My Summer Travels - A visit to Paris!

Paris, Amsterdam, Rome, Barcelona.....

Travelling is one of my biggest ambitions in life and this summer, the incredibly beautiful city of Paris was my first stop whilst inter-railing around Europe. I had not even thought about this element of the fashion capital but whilst wandering around the Montmarte District, home to the famous Sacre Coeur, we came across a strip of the most exciting fabric shops I have ever seen. This area of the city is made up of authentic narrow streets and the traditional tall thin buildings with shuttered windows that also house the textile markets. They have the vastest selections of materials such as fabric, beads, threads, ribbons, zips, buttons, the list is endless. I have never ever seen so many buttons in one place at one time, so much so that the walls looked like they had been decorated with a mosaic pattern.  I was able to photograph inside some of the shops and in others, understandably photography was banned.  The Reine was one of the biggest shops in particular that had an extensive selection of the popular Liberty London fabric. Every shop was a crafts makers heaven. The amount of time and money that I could have spent in these places would have be ridiculous!

Reflection of Unit X

One emotion that instantly comes to mind when I look back at this project is confusion and now in hidsight I have been able to pin point where that was. I was not confused about my project. I feel that having learnt from my previous projects of this year, I picked up on a strength and basing my work around this, I have been able to create a much more controlled and clearly directed body of work. I knew instantly that I wanted to base my project on colour and didnt feel enough inspiration for me when I assosciated this with Manchester. I wanted to give the new building a feature that would be inspired by somewhere completely opposite to the place we live in, creating a thought provoking distracting piece of vibrant art work to inject some colour into its interior. Im really happy with my final outcomes and believe that they are professional enough to be seriously considered for the new build. The element to this project where I feel I have not achieved aswell as I should have done is within the group blog. I feel that there was a lot of misunderstanding about what was actually to be achieved by this blog and it was only too late once I realised its purpose. I dont feel like my group blog has flown like a collaboration of textile students and it felt quite unnatural as there is not a lot of evidence of interaction. However outside this group blog where we havent recorded our interaction, I feel that I have got to know the members of my group much better and that we have supported each other to an extent through this project. I feel like I am constantly learning something new in this course, a lot of the time from making many mistakes but I can now build upon my knowledge and hopefully keep pushing towards improving the way I work as a student.

Context sheet

Visualisations

Originally I had been thinking about having hanging fabrics of different transparencys to divide the space in the new building. After experimenting with the dyeing, I felt that my samples suited much better to being a long piece of wall art that could be appreciated individually for the attention to colour and subtle detail that encourages to bring colour across. As part of the proposal, it is important to allow someone to envisage the potential and gather an understanding of what it would be like in a real life scenario. I decided to use photoshop to input my photographs and skew the image to make it look as if it had become part of the space.

My first two attempts did not feel a good enough quality to represent and compliment my work. The image was quite full and grainy. My second attempt was much more professional and worked well in advertising my ideas.

As for images to display on the screen, I wanted to experiment with some close ups, paying particular attention to the detail to give a better understanding of my samples. Im really pleased with both the quality of my samples and the images to promote them.

Dyeing Fabrics.

Having previously learning how to dye fabrics I began to think about the fabrics I was working on and whether I should leave them plain. I selected some samples of different qualities of fabric ranging from heavy weight cotton to silk crepe. I wanted to see what colours I could achieve in the realms of my colour pallet and whether they would be successful to work on top of.

Some colours worked much better than others but it was sort of a trial and error exercise. Recording the amounts, colours information etc allowed me to achieve appropriate colours more than once. I felt that the paler the colours the better in order to exaggerate the detail of colour and texture in the bonderweb.

                 Curriculum Vitae for Lindsay Alison Cameron Swan

Education and qualifications

2011 to Present.               Manchester Metropolian University
                                                 BA hons. Textiles In Practice (3 year course)

2009 to 2011.                       Cardinal Newman College
                                                 AS level Geography Grade C
                                                 A level Maths Grade C
                                                 BTEC Nation Certificate in Art in Design Grade Double Distinction.

2005 to 2009                       Fulwood High School and Arts College
                                                 12 GCSE’s, including Maths and English, grades achieved A*-B.
                                                 (Achieved Grade A in GCSE Art and Design.)

Personal Achievements
Won two competitions to design stained glass windows (approx. 14ft x 9ft) for Cardinal Newman College in my second year of study.

Link to blog: http://107-032-2722.blogspot.co.uk/2011_01_01_archive.html

Personal Statement

Throughout my levels of study I have found myself naturally narrowing my interest of work towards textiles. At college level my skills were basic but I enjoyed working within the realms of textiles, using embroidery and fabric manipulation to create embellishment and texture. Being given the opportunity to study Textiles in Practice at Manchester has allowed me to build upon these skills whilst learning new areas within this creative study. I am excited by mixed media pieces of work that combine a variation of techniques and processes allowing me to create original, innovative designs with a strong sense of depth. Before knowing that textiles was something I would seriously consider for my future career, I have always had a strong interest in Interior decoration. I do not see myself being an artist but more a designer in industry.  I want to be involved in creating designs that can be experienced by everyone every day, using it, feeling it and living it. I am confident that the strong business links available to me in my time of study will provide the possibility of quality work placements encouraging me to learn the industry in preparation for the opportunities beyond degree level.

References

 Kate Egan                                                                                    Hannah Murphy

 Programme Leader  BA Hons Textiles in Practice                Art & Design Department
 Cavendish Building Room 112                                                Cardinal Newman College
 Manchester Metropolitan University                                    Larkhill Road
 Manchester                                                                                Preston
 M15 6BR                                                                                     PR1 4HD
 0161 247 6908                                                                           01772 460181
 k.egan@mmu.ac.uk

Combining Media

Using the threads that I had matched up in my visual research, I wanted to find away of bringing them into my samples. Still with this idea of travelling an migration, I started to layer and trap them in between the bonderweb and the fabric.

I didnt feel like this was achieving exactly what I wanted. Some areas in my samples have really rich colour combinations and beautiful tones and highlighting that in more detail with more consideration was important to me. I used handstitch to manipulate the coloured yarn into the bonderweb highlighting particular tones.

Bonderweb

I wanted to transfer the colours I had achieved in my painting samples on to fabric in a way that would provide a grainy, more broken and worn effect similar to the textures seen in my research. Previous to degree level I had used bonderweb by painting on to it and then transferring it on to fabric which allowed me to achieve some really interesting samples. I selected colours experiments relating to what I had found in the photographs and tried to bring them across in a more controlled way.

Contextual Research

For possible proposal outcomes I have had ideas such as hanging fabrics with different transparencies to play around with the light in the building to work as room dividers. Whilst researching Interiors I came across this image which inspired my idea.

With materials I had available to me I decided to make some quick models to get more of an understanding as to what it would be like. Perhaps with the open plan feel to the building it would also be nice to have some cosier areas that can be divided easily and used for recreational purposes.

Anne Wilson

On a visit to Whitworth Art Gallery I came across Anne Wilson who is a chicago based artist who looks at colour in Long strips. I really liked the way it felt like colour was migrating across a space and how I could relate it to the colours of Morocco travelling into Inner City Manchester.

COLOUR

I was told in my last feedback session that colour was one of my strengths in my work and I realised it was something I really enjoy to work with. I like to analyse colour in quite a concentrated way learning how to achieve specific shades. Ive looked at pattern quite a lot in my previous projects but I feel this has sometimes limited me. I want to link colours through different medias so I have begun to incorporate colour wraps into my visual research. I photocopied photos from books and printed images online to start working from. In a building that is going to be really clean and quite neutral with white interiors surrounding by glass, I think a really lively injection of strong colour could work to its advantage.