Brainstorming in a group

The aim of our first week was to work in selected groups to explore a category that was given to us at random. The outcome of the group task was to create a presentation based on our findings, providing inspiration for each individual to branch off into their own unique project.

Our theme was evolution. Initially the group collaborated to create a mind map of ideas on the subject. From the very beginning we all seemed to be in sync with our way of thinking. We began our research together at Manchester University Museum which has excellent primary resources for all the aspects within evolution. We made sure everyone had something they were happy to explore for a few days before returning with a variety of visual research to put to the rest of the group. The research was very diverse covering areas such as cells, fossils, animal adaptation and cosmology.  As a whole we appreciated that everyone has a different way of working and by naturally expressing that in everyones individual input, we found that it gave a diverse quality to the final presentation with cross over ideas linking it together. Personally I enjoy working in a group providing there is a good group dynamic. Five brains are better than one and being able to bounce ideas off each other is a really useful exercise in the early stages of a project. Working with people who are enthusastic to work to the same goal is motivating and I feel like I am a lot more focused within the brief at this point because of this.

Introducing Unit X

Having experienced Unit X before I had an idea of how the project would run. With collaboration being a key term I was excited to work with people from different creative areas. I was drawn towards College two as it was working towards a client brief and allowed us to communicate with professionals within the textile industry. I have been looking to push forward my skills in digital print and surface design so this brief seemed the right one for me. 

Barron and Larcher

Mili Design NYC

Linzi Ramsden

Linzi Ramsden is a ceramic artist who creates design based on mark making. Her work has a very playful, sketchy quality which she combines with quite subtle, controlled use of colour. 

Clarissa Hulse

Clarissa Hulse is a designer whose work I have always been drawn to. Her use of colour is very confident and striking and her use of material gives a very luxurious, opulent quality.

Locating

For this project of locating I have chosen to work towards one of the Bradford Textile Society briefs. I work better when I am given some sort of starting point to sparks some initial ideas. Section A1, Any process or combination of Processes, asks for designs to be created based on one of the archives samples.

Based on the sample above I have started to look at Paisley pattern but more from an angle of mark making. Paisley pattern is quite common in the selection of samples so I think it would be interesting to see how I can original a sample I can make in response to this theme. I am conscious not to create a typical paisley pattern that everyone has seen before. The brief states that I can consider changing ‘one or all of the following: colour, texture, scales, proportion, repeat and introduce new elements’. In the sample I have selected to work from, the black pattern is a very dominant feature which I don’t want to happen in my designs. 

A lot of the qualities within paisley pattern remind me a lot of that which can be achieved in shibori. Fabric dying is an area or practise I have explored before and would be keen to push this forward in my work for this project by developing a sophisticated, refined colour pallet. 

Developing colour pallet based on colours used in shibori with a selection of wool fabrics. These gave a much more sophisticated quality than some of the other fabrics I experimented with…. 

These were a variety of silks.

I started to do some pen and water drawings focusing completely on the marks from some of the shibori patterns to influence my own shapes and designs that I took on to experiment with when dying my fabrics….

The samples I created using Shibori were not working well. I tried to change my technique such as using a synthetic thread such as nylon instead of wool to see if this would make a difference as the wool just absorbed the dye not allowing any marks to be left behind in the fabric however the result was pretty much the same.

Taking the idea of leaving areas of fabric undyed I began to think of other ways I could achieve a similar effect. I wanted the marks to be much more striking than the outcomes I was getting from the shibori. I have previously experimented with bleach which works in the opposite way and removed some of the colour. This allowed me to make much more successful controlled samples.