Colour Palette and Screen Print

Throughout the project I have mainly stuck to the pink and blue colour palette in my prints, however I think this has become a bit tired and overpowering. I looked for new colour palettes to experiment with by taking colours from my own summer photography and also colour palettes I found online. I definitely feel like this colour change is important for me because this could be one of the reasons I am stuck with my prints. I really want to experiment with a wide range of colour in this project as I have been inspired by Clover Canyon and Prabal Gurung.

Another reason why I decided to alter my colours was because I had a colour workshop with Alex. During the workshop I also found out that it is best to have both screen and digital printing in your portfolio for third year. I mainly see myself as a digital printer, however I also really enjoy screen printing and don't do it as much as I would like. I had only set myself the goal of producing digital prints this unit, however I have now changed my mind and would like to achieve more if possible.

One idea I have been playing with is engineer designs to incorporate both processes onto one fabric. My dissertation research lead me to a designer called Emamoke Ukeleghe, who uses both screen and digital on one print purposefully. I find the idea of having a digital element in a screen print really interesting, especially when it has been engineered to do so.

I am now going to design my prints with the intention of screen printing certain elements. I want to be able to show that I can also work with a limited colour palette, as well as having skills in both screen and digital printing. This will provide myself with a challenge for my final project as well as enhancing the portfolio I take with me when I graduate.

Further Development

Feedback from my presentation included the idea of further distorting the prints I have created already. I decided to do this in the same way in which I distorted the original lines; compression, folding, and as I had samples digitally printed onto fabric, I experimented with draping. I decided to do this using photography as it worked for me so well at the beginning of the project.

I believe re-working my prints was successful because it provided me with a lot more to work from. I have kept on drawing throughout the project and distorting these as I go. Something I hadn't tried already was distorting my images digitally rather than physically. Alex told me about a tool in Photoshop called liquidize, where I can pull parts of the image to distort it. I really like this tool and what it does to my drawings, I think it gives some of the distorted grids a more 3D feel which I like although I hadn't anticipated it.

 I came across an artist called Yvonne Hindle. The mixture of colours in her work is really effective and looks similar to the liquidize effect I have been using. In particular I like the way she uses negative space. Sometimes my prints can be very busy and overpowering, looking at Hindle's work has got me thinking I should play with leaving some space blank.

Projection and Garment Research

As I have been very stuck with my designing this Unit, I decided to do some projection onto stand work. This process has really helped me in the past and I felt that it would benefit me this time too.

Rather than aim for actual garments I decided to just create as much drape as I could, so that I could see what draping might do to my prints.

Even though the stand work I did wouldn't be practical for a high street garment, I believe I can still take inspiration from them in order to draw up some more realistic ideas.

I used my projection photographs to play around with illustrations and placement on the body and

I realized I need to look at length, as well as researching what garments I actually want to design. 

Although I roughly dragged and dropped these images, I think they have helped me to decide what kind of shapes I want. I plan on looking further into this and also using these images to help develop my print designs. As I want to make a high street collection I need to make the garments more wearable.



Print Designs and Bradford Textile Association

I took the drawings I created last week into Photoshop and tried to generate some motifs to design with. These were really easy to put together and blended how I intended successfully. I am happy with how the black and white line drawings look in contrast to the colourful mark making, and I think they give a similar feel to the Clover Canyon garments I looked at previously.

I found it difficult to keep in mind my fashion context when designing prints, and I felt that some of my designs weren't suited to be used on clothing. I am also concerned with my colour palette as I think the bright pinks and blues are becoming too over powering. Many of the designs I made are repeat prints, I feel I need to explore more print placement designs instead to hopefully help me develop further.

I attempted some fashion collage illustrations with my prints in order to try and inspire myself to create print placement designs, and also to try and get an idea of what shape I am going for. I have been conducting market research during Julie's fashion workshops, and in particular I am drawn to garments that have drape. I like the idea of my prints being distorted even after the print itself has been created.

For the Bradford Textile Association live brief I decided to take one of the prints from my self initiated project and adapt it to a live brief. I wanted to submit something more traditional and elegant for this brief, which is why I reduced the colours to black and white. I found it interesting to see how changing the colours of a print can alter its whole vibe.

I decided to put the black one forward for Bradford because I like the proportion of black to white. I haven't often done this with my work and I feel like it really works well with this print.

Drawing Continued

I took inspiration from various artists while I was drawing from my photographs. Tracie Cheng remained an important inspiration to me for line drawings and backgrounds. I also came across Satsuki Shibuya, who paints very delicate looking artwork with watercolours. I have taken a liking to her work and the mark making she does.

I chose to use watercolours for some of my drawings as a response to Satsuki Shibuya's paintings. Although I am yet to decide on a colour palette, as I was drawing there became a strong presence of blues and pinks. I am happy to make use of these colours for now as I can edit colouring in Photoshop later if I wish to do so.

My favourite aspect of these drawings is the very hand drawn presence. The way the lines fade and the mark making really gives each drawing some texture. I want to keep some texture in my work as I am conscious of losing it during digital steps of designing. 

Distorting Grids and Lines

I have been drawing, photographing and collaging to build up an idea of where I want to go next. This research has lead me explore further into my concept of distortion. Tracie Cheng and Clover Canyon inspired me to concentrate on distortion of lines and grids. I have line drawings from a photograph of a jumper sleeve compressed into a wine glass which I see as quite effective when placed with other drawing material, similar to Tracie Cheng.

I found huge inspiration for the distorted lines idea from 3D designer Noa Raviv. She creates distorted grid like structures for fashion which I really like and share similarities with the drawing I had already. Although her designs are much more high end, I think I can take aspects of her work and incorporate them into a flat print for more everyday fabrics.

With Noa Raviv as inspiration I generated some new visual research to work from, by placing lined fabrics and paper grids into glass jars and vases. I have used different methods of distortion such as compression and folding because they all produce a different result, even with the same fabric. I plan on drawing from these photographs using inspiration from Tracie Cheng and other artists.

Drawing and Contextual Research

This week I started drawing from the photographs I collected over summer. I like how the drawings have turned out however I want to create a larger library of work that I can keep developing all the way through. 

Below are two images that originally are separate drawings, however I then took them into Photoshop to edit them together. I have found that taking my drawings into photoshop allows me to enhance them without losing the textural quality they have.

I personally like the contrast of the messy distorted drawing with the clean and precise lines of the black and white image. Pairing these together relates to my concept as before something is distorted by glass it appears clear and detailed.
I have always liked collaging as a creative direction and I love experimenting with placement and layering of images. I took to Pinterest to find some more inspiration from artists, but also from designers so that I can get a sense of where these types of prints might fit contextually.

I am very fond of the work of Tracie Cheng. She places thin and detailed line drawings on top of rustic painterly backgrounds, which I think works perfectly. I want to experiment with layering in this way with my drawings.
I also found these garments from Clover Canyon. The reason I like these is because the black and white lines and geometric shapes are placed with much more graphic and colourful images. Again I want to experiment with this in my work and also play around with colour.
In terms of contextual direction, I aim to design garments for High Street consumption. I'd like to design for this market because I like the idea of creating something that can be worn in everyday lives and isn't over expensive.

Summer Work 2015

One of our tasks for this summer was to come up with a concept/theme to start working from. I found an artist called Russell Tomlin. He is a photographer who is fascinated by water in its different forms. Particularly flowing water.

Russell's work inspired me to think about distortion as a theme. I further researched the topic and took a liking to distortion through glass, as it is unpredictable and unusual. I feel I could take this concept into different directions throughout the project and create very different prints and designs using the same visual research.

As part of my summer work I teamed up with my friend Lucy Fraser (@lucyfraserart : Instagram) who attends Northumbria University, on a collaborative photography project. Taking pictures of everyday objects through a shaped glass provided us with distorted imagery to work with. I really like the photographs, in particular the most abstract ones.

These are some of our photographs inspired by Russell Tomlin.

We also took inspiration from Kalliope Amorphous who distorts images of people.

Researching artists before we took photographs allowed us to plan what we wanted to achieve during the shoot, which made it more succesful overall.

We generated a vast amount of photography to use as visual inspiration in the coming project. One possibility to explore is to take my research in two directions, into faces and also into abstract shapes. I think it will be interesting to see how these go together or can be used separately to create prints. Although we collected a lot of photography I plan on reworking this and continuing to use photography throughout the project.

Unit X | Final Collection

Our presentation to Tom went well last week, and the main point to improve on was the presentation of the samples, and to provide pictures of the knits as they are too complicated to draw. We were really happy with the feedback we got from him and the other groups.

Now that the group work is done we had a week to focus on our individual projects. We have continued to work together in the studio to help each other out until the deadline. Me and Pipp have been taking advice from Nicole on things we haven't had to do before, like garment flats, breakdowns of each design and other things we need to create a final collection file. I'm glad we have had this unit to learn things that are needed to design for the fashion industry, such as technical drawings and range plans. I feel like learning these skills is going to benefit me in future units.

I finally put together my final collection. I made decisions based on people's opinions and I also tried to incorporate as many of my best samples as I could. I wanted to make use of both my print and embroidery samples so that there was a mix of texture through my collection. 

I am happy with the way my collections looks, however if I could go back and change one thing it would be to be less safe with my designs. As this is the first fashion unit I have done I was focused on the new processes we had to do. In the future, I would like to me more experimental and out-going with my final collections. 

Unit X | Group Presentation

This week we have been working on the group collection for the presentation to Tom from James Long.

Although we have been going into the studio and working around each other while we talk through ideas, we have been working on our own collections, just keeping links between them. Our drawing styles really vary so we worked together to create 12 final garments that incorporate everyone's designs.

We all sat and decided on what outfits we were going to create before drawing them out. This really helped us to not throw garments together for the sake of it, and we thought a lot about placement, colour and texture. Elle and I drew the garment shapes, then each of us filled in the area which was taken from our designs. This worked really well for us as our drawing styles came together successfully without the job being left to one person. I am proud of our final line up and I think we worked really well as a team.

Unit X | Starting to Design

This week we started to take our ideas and turn them into actual designs. Me and Pipp are used to just sampling fabrics and materials, so this is another step further for us. I have previously experimented with placing prints onto very plain and basic garments however I haven't yet designed my own in such detail.

I really enjoyed designing different outfits. I started by drawing templates in order to put in different prints in different places and experiment with placement and tones. During our tutorial with Louise, she told us about range plans and showed us Prada 14 as an example. The collection followed a certain set of trends or elements and injected them into various different garments. For example, they repeatedly used large faces on their designs, imitations of bra shapes on the chest and sports trims. 

I tried to keep this in mind when creating my own designs. I wanted to keep our concept of martial arts in mind at the same time, so I decided to repeat these elements; cross over v-neck, cinching at the waist, culottes, various fabrics wrapped around the body and sheer fabrics. I chose each of these based on martial arts uniforms such as karate jackets and kickboxing shorts.

Unit X | Print Room Experimentation

This week me and Nicole went into the print room to start creating samples. Overall it went really well and we have come out with some really good samples. I plan on embroidering into the ones that didn't work as well or cutting them up to stitch together or pin tuck. 

Before I started printing I did some plain embroidered pieces with the intention of printing on them. The inspiration for this came from Eleanor's workshop on the french technique entre deux. They helped to create a different texture which looks really nice in certain places. Also, the pigment changed colour very slightly on the varied fabrics I had stitched together, I think this is quite interesting.

In order to tie our work together and experiment with the specialisms, Pipp made us some plain and pleated knits to print on. These also created a really nice texture as the pigment was only applied on the highest points of the knit. I think the mix of the two specialisms was really successful and created some great samples.

The rest of my samples were on plain previously dyed fabrics. I experimented with different weights and thickness such as Suede, Chiffon, Voile and Organza. I tried to vary the amount of print on each fabric, the colours used and the process used. I also tried various techniques such as foiling and puff binding and pigment printing. Overall I am really happy with the two days we spent printing and I am pleased with the motifs I chose to use, as they were very flexible and easy to manipulate.

Unit X | Fashion Collage and Muse

We've had several workshops since Easter with Sarah, which have been focused on fashion illustrations and collages. The first thing we had to do was pick a muse to aim towards and take inspiration. The muse we chose is the lead character of the film 'Stick It'. She is a boyish personality with a lot of attitude and opinion, but also has feminine features and is pretty. This is the mix that we have been trying to achieve in our collection. 

I started by sketching different images of her facial expressions to work and collage from.

 The next step was to collage together some illustrations, trying to locate where different textures might be on a garment or what different pieces might be made of. I particularly tried to work on print placement and scale, using the photographs from the projector work really helped with shape too. I think these went quite successfully considering I've never done them before and felt a bit lost to start with. I realized the trick was to not think about it too much.

Unit X | Stand Work and Design Development

To start off the design process, we decided to look at the structure of martial arts garments that already exist. Nicole purchased a karate uniform online so that we could do some stand work, and pin it in different formations. One of the things we specifically tried to do was see if we could make the bulky/spacious garment look more feminine.
This helped us to picture what kind of garments we might have in our collection.

In our tutorial with Louise she suggested that we test print placement with a projector. After we had our screens sent off we took our chosen motifs to the projector to experiment. Unfortunately because of the projector the edges were blurred, however we could still get a jist of what the print looked like. We might have to try the process again with smaller images on the acetate to see if we can get a well-focused image with better positioning.

Unit X | Fabric Sourcing and Emboridery

This week we sourced our fabrics in order to prepare them for sampling. We decided to stay experimental with our fabrics and give ourselves a lot to work with. I went for a range of cottons and silks, both light and heavy weight.
We attempted to source outside of the universities resources and visited Bennett Silks. A few fabrics took our interest but the prices were around £23-£28 a metre, which on a student budget isn't very economical. In the end most of our fabrics came from the MMU fabric store, with the exception of a few online buys and some sourced from fabric shops in the city centre.
We dyed the fabrics different grey shades to keep with our colour palette.

Me and Nicole also sorted out our screens for the print room and booked some space. Unfortunately the print room can get very busy and is often fully booked, so to prevent people being left with no time there is a new rule for this unit where you can only book two days per week. Because of this, I will need some other form of sampling to experiment with as my time printing will be really limited.

Another specialism I have been mixing with print is embroidery. I thought I could develop the embroidery skills I already have in both machine and hand. I started by pin tucking different fabrics with different needle sizes, and also layering fabrics together to see what texture was created. I think they turned out well and they relate to the bandage drawings I have chosen to screen print. I plan to incorporate the two mediums together and possibly pin-tuck a screen print or print on top of some embroidery. 

Unit X | Designer Research

During our tutorial last week Louise suggested that my drawings would work best as a strong placement print. I did some research on designers and placement prints to collect ideas on where and how they might be placed, before I start experimenting with my own designs.

I took a liking to three collections in particular; Tom Ford SS14, Holly Fulton Spring 11 and KENZO SS14.

I like these three collections in particular because of the shapes and drapes of the fabrics. Also, Tom Ford and Kenzo are largely black and white in colour, which makes them really relatable to our work.
Tom ford's collection in particular relates well to my concept of bandages with the lines incorporated in the print. I love the drape in the fabrics Holly Fulton used and the structure of the garments in the KENZO collection.

Unit X | Digital Editing

Although we aren't supposed to produce digital prints for this Unit, I still want to be able to play to my strengths. Which is why I am choosing to digitally edit my designs before putting them onto a screen to be screen printed.
I'm not sure whether my drawings would be best as repeat prints or placement prints, so I decided to experiment with both so that I can see the designs full potential before putting it onto a screen.

Reducing to one colour edit

Quick Repeat edit

Experimentation - placing drawings together as placement print

Overall I am happy with the experimentation and development that I have created by taking a digital route. After showing my work to Louise she really took a liking to the design above, which is simply an edit of my original drawings. This would definitely be a strong and effective placement print. Next, I plan on experimenting with ways of engineering prints, possibly through using a projector or pinning paper copies to a mannequin.

Unit X | Visual Research and Drawing

Taking inspiration from my chosen artists, I began to draw from my photographs. Finding media was particularly easy as I only need black, white and grey colors. I started with some basic line drawings with the intention of getting me going and finding a direction to go in. However, my drawings turned out a lot better than I had anticipated and they are visually strong on their own. I particularly like how the bends in the bandage appear slightly three dimensional regardless of it being a completely 2D drawing.

I originally planned to develop my drawings a lot more before I started designing prints from them. However during our group tutorial with Louise and also a Tutorial with Susan, they liked the drawings already and thought they were strong enough to be made into prints as they are. 

From this, I decided to layer and photocopy some of my drawings to see how they might look placed together.

Although I like the layered images I think the drawings might be better on their own or next to eachother rather than layered. When they are overlapped some of the quality of the drawing is lost and becomes a bit too much. However I do really like the two tones of grey together, which happened due to my drawings being on tracing paper. If I was to have these drawings as individual motifs placed together, they could work well being printed in different grey tones.

Unit X | Research and Artist Inspiration

After mind-mapping ideas and doing further research, we decided to use bandages, rope and drape of fabric used in martial arts uniform as a starting point. Bandages are regularly used in several martial arts to wrap around the wrists and ankles for support. Rope is used in a similar way in the underground, illegal side Muay Thai - a form of Thai kickboxing. I think that this is an interesting idea to develop into drawings.
Furthermore, James Long uses different yarns together in order to create their own fabrics, so making our own ropes from various materials could be a good direction to go in.
I began my visual research by taking photographs of loose and wrapped bandages.

During our tutorial with Tom, he said that they do not want us using digital print during this unit. My specialism is digital print so this obviously put me a little out of my comfort zone. Nevertheless I have experience of screen print and I know all of the processes. At first it was daunting but as I develop my ideas with the intention of being screen printed I am more excited to be going into the print room, especially to dye all of my own fabrics.

My group have made a joint Pinterest board so that we can easily share our ideas and show each other what we're pinning. Link is here. While researching I found various artists that caught my eye. They all have a parallel line drawn element to their work which I think would work really well with the bandage concept. These inspirations will also make it easy to keep with the black and white colour palette of our collection.

 

Unit X | Concept and Colour Palette

Although I missed the first week of Unit X due to being on a study trip in New York, myself and Pipp came back and got stuck in straight away. Our group had already chosen the concept of Martial Arts, which I am really excited about as I've never considered it before. I feel that it will be fun to experiment with. We have also chosen to do womenswear. James Long is primarily menswear although they have had womenswear collections in the past which we have all taken a liking to.

From researching James Long, we discovered that he largely uses a darker colour palette and regularly uses Navy. He keeps an edgy look to his collections throughout, and doesn't go overboard with colour. As our concept is martial arts, we aim to use a lot of light, free flowing fabrics and those that have a lot of drape, similar to fabrics used in the uniforms.
James Long's SS13 collection was a little more feminine than his others, with more girlish structure and drapes.

His SS14 collection was a lot more boxy and square, but had a lot of references to sportswear. We decided our aim is to try and create a balance between the two different approaches, and see if we can incorporate both into one collection.

Our group presented the brief ideas to Tom from James Long on monday, and he also seems to like the concept. We had already prepared a dark toned colour scheme with flashes of neon, however he restricted us to a completely grey scale colour palette. At first I thought this might make things easy as choosing colours and dying fabrics is made simpler. Actually, getting a completely grey, black, and white colour scheme to work successfully in fashion is easier said than done. Nevertheless who doesn't like a challenge...
We took our colour scheme from two martial arts images we found while researching.

Locating | Unit Evaluation

The Locating Unit is the first in which we were required to produce both a Self-Initiated Brief and a Live Brief. Producing two sets of work along side each other has been really beneficial for me, and I feel I have produced better work because of it. I thought that I would become stressed and find it difficult, however if anything I have been more relaxed.

 I often get frustrated with my work because of seeing it too much or getting temporarily stuck. Sometimes I need to take a break from it or a step back in order to overcome the issues. Having another project to work on at the same time has meant that I haven't had to stop working to take a breather. When one project came to a stand still, I would work on the other until I was ready to resume both. I also think I made less mistakes because I wasn't doing things for the sake of doing something, I had more time to think about what I wanted to do. My time management has always been one of my strongest points, however I feel like having two projects has helped me improve it massively.

One of the things I feel I could have done more of is new techniques. I have developed my skills in Photoshop which is what I stated I wanted to do when I wrote my brief;  the Mirror-effect, Offset Repeat and Image Editing are a few of the things I have experimented with. However, in a way I wish I could have pushed the boundaries a little more and tried something completely new. I will definitely be pushing myself to do this is Unit X.

Nevertheless, when it comes to processes I have greatly benefited from experimenting with stand work. I find it way too easy to just copy and paste a print onto a garment in photoshop. The stand work made me really consider where the print was going and how it would look on a finalised garment. The anatomical feel to the final collection was largely due to the placements of the prints as a result of using a mannequin. I will definitely be repeating this development process in future units.

One of the learning objectives in this unit was to build networks and contacts as a career development resource. I took part in a Threadless competition and also adapted my self initiated work to fit a Bradford Textiles Association brief. As I said above I felt this was beneficial to me in terms of time management and work load.

In addition to the live briefs, I also decided to create profiles on popular social medias to get my work seen by the outside world. This has certainly been a productive and valuable process for me, as the responses have helped me gain confidence in my work. The positive feedback has enabled me to overcome the fear that people won't like my work and that it isn't good enough, as well as giving me the confidence to send my work to companies or designers.

Additionally, the career development objective pushed me to write and design a creative CV that I can send to companies or use to apply for internships and placements online. My aim is to use this to arrange some placements over summer.

Overall during this unit I think I have come out feeling like I know where I belong in the Textile Industry. Through briefly dabbling in interiors I know that fashion is the right direction for me, and I have also cemented the fact that digital printing is where my strengths lie. The self-initiated brief shows me that I am capable of setting myself useful goals and achieving them. Positive feedback from social media and also from Louise Whitaker makes me think I am ready to connect fully with the outside world and start experiencing it myself through internships and placements.