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 | 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.

Unit X | Final images

After playing with my images on photoshop over and over again, I have finally produced 2 images which I am happy to print for the exhibition.

During my experimentation, I decided that having 4 animals in one print was perhaps too much and looked too busy. Because of this, I changed my number to three and in order to create another poster I needed two more paintings to work with, so I painted the zebra and the macaw.

Working on both posters was quite difficult, as I needed to create the right combination of animals and in the right places. Eventually I did manage to come up with two designs I am happy with. I wanted my designs to be large scale, so I started with the biggest size available to me which is A0. I was prepared to go smaller if necessary however the A0 prints came out okay, there was no blurring. I am happy with my prints, but if I could have been specific with my paper I wouldn't have chosen matte as the colours did dull down a little. 

Yet I am very pleased with how my work looks and I am excited to put it up in the exhibition.

I wanted to see how my prints looked together get a general feel of how they are going to look in the exhibition, so I tried hanging them up in the studio. I was thinking about mounting them on boards as they might look better, but in the end I decided I prefer them hanging as paper. Also A0 boards would be extremely hard to carry to and from the exhibition, whereas with paper I have bought a tube to carry them in safely so that they don't get damaged. Overall I really like how my designs have turned out and I am very pleased with my work.

Unit X | Working in the Studio

During Unit X we have been able to work in the studio in a way which we never have before. We have always been entitled to putting our work up on the walls but it wasn't exactly instructed. However in drawing and film this is exactly what we have been told to do, and I have very much enjoyed having the experience. 

It is really nice to be able to see other people's work and how they are developing their ideas. I never realized how seeing how my peers are working could inspire me to work harder and show off my work. Normally our work is enclosed in a sketchbook which can be seen by our friends and who we choose to show it to. Having work up on the studio walls enables anyone and everyone to see our work develop. 

I like this way of working as when people walk by you can see their reactions to your wall, and a lot can be shown through facial expressions. When people have a positive response to my work it gives me more confidence. I have also had people come up to me and tell me they like my work, in fact I've received lots of really lovely comments. 

I also find it interesting to be able to see the difference between my wall at the start and at the end of the unit, and the journey it has gone through.

Unit X | Digital Experimentation

This week I have finally taken my work onto Photoshop.

As the acryllic image transfer technique can be unpredictable and might not always have the desired effect, I scanned separate image transfers into photoshop so I can edit them together. So far I have only been trying things out but I am happy with how it is going. Turning my images into brushes has made them incredibly easy to use. It is very useful to be able to delete anything that doesn't look right, move things around and start again. I am going to continue to use photoshop to hopefully come up with some final images. I plan to create 3-4 separate images each including one animal like Bryan Holland, but for the exhibition they will be shown as a collection.



Unit X | Investigation

Since deciding what my direction is going to be I have been experimenting with colours and patterns.

I started to look at the designs used within typical fairgrounds and circuses. I then wanted to somehow portray this imagery onto animals to put across the idea that they are seen as part of the fairground rather than actual living things. I started with silhouettes because a basic shape is a lot easier to put a pattern onto. I quite like how these turned out, and I really liked the hand painted element.
Although I do really like the silhouettes filled with bright patterns, I also wanted to experiment with more real looking paintings. Bryan Holland paints the animal as it actually looks and turns its surroundings into pattern and imagery. I wanted to try this out for myself.

 

While I was doing some research on Pinterest I found lots of artwork that showed elephants on newspaper and book pages. I really liked how it looked but it also relates to my work, as newspapers were what told people all over the UK that the animals were in Belle Vue to be seen. That's where they were advertised.
I have painted a circus elephant onto newspaper, this time as the elephant actually looks rather than the silhouette filled with a pattern. I found that I really like the texture of the paint on the newspaper, and the finish was lovely. I plan on taking the newspaper idea further in my work.

Unit X | Belle Vue Archives

This week I learned a lot about Belle Vue considering I'd never heard about it before.

We had a talk and there was some information that particularly stood out to me. The animals weren't treated very well and often died within a few weeks or months. I've always been a big animal lover so this really got to me.

One of my ideas to work with is that the animals were used for entertainment purposes and weren't left to live their lives. They were seen as a form of entertainment rather than seen as unhappy and dying. 

I collected lots of visual information of animals and the zoological gardens posters from the visit to Chatem Library, to help me get started.

I also made a board on my Pinterest especially for circus and zoo animals.

http://gb.pinterest.com/caramillet/animals/

 

Unit X | Blackpool

 I really enjoyed this weeks trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach. I took plenty of photos for visual research because I want to hit the ground running in this Unit. From the past I've found I draw to a much better quality when I have collected vast amounts of research.

Actually being at the theme park and experiencing it in a way you can't by just buying a ticket definitely brought some inspiration itself. I collected many photos of the roller coasters and their structures as they looked amazing from the angles we saw them from.

I have started doing some drawings from these photos however I'm not sure roller coasters is the direction I want to go in. The architectural side of things has never really been a key interest or strong point. We have more visits and lectures this week so I'm hoping other aspects stick out for me.