Repeat Pattern

Here are some repeat patterns I’ve been working on in Photoshop today.

I need to play around with scale a bit more, and make some new flowers in order to keep producing original designs.

Digital Cross Stitch

For this project I wanted to have a go at a bit of cross stitch, using my own designs. To do this I was originally going to use one of those online cross stitch pattern makers, but I wasn’t happy with the result, so I decided to make the pattern myself using photoshop and a large grid. I individually filled in the grids with the colour that I wanted to use, using my original design as a guide and this is how it came out.

Original Photoshop design

Cross stitch pattern.

Flowers

First page of flowers. This isn’t a design in particular, it’s just experimenting with how I want the individual flowers to look and what colours look good together.

Initial Images

Here are my initial scans and photos of the flowers. I’ll play around with them in photoshop to get them to match my colour scheme, start making designs etc.

Pictures of Flowers

So in order to start producing imagery and designs I wanted to gather some photos I had taken myself of flowers. I went out to Lidls this morning and bought three bunches of flowers. I had a lot of fun arranging them into a beautiful bouquet and even more fun taking photos. I forgot how much I loved my camera. I also forgot how fun it is to get photos developed, there’s little I enjoy more than seeing how my photos turned out on a roll of film.
Anyway, I managed to get a ton of good photos that I can now use to draw from, make collages, scan in and digitally alter to start creating my designs. As well as that, I still have a whole bunch of flowers left, some of which i will try scanning in, pressing and other fun interesting things.

My beautiful floral arrangement.

Selecting the best pics. 

London

This weekend I ventured to London to see my best pals Bengi and Bry. While I was there I ventured to the V&A to check out the tapestries and whatnot that they have on display. I spend a good few hours wandering around on my own on the Friday night, and although I’ve been to the V&A on many occasions I found a lot of things that I have never seen before, and am unsure how I could have possibly missed them. However, I felt like the tapestries etc were a bit too traditional for my liking and I wont be including them in this project as I would like a much more contemporary feel in my work.
I was a bit gutted because on returning home from London I found that my tutor had emailed me several interesting exhibitions that were on that I unfortunately missed.
Oh well.

Tutorials with Daniel Heath

Yesterday I had a tutorial with Daniel Heath, a textile designer from London, to discuss which brief I have chosen and my ideas for it so far. Daniel works with interiors, using mainly recycled materials that he sources himself. If you’re interested in looking at some of his work visit his website.
We discussed my initial plans for gathering and producing first time imagery, as well as the sort of techniques, processes and materials I’ll be using.
As I’m starting to finally get back into film photography I wanted to shoot a roll of colour slide film and then cross process it to get some strong colour contrast photographs of flowers etc. He suggested I consider then altering these photos digitally to match my colour scheme and create some imagery to work with.
We also discussed how I wanted to continue my work with resin (in my last project I started to embed small pieces of embroidery within resin) looking particularly at how the weight of the resin would affect how the fabric drapes, as this piece will be fashion based, I need to make it work for the body.
To help with this process he encouraged me to illustrate fashion drawings throughout my project.

This weekend I’ll be going to London to visit my friend, whilst I’m there I plan to visit the V&A to take a look at the medieval embroidery pieces, as well as trying to visit some flower markets to take some photos to get my project started.

Artist Research So Far

To start off my project, I have collected some imagery to inspire my initial drawings and designs, based on the idea of floral, and geometric.

These pieces are by Anne Ten Donkeelar, and she has used pressed flowers, arranged carefully on pins, to create very beautiful, delicate 3 dimensional collages.

These paintings, by Mercedes Lagunas, appealed to me due to the colourful and abstract nature of the art. They have some geometric qualities to them as well.

I also included these images by Dee Dee Cheriel, because I really liked her geometic designs, and the hand drawn, illustrative quality they possess. 

Hand and Lock Prize 2014

My new brief is that of the Hand and Lock Prize 2014. I was given a choice of 3, the Hand and Lock Embroidery Design, a Spring/Summer 2015 Fashion Fabrics one, and an Interior fabrics/surface brief for WGSN. As an embroiderer the first was the most appealing to me, and as I was considering entering the competition anyway it only made sense to include it as part of my work.

The post below outlines the brief, which is basically to look at floral pattern, and reinvent it in an original and innovative way, using traditional embroidery techniques, mixed with more contemporary processes. For my unit I have to produce a sketchbook, 6/8 samples, and a final fashion piece.

So far I have only done some research, selected my colour scheme and planned out a schedule to work with.

Here are some images of last years Hand and Lock prize winners:

First Place- Sophie Carr

Second Place- Sabrina Shirazi

Third Place- Stephanie Cristofaro

As you can see they are all very different pieces, ranging from quite simplistic designs, right up to very intricate and time consuming samples. 

Moodboard

Textiles
Unit 2

New project started 4.11.13

My chosen colour palette and moodboard, plus the brief that was set by Hand and Lock for the 2014 Prize. 

Innovation-Household Geometrics

Textiles Design
2nd Year
First Unit
Initial Drawings and Photos

Bestival

Most frikkin awesome weekend ever.

It was fun to use film again, I did a few double exposures and played around with overexposing aswell.

Moving in two days.

Officially unemployed as of yesterday.

I’m very happy right now.