Aztec' design aspect to some areas, something I've quite liked, but not developed into weaves - hand or machine woven. However, I did develop this into designs for laser cutting experiments.

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These images show my market research - above and my own illustrations - below. There are a lot of different imagery that I need to think about, ranging from: clothing styles, to styling choices and also illustration styles. I have also got to decide on use of colour - to illustrate my designs I can remain true to design and visual features or expressive to appear pleasing to my market and be interesting in aspects other than the design. I choose to pick illustrating in a style that was truer to form - allowing me to design and illustrate my collection, much more clearly. This has allowed me to develop my work, my design choices and my illustrations.

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 Below is more textured drawings and experiments, made at a time closer to some of my illustration work, These experiments look closer at mark making and textures. I wanted to do this because of my illustrations to look at and my options with design - especially with a lot ideas surrounding possible jacquard, which would most likely have a contrast colour in the design, unlike my hand woven samples.

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Sketchbook pages ~ Current work