2.2.2. Side by Side.

This week I have focussed on the idea of capturing a moment, Working with long exposure and shutter speed, to capture movement and shape. Editing the pictures to see the lines of movement and struggle. Thus perpetuating the idea of mental struggle and insanity, the idea of being stuck within yourself with no escape from thoughts, challenging perspectives of visual attitudes, pulling out the strongest colours of the pictures, working with the marks they create in the image, distorting the body, morphing and stretching. With all that I found that to keep things moving I need to change location or background of my focus so that things aren't so similar with each image I use. 
To develop further I intend employ new approaches, to create distortion with different angles, working with a scanner to stretch and morph images, to create a different kind of mark, to evolve new imagery.

Helen Lawrence, Google images.

With the Live Project, I have chosen the 'Branding Project', with 'Natural Forms' as the concept.

The brand I am directing my work towards is ' Helen Lawrence'. Lawrence's work is a play on texture and transparency along with child's play in learning to colour. In reflection of my brand choice I know that I need to do a lot of reattach to gain more understanding of the brand in order to capture the essence of style. 

My main concept will be the formation of patterns which occur in nature, piecing together different aspects of the beach, bringing out a softer side to my work through incorporating lighter toned yarns to replicate calmness, together with the sharpness and unpredictability of the shoreline.

I feel my choice of brand and concept work well together, complimenting and contrasting each other, bringing nature and human influence over calm & storm, water & earth, light & dark together.

2.2.1. Initial Concept.

What sparked my inspiration for my initial concept was frost encasing an object in the winter and from there the concept of something being trapped or captured intrigued me.
After doing a mind map on Trap/Capture and conversations in my tutorial I discovered that rather than just looking at things being encased and growing or being trapped and suffering, I needed to narrow my focus on one or the other in order to move my development of ideas forward.

I chose to go with trapping and suffering, being trapped in a moment. The concept of this led me to think about key words, the idea of struggle, constraint, confinement, entanglement, being bound by, restriction, been forced against ones will, stuck in a moment and repetition all intrigued me. Which moved my ideas forward to how I would translate my found imagery and research into my sketch book. After much thought I decided to focus on a specific section of the research images I have collected. To start my initial drawings I considered pulling out the strongest fluid patterns to the forefront of colour pallet within the images to show the struggle of entrapment. Hopefully with the media and marks I make I can bring the emotion of trapping and suffering to the pages of my sketch book.

I want to spend this week working on pulling together ideas, colours and my concept. Exploring the many paths and possibilities that my concept can take me on so that I am not too restricted and find the right path for my work. I found that my Pinterest has been a good tool for this.

2.1.9. Concluding & Evaluating Unit.

Throughout this unit I wanted to take what I had learnt from the first year and combine techniques, bringing knit and embroidery together to fit as one, experimenting with bringing the 2 together, also experimenting with what yarns and threads I brought to my samples.  Using knit as a base to my fabrics and working with embroidery to bring detail and depth. Using Punch cards and pushing the abilities of it through my sampling, I felt that I was playing it quite safe in that I could use different techniques to create the marks and pattern I wanted, through the knitting machine and with hand and machine embroidery. 

With this I found that there was embroidery techniques that didnt give quite the effect I was looking for and with that I learnt to step away from it and move on to something else. With this came different ways of pushing techniques and taking risks, moulding them to create a look I wanted. Using gapped weaving in and knitting it manually to create 2 layers and hooking it up to resemble one of my images. Experimenting with manipulation to my knits once cast off the knitting machine I  washed, embroidered, embellished and beaded them, seeing the effects of what each one would do to different wools, cottons and monofilaments I used. 

 For Intentions my visual research, I found that detail and pattern played a big role in how I was to take it forward into knit however I feel my sketchbook was quite messy and not very selective, That what ever I had done through editing my photos was put in, instead of being thought about and selective of why they should be in there. Its something that I know I need to work on. I do feel that to me my sketchbook makes sense because it tells my thought process however if it was someone else to look through it without explanation, it would be confusing. From this I have learnt that not everything has to be shown, maybe kept on record for myself but not everything in my sketchbook. 

My concept was 'Observing Patterns in Architecture' working with lines and shape that I made and manipulating and editing them on my laptop to bring a new element and distort what I was working on so that I steered away from my images and samples being to literal.  

Bringing what I have learnt about embroidery and the different machines such as the cornelly and berninas, risk taking into how far I could push them into doing what I wanted so I could get the texture and detail into my sampling. 

My context is what pushed me to bring more to my development, From the start of the unit I researched into ways I could bring a different angle to my drawing. Then into making and developing samples I looked at fashion knit and how designers like Mary Katranzou, and how Peter Pilitto has used bold lines to create detail, Valentino has brought knit and machine embroidery together and it has work so well, I want my work to fit in-between these both and appeal to the fashion and knit industry. With what I have done in Intentions has taken influence from fashion and knit, I feel has a different edge and an be a new aspect to knitwear. Going in the next unit I want to specialise into high end knit fashion, working with more detailed and textural knits, Yarn and threads. Still bringing together Knit and Embroidery, because I feel that what I have done in this unit has worked so well together. 

With this unit, there could have been a lot of things I could have done differently but from that I have learnt that I need to be more selective with my thought process, maybe even taken a few more risks with my knit techniques and looked at a broader colour pallet so that my final fabrics could have more diversity and from my sampling have more choice of what to take forward. 

2.1.8. Elimination.

After a few weeks of sampling and embroidering my knitted pieces I felt the need to eliminate and tweak sections of the samples that didn't work so well or were not the texture I was looking for.
With half of my knits it was problems to do with colour balance an flow of colour through out my collection. As well as that, chaining round what technique will suit best with what is something I will be deciding. Once I have chosen which pieces to take forward and remake into final fabrics, There will be a few tweaking in-between them all, whether it be adding more of a lighter tone or changing tones all together.
Chopping and changing samples round with each other as well is something I think will pull together my collection, Pulling an aspect of one and a different aspect from another and placing them together will hopefully create diversity through out my final fabrics. Something I feel I need to make sure of is  my colour tone choices, that I have them running through several so that they all look like they belong together as one, trying to avoid stand alone tones in just one sample.
I am going to be spending my week refining, chopping and changing up my ideas to do with my final fabrics, I think that I will look back through my sketch book and bring in things that I dismissed before to get a diversity to fabrics, zooming in on details and putting samples together.

2.1.7. Refining & Maison Martin Margiela.

I worked a lot with producing and working back into my knitted samples this week. Some of them i found to be quite successful and others not so much. I have relied on punchcard and fair isle for my patterns, so this week I wanted to push that and see how far I could take it. Also I want to step outside of my comfort zone of the punch card and work with other techniques the knitting machines have, to recreate my images. I want to look at washing samples to see what effect it brings to my Wool yarn, as well as embellishing them bringing the both aspects together will work well together flow through my sampling fabrics. 

I want to spend time refining and figuring what works well and what doesn't, bringing out more depth in the colours in my images to increase colour pallet and range of collection. 

Maison Martin Margiela.

Margiela's work is really inspiring and made me think about working in gradients of colour and count of yarn to get the fading out feel to my samples, grading from really dense fabric to thin and light also that making my embroidery parts look like knit. So I am still able to bring detail from my images to the samples. Playing with different tensions of knit so that they go from really dense to thin fabric.  Working with different types and textures of threads and yarn to bring a more textured and detailed feel to my samples. Bringing in monofilaments, cottons, metallics, different plus of wool and lambs wool, experimenting with which works best. 

2.1.6. Moving Forward.

This week I have found that knitting a block colour base to work into with embroidery has been my most successful part of sampling. Working with a Black background then bringing in the blue on a punchcard and then detail with either hand embroidery or some machine embroidery I find has been working best.

Taking things further this week, we spoke in my crit about finding the right shades of blue, as I have yet to find the right colours. So it was agreed that I should take to the dye lab and do some of my own.
To define my ideas even more we spoke about composition of pattern and how and where embroidery could be placed, not just all in one place but sectioned parts of the pattern. Also to think about which side of my knits would look better embroidered into. Whether the technical back on punchcard would look better than the technical front, once I have embroidered them, and this was something I needed to explore with my samples.
Looking at Peter Piliotto and a few of his recent designs have inspired me to work more boldly with my pattern and colour. Pulling out a more bolder and colourful design. Using my embroidery work to make the colours thicker and pattern stand out. Working more with machine embroidery than hand with this, I feel it is more effective and striking than hand embroidery, I don't think it works as well as  the techniques on the sewing machine.

2.1.5. Translating.

The main thing I want to focus on this week is using my images and finding a way to translate them into samples of some sort. Whether it be knitting a base and then working into them to create texture and detail or knitting it all out. 

After my tutorial this week, It has given me a lot to think about in terms of moving my work on and working out the right composition. Working out how my edges and borders can work in play with my pattern, so that there is the right amount of colour pattern against black. 

I plan on trying out a few of my images and turning them into Punch cards and what kind of effect I get out of them, and doing a few sample with e-wrapping.

Doing a few tuck and hook up samples inspired by my images, I felt the did not work at all! The effect it gave was to messy, and did not portray the shape and look I wanted. Bringing in new aspects of what I have learnt from embroidery to my sampling, working with the cornellys and embellishing some of my samples to see if the felting texture brings a different effect that will work well with my samples.

As well as this we spoke about zooming in on section or making section of the pattern bigger and so on, which made me think about how I could change the pattern but still all be as one whole collection. So this week to move on my ideas I am going to work with sectioning, blurring and zooming in on my images to have more to sample from. 

2.1.4. Pushing Development & Mary Katrantzou.

Moving on from last week, after playing around a lot with repetition, compressing and composition, it still wasn't working for me, whether it was down to the colour scheme or just the pattern I couldn't get it right, So for this week I want to take a different approach to my way of working.

In my PDP we spoke a lot about how I could move on my ideas and keep feeding my body of work throughout the coming weeks. A few things that were said is that simplifying the pattern and then working into it was something to look into. So from that I took a few of my images and smudged and stretched them out to simplify the repetition.

As well as that I worked on my colour scheme and chose a tone of colours to work with. Because of how I was editing the images, it was making them look and resemble something similar to an X-ray, because of this blue tones could be a good step forward.

With all that in hand, We also spoke about concept and context, in which my concept needs a bit of working on, and with context, as I have chosen to direct myself down the line of knit for fashion, I need to look at more fashion and knit fashion artist and designers. One in particular has stood out for me which is Mary Katrantzou. 

 Her work with pattern and colour has really inspired some of the changes in my work and how I am now going to direct it. Blocking out colour and having detail but in a more stand out defined way.
This week I am going to apply this to my images and edit them to my new direction of working ready for when I start sampling.

2.1.3. Exploration of Editing.

Throughout the time I have spent collecting my visual research, I decided mainly to focus on detail, shape, and pattern. I feel like I could have done a lot more with colour and mixed up my media. However with the development I have made with what I have, I am very pleased with.

This week I have spent time on my images and developing them through apps on my phone. Mirroring my images and using a kaleidoscope lens to create a feel close to Alexander Mcqueens prints. I feel this has been rather successful with about 80% of the images I edited, A few of them don't need much doing to them and could be ready to sample, others will need more work.

Talking to Julie and moving my work on she said she felt that several images were not quite ready for sampling and that something was missing which I agree with. So with that I am going to spend the next few days editing, stretching, repeating, compressing and developing these images further. There is still yet information I need to find in them or for them, to take them away and to process into samples.

As well as that, pulling together my work through a mood board I feel will help me move my ideas on and show me what works well and what doesn't, also pick out a colour palette to work from.

2.1.2. Concept Development & Alexander Mcqueen.

For this week I want spend a lot of time working on my concept, and collecting as much 1st hand research as I can. Focusing mainly on architecture and shape.
Progressing on from my summer work, I know I want architecture to be my main focus, however I want to work with my drawings and images to distort and develop my pattern and concept, with the idea of architecture to begin with, progressing on to texture, layer and pattern. I want architecture to be my inspiration but not my out come.  So this week I bringing all my research to the table, working on developing, changing and manipulating my images into something I am happy to work with in my specialist area.

 Looking at some prints from Alexander Mcqueen. The way in which he has manipulated the image, looks lot like looking through a kaleidoscope. Reflections and mirroring of the image multiplying and changing it from what it once was. This it defiantly something I want to use as a start an take forward into my development of ideas.

2.1.1. Summer Feedback.

From the feedback, my over all strengths throughout my summer project is my pattern and intricate interlinking drawings. From what I could gather that my weakness is colour, a lot of the comments were to pull more tonal value out of my drawings, relating and developing them more towards  my chosen specialist area. Ideas on how to express them into knit and how to incorporate other techniques in to create the detail and layered effect my drawings have.

Overall concept throughout my sketch book is a gothic architecture feel, something I didn't think It was moving towards. It was agreed that I should choose 'Urban Influences' for my visual research, because of the nature of my summer inspiration.
With all the feed back I have received, I know I definitely need to work on my colour pallet and colour value, And working a developing my imagery with a more readable translation into knit. Using my visual research and taking parts of my summer work with me into knit, I want to develop and even distort my visual research to create something different to take forward to work with.

2.0.02. Summers Inspirations in Places.

Photos taken from Tate.

Tate- Liverpool

I visit the Tate in Liverpool as regularly as I can, to remain mindful of other practitioners, as well as to gather inspiration and ideas which I can take forward into my own work. Recently there was the 'Mondrian' Exhibition and his Studios showing. I found his block colours and confidence in his line drawings inspiring, seeing some of the artwork that was shown gave me self confidence in my own work, how loosely he used expression markings in his line drawings.
Whilst there, as well as Mondrian exhibition, I enjoyed a couple of hours sketching or taking pictures, discovering artists and designers I've not known about. I found myself drawn to the work of Nasreen Mohamedi, finding the work to be quite geometric and symmetrical, which was in some ways  different to works I have previously seen displayed in the Tate. The other artist who stood out for me was Vienna Triptych, I felt the ways in which she and I worked was quite similar, she has used a lot of layers which have different meaning from each other. The Tate is a place where I can always find the inspiration to influence me and my direction of ideas.

Prague

Prague, in many ways has influenced me, with its inspiring architecture and history. I went there with limited knowledge about Prague itself, and came back full of inspiration and photos. The City itself is full of historic beautiful buildings, with extreme detailing in the stone or wood of the architecture, along with paintings which can be found everywhere, on the front of a hotel or the inside of a small church. There is so much to take in, fortunately to date Prague has not been touched by commercialism. Prague, itself is divided up in to districts, which such a change from the norm. 

From the detailing of balcony railings to the shape of a window, down to the ridging of a door frame, everything has been carefully selected and chosen to fit in with the city. 

Taking all this into consideration and reflecting on how they have worked to put the city together is how I feel I want to keep my work ethic continuing throughout the year. Detailed, original, unique, where everything is carefully selected, chosen with empathy and consideration to blend, develop and expand and extenuate every part of the whole.

2.0.01. Summers Influences, Practitioners.

Laura Slater.

One of the reasons that I have chosen Laura as a source of inspriration is her use of pattern, mark making, sequencing and repetition, I have found myself working in this style of expression in past projects. she takes inspiration from the ordinary or mundane and creating some really interesting out of it. Her work from starting with simply a black pen, to mark making followed by sequencing to create different expressions on the page, to eventually adding the colour pallet fascinates me. As this is a way in which, in the past I too have worked. Always needing to find the pattern first to work from then changing up the colours to see what is right for the result. I feel she and I work in very much similar ways because of this. 

From the way in which we both utilise mark making , through to my expression in knit or embroidery

which I feel is rather simpler because of the single  lines or brush strokes, Translation from drawing to technique seems more readable. 

 Maison Martin Margiela 

 I still am not quite sure how Margiela has created the garment, There are several ways I can think of; this the reason why I am so drawn to the piece, It's such a bizarre fashion; the fact that I can't figure out if the pattern is embroidered on or actually knitted, and that it confuses me, it makes me look and think more about techniques that could have been included into the making of the garment.  I wonder  if I was to go down this avenue of creation could I do it? Eventually,  could this be me?

I know that my creative career is steering towards fashion, specifically because of pieces like this, creating something so strange, so different and it being accepted for what it is, Couture playing a huge role in this and bringing techniques together that you never thought would work as one but lie so well together. Wanting to see things that I have designed/made being appreciated by the consumer, and worn in their own way.

Margiela has made me realise that I could find my own niche, bringing together several different  techniques, techniques I enjoy techniques I think are applicable, to create something beautiful and different. Creating a piece which will cause some people question and be confused as to how it was made, to wonder which technique was used, pushing techniques and methods to the limit, and therefore creating something uniquely different.

William De Morgan

The detail and precision which has gone into De Morgans tiles is so amazing and intricate, working with repetition, scale and in some circumstances creating a narrative. The development of beautiful formations of descriptive narratives of a flower growing and changing. Keeping the inspiration the same but depicting various growing periods of its life. Growing and developing my research whilst still focussing on the same subject, is a similar way to how I grow and plan my sketch book of ideas. De Morgans tiles are detailed and bold, making known as to what the subject is, but having pattern throughout, I'd like to think that we work in similar ways when comparing our work I feel my work is  also highly detailed and encrusted with pattern, and having the boldness to stand out. With  De Morgan, myself and many other artists, planning and precision plays a major factor in our work, to this end many De Morgans tiles and my pieces become very time consuming and detailed, therefore I feel we are very similar designers, although in such very different fields.

Throughout the process of the summer I found Pinterest to be a huge influence to me in finding more information on these artists, on Pinterest boards.

Photos are not my own, they are taken from Google.

1.3.7. Pushing Developments.

Pushing my developments through last week and what I work on this week have drastically changed in a good way. I wanted to work on my colour palette, finding that black on white to much of a harsh contrast and just didn't work with a pattern base, So I have made it black on black and work with texture of materials in difference to show pattern using matte and silk against each other to show shape. 

I wanted to develop my pieces more than what they and thought about what they would be used for if I was to apply them to something in interior or fashion. So I related back to what brought me the idea in the first place which was the Flapper dress. I looked into where the flapper style was from and how it could help me evolve my idea. The detailing on dresses in the 1920s was to bring interest to the area. Adding pattern and beading detail, Back then a lot of lace and beading was used to create detail This was something I really want to integrate into what I am doing. Maybe creating some of my own lace and beading pieces to go with my collection. 

Thinking back to somethings that VV. Rouleaux had said about trims, that they could be anything, and extension of a dress in fashion to a detailing on a curtain. Its how it is designed really. I want mine to be mould around fashion. 

I want to see if layering works with some of my trim ideas as well, working my lace patterns and normal trims together and see what I get, changing up my ideas, whether it works or not, just a case of trial and error.

This week I am aiming to work on the areas such as the edging to my trims, composition, fabric choice, layering and beading my pieces, using the 1920s fashion as inspiration to my trims.

1.3.6. Constructing.

Moving on with my idea of taking inspirational ideas from my weave to making into embroidery pieces, I felt they needed more length or pattern to them like my weave has. So going back and looking throughout my weave samples to see what it had that my embroidery ones didn't.
I came out with repetition of pattern, or even the idea of mirroring my pattern.
I started with just the one pattern and repeated and almost straight away I could see the effect it has on the shape of the pattern. Bringing a new area of interest to the repeated pattern.
Yet still I wanted to improve on it, I thought about collaging them in some way but I didn't want the pattern to be unreadable for me to recreate, to much of a mess and I don't think it would have been much a pattern left.
I decided to do it in a controlled repetitional pattern using different parts of individual designs so create new patterns. I feel like it was more effective and a more readable and re-creatable pattern for me to sample out.
Now that I have found a path way of creating pattern and sampling them I want to work on bringing in touches of colour into my work. I still want to keep the boldness of the Art Deco pattern I have worked with but have flecks of my starting colour palette, Changing round the way I am viewing and working with my colours. After talking with Nigel, and looking at my work from a different angle, I want to try a few new things like black on black.
With all the new machines that I am being inducted on I really want to work on my texture and construct side of my pieces, how my sample finish and spacing, placement and layout.

1.3.5. Translations + Hannah Lamb.

Images taken from Pinterest : Pipp Jones, They are not my own.

With no uni for 3 weeks I thought Id do some artist research hoping for an eureka moment, something to help me push along with my ideas, I found a designer by the name of  Hannah Lamb, the pieces that caught my attention most is the one that has been worked into dissapearing fabric and the one with paragraphs that basically look like they are floating. I wanted to take this idea of a transparent background, base or ground and run with it. Taking some of my own Ideas of layering and pattern making, using Art Deco as a base and Hannah Lambs idea of just the line being the most bold part of the piece, was something I was really hooked on. However putting my own twist on it.

This last weeks inspiration come from taking a trip to Abakan to hopefully inspire me and my work, with not being in uni Ive had to source my own special threads and fabric. The trip did exactly what I wanted it to and come out with a few ideas to get me going.

With Hannah Lambs work I wanted the same transparency in my work, but tracing paper just wasn't enough. So I went more transparent with Acetate, as well as that I am going to be working on cut out details and using the Cornely 121, Finding that it hold shape and pattern well. Bringing in threads Ive sourced myself and inspiration from Hannah Lamb I am hoping for some interesting samples.

I want to keep my samples set as a collections, so I have been converting my weave pieces into ideas for embroidery samples for edging, writing out what techniques to use and where. Keeping structure to them and eventually giving them order when I take the ideas into photoshop.

1.3.4. To Take With Me.

 Once Weave came to an end, we were asked to bring all what we had done and key ideas we wanted to take through into embroidery. 

Thinking about this I thought it would be an easy guess, but I really had to think about how the structure and change of how things are made in the different processes what most important aspects of my work to take though and would portray through the best. 

I chose my style of pattern, my colour pallet without that my pattern use and whole style to my samples would be lost, and of course my influence of Art deco. Also carrying on with my structure and texture.

I feel now I know which parts I should be focusing on that show clearly in my sketchbook and in my weave samples, Pulling these key parts of my working into embroidery as well as constantly feeding my sketchbook will move my work on and hopefully improve a lot better. I also looked at the flaws in my work and what I could improve on, I feel that my work is a little 'similar' to each other, I want to be able to break free from that but still have a feel of a collection. As well as improving on my colour pallet, finding the right shades to bring together and work well that still have the Art Deco feel. 

We also got a few critical notes from our fellow students, in which I found really has moved my work up a step. Making me think about my work on structure, texture, composition and pattern and how to use it differently in embroidery.
As well as that we got a task to see what pieces of our work would work well with each other or just in different positions, We didn't get to try it out, so i had a go at home. 
I really think the 1st of my picture we really works well the position gives a lot to think about in dimension, and creates great structural difference. 
I also put different  samples together to see if any worked well together, the last is my favourite, combining most of my 'eureka' moments, creating a lot of texture and lovely pattern, that I wish I had tried out in a longer strip.

1.3.3. Taking away.

With it being the last week or so on the loom, I wanted to make the most of the chance to move my work on and see how far I could push it.
Id been working with a colour palette of purple, navy, black, white and blue, However with the theme of Art deco, I felt like my pattern was lost within the multitude of my colour, so I went back throughout  my sketchbook and had a look on how my drawing read across to me. I found they work so well in my sketchbook because the pattern isn't battling to be seen in-between colour, Its just black and white. With that, I went back and stripped back everything but black and white, and the occasional blue. I am finding that it is working so much better now that it did before.
Playing round with notations and working in more weft base weaves so that the pattern has a solid white back round to stand out on. As well adding in some weave manipulation, Which I really did like the idea of. I found a lot of the techniques I used on pinterest, and a few of them corresponded well with my drawn out pattern, so I worked them in, It proved to be a big difference in texture and appeal, rather than just a notation.