context and development

Visiting the Whitworth gallery, I was inspired by the work of William Scott. His work is abstract with a heavily textured finish.

                             

                             

The contrast between the colours and bold black is something I want to focus on. 

As well as adding marks onto my fabric I thought about  also resisting it. By using wax and a form of batik method, I experimented by brushing the wax over my dyed fabric then adding discharge paste straight over, then steaming. After melting the wax of, I was left with exactly the effect I wanted. 

                             

By doing this I was able to create more layers to the print. The wax creates a textured surface when brushed on then the discharge paste takes away any of the dye that has not been brushed with wax. This also reduces the amount of water used to create the print as I didint have to add any more dye to create a texture. I aim to carry on using this technique on a larger scale.

Development and concept

after the group presentation I felt I needed to refine my colour palette further. the colour of a pile of prints I had on my desk complimented each other so made a decision to stick to these colours for further development.

The deep blue, lime green, greys and black work well together. By muting the bright colours down with grey tones I think this will work perfectly and be more of what I would like to design.

               

I have been inspired by ceramics. The crackled glaze and Raku technique (metallic finish) is something I find aesthetically pleasing and would like to interpret this in my own way onto prints. I started by dyeing heavy cottons, using a black and dark grey dye, I used a tie dye technique to create the marbled/ ceramic feel. 

              

I used discharge paste for The black and white sample in the middle. By drawing with this from a syringe straight onto the fabric; I was able to translate my drawing style onto fabric and creates the same effect. The contrast between the lines and black background creates a bold print which can be placed with any other of my samples.

Sample development

The context of my work has been something I have really been focusing on this week. Looking at the work of Helen Yardley who is a rug designer, I have been thinking about the scale of my work and made a decision to create larger samples. Also Laura Slater and Shilo Engelbrecht have been inspiring.

 

Shilo Engelbrecht

 

The scale of her work shows the brush strokes in detail and how she has engineered her prints on the cushion show the prints in scale to the cushion.

This cushion by Laura Slater shows the scale I want to work in. The continuous brush strokes show texture and having a simple colour palette shows a bold statement.I have been creating prints by hand straight onto the fabric using paint brushes to create texture and large motifs, using my art work as a guide. by dyeing the fabric first, this abled me to discharge certain parts out.I used linen and other textured fabric so it complimented the brush strokes. Painting pigment over adds a hand painted and more textured pop of colour. This sample is large scale and would want it to be placed like this on a cushion or lampshade.
 



 

 

 



Contextual research and inspiration

This week I have been researching other products relating to my context, as I feel slightly stuck with my work. Visiting and seeing what's available in stores first hand was helpful because I was able to pick up the product and see every aspect. 

I looked at many cushions and really liked these ones from Home Sense. The pattern works well with the minimal reverse side and the fabrics used have a natural feel to them. I prefer larger cushions to small and are one of the products I like to design for.

The Marks and Spencer cushions are smaller and used for scatter cushions. It was inspiring to see how the store had styled certain cushions with other furnishings and the different contrast in patterns.

Even though my context isn't for the kitchen, I was inspired by this display from Next and love the neutral colours, materials and tones. This has inspired me to use a different colour palette which I think will work well and hopefully I will be happy with it.

Sublimation print

I have sourced a synthetic fabric which has more of a texture, looking slightly like linen, as my previous synthetic fabric was too thin and flat.

 

 

 

Keeping a simple colour palette shows the motifs better and the quality of the brush strokes.

 

 I still feel this style of print isn't working well as it is too structured and bold. I aim to research further practitioners I find inspiring and carry on with drawing to then show my drawings working with my prints better.

Experimenting with colour and sublimation print

After printing with pigment, I thought I needed to experiment with a different print type by keeping a similar 'boldness' shape print. I played around with my colour palette as I felt it was too busy with so many colours on the print at once. I was inspired by a front cover of 'Bloom' and felt that deeper, brighter tones would work best but still going for similar colours. 



 I have been inspired by the work of Anna Jacobs and like how she uses large ink, playful brush strokes and marks on her prints.

 

Work from the summer inspired me further to overlap shapes, as well as finding shapes from current drawings.

 





Thinking how I could keep the boldness but make it slightly less structured, I experimented with sublimation print, painting this onto paper, cutting the shapes out and heat transferring onto synthetic fabric. The rough edges from the brush strokes show a slightly more abstract effect but still with the shapes visible.  

 At this stage, I don't think these samples work in conjunction with my drawings or style and feel the colours are dated. I intend to test different synthetic fabrics and colour ways. 

Development- Large scale print

After the tutor crit and presentation, I wanted to test on larger scale fabric with brighter colours and bolder shapes. I took inspiration from my previous samples and developed the shapes from these further in the print room.

 Using stencils to create the motifs helped to vary the shapes, and gave the print a spontaneous, un-structured feel. I wanted to see how this would look overlapping the pigment using different shapes.

 

 Where the different shapes overlap, I find this interesting and like how the pigment shows through changing the tone. As I've printed with pigment, the fabric feels stiff and not a quality I want so need to test other options.

                                                     Maxinesuttontextiles.com
I came across Maxine Sutton who is a print designer for interior. I saw similarities between her work and mine and has really inspired me to experiment with overlapping motifs.

Context inspiration

As well as designing for print and being inspired by certain print designers and practitioners, I am also influenced by how others style there work or how interior companies style products. I am mostly inspired by Scandinavian homes because they are minimal with certain focal points, whether this be a print design on a product or a piece of art. This brings accents of colour, warmth and texture to the home. I like to visualise my designs in this type of environment as I feel it shows off my designs to their best.

I have used my Bradford textiles submission in a visualisation; The environment around the design is very minimal with light neutral tones which gives the cushion a great canvas to be styled. I get my inspiration for this from many sources, one of my favourite blogs to look at is called 'My Scandinavian home' it features many homes with a great sense of style.

                                                         Image from Pinterest.

 

Images from My Scandinavian home.blogspot.co.uk

 

I love how parts of the room are photographed and show texture with muted colours and contrast of material. I think how something is visualised and photographed can make a huge difference to the product, I am focused on the quality of fabrics and taste of the colours used and by using a minimal 'canvas' I think the print design and product can look really nice also.

 

Throughout the unit I have been inspired by the work of Heather Chontos who creates abstract prints for furnishings and art. I love how she styles her own living room using her work. Her artwork on the walls works beautifully with the upholstery she has designed. I would like to set up a photo-shoot and style objects and furniture in with some of my designs further on in the year, and think this would be a great idea to think about for my degree show.

Development

I have been  developing samples in the print room and testing ideas to further my practice. I still feel like I am being very experimental and developing outcomes I'm not too fond of but still progressing and playing with ideas.

I dyed a heavy cotton/linen blend for this sample, discharged out using stencils then printed over using pigment, also with stencils. I don't think this sample has worked well because the pigment seems to sit on top of the other colour strange, still creating texture but not entirely what I want my finalised prints to look like.

               Adding pigment using stencils and foil.

Creating stencils for my prints still work well and feel the possibilities are endless. I wanted this print to be quite simple with the 'arches' flowing through the print. at this stage of the design process I like even the outside (un used) part of the print where the pigment has still been printed. This gave me an idea to do a rough print by masking off parts of the fabric and printing using the stencil and screen after using it for a placement print.

This inspired me to create a few minimal designs on Photoshop and showing my colour palette and context further.

                                       visualisation using my digital design.

W is for wallpaper

We visited the 'W is for wallpaper' exhibition at the Ruthin craft centre in Wales. The exhibition was hugely inspiring and enjoyed seeing the designs on a large/ professional scale.

                                                                   Timorous Beasties

                                                                     Daniel Heath

                                                                    Eley Kishimoto

All the wallpapers showed great craftsmanship and beautiful designs. The one I was most pleased to see was Daniel heaths Onyx Skyline print. After attending his guest lecture in level 5, I have been inspired by his work since and love the structure of his hand printed designs.
 

 

We also visited Rachael Kelly's artist in residency studio, she explained her designs and the process of this. By sticking pre cut vinyl shapes on the walls she then got some of us to help and add foil over this using double sided adhesive creating various layers.

 

The trip really inspired me and thought it was great to see work from other practitioners up close. It made me think further about my practice and broadened my mind to think about other context ideas and after graduation.   



Developing samples with colour

This week I have been adding colour and shape to my previous samples.Using stencils I've cut out gives me a wider range of motifs for my designs, I can also make and develop them whilst working in the print room. drawing from my backgrounds and other visual research I was able to have varied shapes making each print individual.

             Blocking out the screen using cut outs.

Adding pigment colour to the print using stencils with designs from previous print neagatives.

I've found that the bolder stencils work well and create more of a contrast to the background.

 The ideas I have in the print room have been growing in the result of using stencils as the progress is quite quick and feel that the prints I have done so far act as my sketchbook, and show development.

I have chosen to use pigment because I wanted the colours to be brighter and some to have pastel shades.

By continuous line drawing certain designs, I created a stencils by cutting around these. By doing this, I am able to create thinner motifs linking more with my drawings and still keeping a hand drawn aesthetic to the prints. 
 

 I have been inspired by the work of  James Nares.

Direction

This week I have been gathering inspiration for the placement of my motifs. I have been looking at object placement within interior by looking at vessels and how they've been placed on shelves in quantities.

 

These vessels reflect certain shapes from my architecture drawings. I want my prints be quite random in the way that the shapes are placed and spontaneous giving the prints varied aesthetics. I have also been looking at 100% design for other contemporary interior objects.  

 

My drawings of objects and an idea of how I want my prints to look.

The work of Cecil Touchon has inspired me to create collaged texture for the backgrounds of my prints.I discharged the pattern out as well as my previous ink designs to then work over using colour. I used stencils and a blank screen to block out so I was left with the desired shapes.

 

At the moment I want these to be spontaneous and not linear which I think challenges me to think differently. I feel that the colour of the fabric could be a bit more consistent as I have dyed too many different shades, but hope to bring the prints together with colour.