Abstracting Drawings

After my tutorial, I have decided the Manchester Cathedral stained glass is the most inspiring and to do some more drawings that are less literal and are abstracting the bits I enjoy from the stained glass windows.

These are some of my more developed drawings, focusing mainly on colour combinations:

I quite like the way these line drawings capture the colours and the way they blend. I enjoyed using ink to create these vibrant colours.

To develope this further I used similar colour schemes to produce more relevant and refined drawings that reflect both the shapes and use of colour in the stained glass:

Locating: Visual Reasearch

Following feedback week, we were told to produce a body of visual research on a theme of our choosing. With Christmas decorations lighting up windows and buildings, I found myself looking more and more at the colour and patterns used in architechture. I decided to look deeper into stained glass windows and and the patterns used in stonework and railings.

My home town York has lots of old buildings that have stained glass tucked away in little alcoves, this was a piece I found in a local pub that displays York Minster:

Once back in Manchester, I went to the cathedral to take pictures of the stained glass there, I found it quite interesting as it was more modern stained glass, having been rebuilt after the bombings in the early 90s.

 

 

I also noticed quite a lot of traditional stained glass windows in window paines of doors on people's houses:

 

This week I plan to do some drawings based on the images I have collected, experimenting with mark making and colour work. 



Evaluation Blog

This unit I feel I have really taken risks and experimented. I have learnt lots of techniques on new machines and tried to use them in creative ways to translate my drawings into fabrics. My main evidence of this is my set of experimental samples, that I felt were too big and textural to correctly represent the qualities of my drawings. 

At first I struggled to find an under pinning concept due to the variety of drawings I produced in response to songs but I feel that once I had settled for one idea, I manipulated it, and explored it visually enough to underpin m y practice.

This project has definitely helped me experience the refinement and development of my work which I feel is evident through my sketchbook. I started off with very scattered drawings, unable to settle on a style or media, and slowly whittled it down to a collection. I then produced some very varied samples based on this collection of drawings before choosing a focus and creating samples to fit. 

I feel that I have done research on context and found that my fabrics would be appropriate for fashion or interiors. This research helped inform decisions such as fabric choice (stretch denim, satins and silks) and my colour palette (balancing the bold colours with a monochrome background). 

Finally in this project I feel that I have managed to create links between the my visual research, the fashion/interiors context and the different processes by which I produced my samples. 

These are some images of my final samples: 

Development and Refining

Looking back at my more woven drawings I have found that I actually find manipulating straight lines to look wavy far more interesting than creating wavy lines myself. These samples are the ones I am happiest with, I feel they look more professional and refined and even hand themselves over to a fashion context. 

These experimental samples are the first ones I feel appropriate to be used as a final sample and I aim to create 5 more using this one as inspiration. 

Experimenting and Inspiration

I have now had lots of inductions onto lots of exciting machines and have had fun experimenting to find out how each one can help me translate my drawings into textiles. Also continuing with my drawing and accidently photocopying one of my pieces black and white has become visually very interesting to me. I have now focused on combining the coloured lines with the black and white. 

I have particularly enjoyed using the Irish, Embellisher and Cornelly machines to create interesting backgrounds and have tried to focus on creating interesting pattern surfaces that reflect the waviness of my drawings. 

Although I quite like some of these samples I feel like focusing on created a textured surface isn’t as relative to my drawings which have a more graphic, line quality about them. 

Having looked at my drawing I have found that I find the lines breaking up other lines very interesting and have experimented with weaving my drawings to emphasise this. 

I have decided to try and translate these woven drawings into samples. So far I have attempted to do this with built up backgrounds and woven in shop bought ribbon. 

This week we also got given a talk from Emily Woods from Cabasa Carnival Arts. This is a textile profession that I had never really considered before but encompasses all the aspects of textiles and life I enjoy. Not only does she produce amazing, brightly coloured one of a kind pieces, she is also working in the community, to help minority groups have more cohesion and celebrate themselves. I applied for Textiles in Practice at MMU with the view to doing an Art Therapy MA so being involved with community projects on such a practical level would be ideal. They also take part in festivals and parades which is something I’ve always been interested in working in but previously found no obvious link to a career in textiles. 

Starting Samples

Having created some much more interesting drawings carrying the feel of a “collection”, for the first time on this course I feel comfortable with my drawings and am actually proud of what I have produced and am looking forward to making more. As a result of this new found confidence I have attempted some pretty amateur samples. 

The only embroidery based unit I have completed so far is a quilting project in Unit X last year, so my knowledge of embroidery techniques and machine inductions are very limited. However I’ve had a go and have been given useful feedback on my current samples as well as a timetable of inductions into the machine rooms so that I can more accurately translate my drawings into samples. 

I also need to start thinking about my context in order to help my decision making processes. So far I feel my work would be best suited to Fashion or Interiors. In either case I think they’d have to be for very unique or one off pieces as I have a very bright colour palette that would become quite over powering in large doses. 

Here are some artists that I’m looking at for inspiration: 

Vivienne Westwood: 

Park B. Smith: 

Slow Progress

Unfortunately, I have been quite ill this week, and feel like I really haven’t hit my stride with drawing. In an attempt to be experimental, I tried to develop some bigger more close up recreations of the wavy lines using a mixture of paint, crayon, ink and collage. I feel these drawings came out a bit too eclectic and although studying the colours within the pictures more carefully has proven helpful, I feel the drawings I have created are a bit sloppy and not substantial enough.

After this I have taken a different approach back in my sketchbook mainly using inks to create the vivid colours and some of the lines. I don’t feel I have really produced enough work this week, so I’m motivated for next week to be more productive. Having spoken to my tutor I feel like I have more ideas for producing more interesting and refined drawings and hope to be ready to start producing samples after Monday’s tutorial. 

PDP Tutorials

Having had my PDP tutorial, I am very excited about this project. I have lots of bright colours to work with and have been advised to do drawings and try manipulating further my images I have photocopied. I am going to experiment with lots of different media to try and recreate the effects created by the manipulated photocopied images. 

Although I feel like I still have a very random collection of drawing across my two sketchbooks I feel like focusing on a few different images will help me refine my drawing and hopefully find a media that works for me.

 I think it might be interesting to try recreate the lines with collage or inks. I’m looking forward to having more drawings so I can start thinking about fabrics and techniques that I might use. 

Sound and Vision: Week 2

After having struggled a bit last week with mark making and finding a medium I enjoyed, this week I have felt a bit more confident working a bit more illustratively. I particularly enjoyed the theme from retro mood board task, really enjoying finding psychedelic patterns, 60s ephemera and presenting a colour palette with yarn wrappings. 

I really hope to take this work forward creating more drawings using the bright colours and swirly patterns. 

I feel like I have really enjoyed this project, and feel a bit more confident with my drawing. It is useful to know that I can turn non visual stimuli into illustrative drawings, which may come in handy getting “unstuck” in future projects. 

And although I have not really found my favourite medium to work with, I have enjoyed using the photocopier to manipulate my drawings. 

Sound and Vision: week 1

For my visual research weeks I have chosen the Sound and Vision project. This involves turning something audio into something visual which I think I will enjoy, being quite a big fan of music but will challenge me as well. 

Our first task was to listen to one song and create 15-30 drawings based one just that song. I chose a song called ……. By Dervish. This is an instrumental Irish folk song and these were some of the images I produced:

The next exercise I tried was called “Colour Fields”, we had to listen to a song with contrasts and create a colour palette and a composition using that colour palette that represents the song. I chose “Sea of Love” by Catpower. 

Finally I tried an exercise where we had to create our own graphic notation in response to a piece of music. I chose the instrumental piece “Music for a Found Harmonium” by the Penguin Café Orchestra I mainly responded to the “deh-deh-deh” sounds of the violin.

 

This week I feel I have struggled with the exercises, due to the abstract nature of the mark making and still haven’t really found a media I’m fully comfortable with, much like my summer sketchbook it feels a bit scattered and not really part of a collection. 

Summer Work Feedback

Today we had our feedback sessions for our summer sketchbooks. I found it very interesting looking at other people’s work and found other people’s comments quite helpful. 

Main improvements I feel I could make is finding a style of drawing I’m most comfortable and sticking with it. This would make my sketchbook feel more like a “Collection” of “My” drawings. Having observed other people’s sketchbooks I feel when drawing, I should be more selective about what I draw for example make a decision about whether I’m more interested about line and colour or shapes and pattern. I feel like this selection of my drawings reflects this:

Having said that, having used a variety of different techniques drawing I feel will enable me to consider more techniques when translating into embroidery. 

Summer blog part 2

Over the second half of summer I enjoyed a trip to Brighton, Galtres Festival, and volunteering in the Quilt Museum in York. 

My trip to Brighton, although we did not visit any galleries, inspired me artistically. The city has an excellent boutique-y feel to it, with a shopping quarter known as ‘The Lanes’ being home to many Designer/Makers. We were also lucky to be staying close to the pier, which in itself is an interesting structure, but also the structure of the original pier that was burnt down still sticks out of the sea. I really enjoyed the view from the end of the pier looking back on Brighton, making it look like a tine model town. 

Much like Glastonbury, I enjoyed Galtres festival as an artistic experience. It's a much more local festival, and I found it interesting talking to designer/makers who had stalls about what it's like to work as a textile artist in a much more rural and sparsely populated region such as Yorkshire (as opposed to London or Manchester). Many told me they lived on the farms where they raised the sheep for wool and grew natural dyes. They also spun their own yarn and handmade the products, I absolutely loved this idea of a "self sustained artist" and how affective sourcing supplies could be if you lived in a less linked in area of the country. 

What I also liked about Galtres was the interesting decor of some of the cozier acoustic tents and their interesting use of interiors outdoors:

Finally I loved working at the quilting gallery. I mainly helped out with basic embroidery classes for people of all abilities. The thing I loved was that not only was I being creative but I was enabling others to be creative which gave me great satisfaction. I feel I would really like to work on community arts projects in the future!

Summer Blog

So far this summer I have enjoyed Glastonbury, helping the third years with their degree show and exploring the National Railway Museum. 

I’m really glad I volunteered to help the third years with their large installation pieces. It was interesting to see their creative solutions to working on a large scale and even just talking with them about what experiences they’ve had on the course and what they were hoping to do once they graduated. 

For me, Glastonbury is an artistic experience in itself. The amount of design and creativity put into the amazing sets and costumes for the shows, as well as a bombardment of sculptural pieces and creative eco architecture, effectively makes it one of the biggest and most impressive gallery spaces in the country. Best of all is being immersed in a sea of tents which appears as an impressive composition all of its own. 

Glastonbury is also quite a good experience for me as a Textile artist because it has given me an opportunity to see a range of Designer/Makers selling their products, ask them about their experiences and how they got to where they are now. I also saw how artists used Glastonbury as a place to network and advertise themselves to a much broader audience. It also helped me consider the variety of textile careers that helped create all the textiles at the festival. The ribbon tower is my favorite example of an unusual use of textiles: 

Finally me and some family friends visited the National Railway Museum. This museum was quite prominent throughout my childhood, being the closest museum to my Primary School and there for a “go to” for school trips. On returning as an adult, I started to really notice the incredible detail and patterns on old carriages and station benches. I was also drawn to the old sign advertisements that came together to form a patchwork in my mind.