Tracy Kendall and Miss Selfridge- Market research

Thoroughly reflecting on my research it has lead me to take inspiration of a wallpaper designer named Tracy Kendall of how details her works are from the texture involved in them and a key favourite of mine being layering, Kendall’s work was insight into the kind of context I would like to consider for future development of working with paper instead of fabrics, from having the advice of having to wait till I can produce prints on wallpaper did set me back in context as it would not be how I would like it to be. But the focus is fabric and the guidance I’m needing is looking what I can achieve through my deigns on fabric.

“The wallpapers have always been designed and made to be a part of a complete interior story, adding pattern, image, texture and depth to the overall interior design scheme making every space personal and special to each client.”

 

Over the holidays I saw in a shop window a very similar format to how we are being asked to work, this format wasn’t wallpaper as such in an interior concept it was a wall hanging in a shop window which was show casing the new fashions- these hangings were full of bold bright patterns ( Miss Selfridge image 1,2). From seeing this type of window displaying, it has made me see potential in my deigns… To letting me think, could I do this? So through seeing a window display it’s still keeping my initial design process being a wallpaper, but it has gave my work a whole new concept to which I do not need bold and brilliant patterns to compete against miss Selfridges window display, as mine differs from these pieces as I’m not letting the print take over with simple clothes presenting themselves against the back drop, my idea is vice versa of having a ‘neutral’, ‘isolated’ back ground incorporating fresh new trends coming in.

Reflection

The group crit was to show the final design and basically let each other see each others journeys.. I found explaining the work I have produced was quite simple, it was the ‘digital designs’ that got more feed back than the original final, the digital designs became more popular ( lines of enquiry blog, photocopy 3&4) so a suggestion was made to see if I could try my deigns out on fabric instead to see what the outcome would be like from that.
As the colour was lost I worked back into my images and created various colour pallets to choose for ready to work with in the deigns I recreated, which I mainly focused on colour, scale and composition.

The image are the ‘digital designs’ to which I did digital prints of, as suggested test out. The fabric used was cotton. These samples I’m very pleased with. How they have turned out has worked well in my favour as I would never have thought to do them. The colour has come out very well, some areas a little too bright but overall very pleased with the outcome. Seeing the outcome of these prints made me question myself a little of asking myself should I of done my final design using digital print, as the marks from the brush would of came out effectively as well as the colour? I do regret not trying out my final design as a digital print.













 Completing the task to finalise my design that I felt happy and confident with.. I was more relieved than anything as now I just had to create this design. Taken from the crit it was fine to say the techniques I was wanting to use just now to get a slot to create my work. The heaviness of fabrics also was helpful as struggling to see what kind would be suitable for my design to which I did need to try out for myself. The type of fabrics was a mixed response of either heavy or light depending on how I wanted my piece to hang.

A day of mixing and testing out dyes. The image is of three fabrics I had to test out. One being cotton satin, heavy cotton and some type of linen. Needing to sample with different types of fabrics to see how the dyes would affect the quality of the fabric and the dyes. The yellow worked very well to the colour pallet whereas the green and the grey did not work as well. The green was too green a lot darker than I expected so adding a reduction paste to it worked wonders, the other type of green seen on the image which looks a little more faded than the rest is the green I wanted and the faded green worked well next to the yellow to bring out the colour more. The grey I wanted I struggled with as going by the recipe it seemed simple but in this case it wasn’t. The grey was a blue ish grey. To resolve this problem was very hard to resolve as it was a case of mixing more colours into the pot and to hopefully get a grey. I did attempt a few times but could not get the right kind of grey, I did improvise a little of making this bluish grey work by knowing I could foil on top of the colour as well as use a little paint to help lift the grey.

Reflecting back on this experience now, it’s the crits that stood out to me the most. Realising now that it is so helpful and useful to have peers to vent to, discuss, de construct and to have a bit of reassurance is brilliant. Time management skills would be helpful for me in the future of organisation.  

Reactive dyes, foiling and paint was the techniques used for my final piece and to finish off using black thread to over lock the edges to create a statement border to bring out the colours even more.

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Line of Enquiring

south pier silver

The final week before Easter has again let me show how my context is being more considered. But now I’m finding out which key image I want to take further into a possible colour palette as well as how I can achieve my design through prints.

From my group crit it was clear that the wallpaper context was strong but I needed some market research to help, as it’s very easy to suggest wallpaper of some sort, but what concept? Interiors? In this case yes interiors is the key to my idea but more of a feature wallpaper of some sort. As I could not have numerous pieces so it could not be a pattern wallpaper that matches, I was thinking more towards a column that some apartments or spaces have in there modern houses nowadays. Because of the scale I thought it was easier to find a concept like modern interior to help fit.


sketch book

Reactive dyes was a suggestion because of my marks through the use of colour, (after Easter is when I can attend a workshop). It was the work shop of foiling that really made me think more of my colour palette. (silver image) from the south pier as seen the metallic involved in this image and from my work (2^nd image from sketchbook) made me head towards that palette more from how I can achieve this effect still as well as whilst I originally started drawings from these photographs I had more of a ‘connection’ to the silver image, I felt more enthused by it and wanted to really recreate this tone of silver whereas the others I did not get into as much. So in my mind now I feel the silver palette is the one but then it’s hard to decide right now as still being in early stages of development.

Looking back on this week I do feel a lot more confident as the body of work has come on as I have been generating a few designs (images 3, 4 ) which are from mainly photocopied images of my drawings to which I have had a play with to look for different compositions and to see if my ideas would actually come together.  Easter is where I’m setting myself targets to complete for when I return. I need to pick for definite the colour palette, to then when focused on this colour palette to do a further more designs. I just need to keep my development on going at all times I feel, I need more than just one design I need multiple to choose from just to show I have explored different compositions and different ways to my designs.

photocopy 4

photocopy 3

Returning back, I felt like I had definitely explored many possible designs ideas for a final piece. In the images some are from photocopies of my original drawings that I pieced together to create new designs which I added my ‘rows’ deigns into, some of the designs I worked with I had to think a lot about composition of how the ‘rows’ could still be effective from being strong colours. So some designs I striped back to make simpler which I included the rows with. The images I class as digital I feel are very strong and would of looked more effective if my work could have been paper based but because I could not I tried to work back into using paint. As can see in the images I chosen the silver palette so from the paint designs I created greyish/ silver tones. The body of work I produced I felt confident with.

Being the first group crit back from Easter I explained how my pallet is now the silver palette and from over Easter explained in ‘Window Display’ blog I liked the idea of creating a window display piece but with the use of fabric and what kind of techniques I’m wanting to use in my work being reactive dyes, foiling, screen printing and possibly embroidery. The feedback given it was clear I had shown enough development from thinking about deigns but I just needed to stick to one deign. Also it seemed like the colour palette had been lost somewhere, possibly in the busyness of the designs to which made me loose the original concept of isolation clashing with the ‘rows’. I admit I did get carried away to which made me loose the original purpose.



silver palet paint

silver palet paint

Rows composition

As can see in my first scanned images (research) the photo copier picked up some unusual colours which worked. So from that I need to look back at these photocopied images and feed the colour out of them to add some colour back into my work again. The task in hand is to recreate a colour palette and finalise my final designs by Monday ready to present for the big group crit.




Research

south pier
 

south pier silver
 

south pier
 

To start off unit X the theme as such was "archives" to which this word archives allowed us to start this thought process to black pool.

Black pool the wonderful seaside, fresh air, blue skies and sea fronts filled with black pool rock, fish and chips and fair grounds. The place all families go for a day out. But on the other hand of my visit it was cold, windy and no one to be seen accept the textile group... not the black pool I know.

To start this research, was visiting black pool library to see the archives stored there, followed by a trip on the sea front to then visit the illumination's and then the south pier. It was enjoyable looking back a black pools past and trying to guess the eras. But what stood out for me was how packed it use to get, black pool use to be the place to be, if you didn’t go black pool then more fool you.  Through the whole talk it was the word ROWS that’s stood out for me, picturing and even seeing these crowds of people gathered round on these piers. It was the only word that stuck out for me at the time. Following on when visiting the illuminations and seeing how they are created was the visit to south pier.
South pier is not one of the piers you really hear about very much but it’s known for its art works. Once on south pier it was peaceful and quiet and the weather was amazing to create a wonderful backdrop for these artworks. But, whilst standing on this isolated pier it was then I kept imaging all these flocks of people in their Sunday best dresses, coats, hats all here in there deck chairs.. Row after row after row all crowding round each other enjoying the weather and the sea side.  But in contrast it was just calm and quiet... relaxing
It’s fair to say from the first week it was the black pool trip that got my research flowing, not the talks that we had.



Rows.

Gathering the photos from black pool, it was these three images that really stood out to me ( South pier) it was just generally because I liked them and it was something about them what I liked but couldn’t put them into words of what I liked about them. The Second image was a quick flow of an idea I needed to get out. This was purely me thinking rows, could not get rows out of my head.
Those images and the drawing produce was my lead. They are the starting point. From the three ‘isolated’ images I taken I started to create color and collage in them, I never wanted to recreate them I just wanted the color and texture out of them just to get me going to be ready for the crit.


collage 1

collage 2
 

collage 3

Taken from the first group crit gave me a clear understanding not such an idea, it guided me to focus on my strongest areas which was mark making through my "isolated" images that I recreated.

I found it hard to try and think of a context straight away at first, but once discussing my initial findings and presenting them  in a mood board and allowing as group to see what I produced clearly, it was more of a straight forward decision that in my mind and on paper it was wallpaper that was the context. Taken forward from my first group crit it was clear I needed to get my ideas moving and get my context moving also. For that next week that is the focus of looking at artists and context, as well as getting my ideas flowing.Further key to my development at this stage was the Friday drawing day exercise of scaling up and scaling down pictures, drawings etc. from the research gathered. But it wasn’t the 5x5cm squares produced that gave me the idea it was how I was blowing up and down my work which allowed me to look into quiet interesting areas of my work instead of the whole piece. To which that then helped me focus on what I could do with my work.

From generating this primary research into secondary I needed to get it flowing into stages of ideas.

PE Task 2

Over the sampling unit of being introduced into knit first I chosen to speak about sibling of one of their works what was a very different approach to their everyday works, a project for Disney’s 20^th anniversary, but it wasn't the project mainly that made me think it was how they communicated. Using visual research and drawings to communicate what the outcome would possibly be like, which is what I could not get the hang of a first- with the outcomes I produced and referring back to my knits helped me develop more to where it was I preferred the drawings to knit more. But looking into siblings ‘original’ style it did give me a look into knit being a big part in fashion and how to get my point across, the scale of the knits produced I could of gone bigger and used my research into a further context of one of the samples being based of stairs with nice bold vibrant colours with texture building from the sample it could make a nice detailed skirt what bounced when moving like you do going down stairs. With the knits the context could have developed further and further of like sibling making not just garments but head accessories like balaclavas.                                                                                   With knit the context could have got out of hand as could communicate it still in that data order to what I collected. Embroidery rotation to communicate the samples being based on marks made me want to scale them up as well and really get that texture across from the original mark. Mono printing was the main influence to the samples of wanting to create these textured marks on fabrics, but whereas context was concerned I couldn't find the right place for my samples.

The last rotation I decided to take forward was embroidery, from seeing my last body of work I felt more confident with this choice. In this rotation it wasn't till the end I realised what I really had the passion for because of the research I had to ‘back me up’ wasn't very good, WGSN was a source I looked at from seeing what others took from the same word as me(‘Everyday Superheroes’) Sacha Goldberg approach was humour full of photographing superheroes in the 16^th century, Sacha work did give me idea of keeping humour involved to then Roland Mouret 1970s body conscious women, it was his approach of using women as the everyday superheroes- Inge Jacobsen was the initial thought to this project of embroidering onto magazine to give more texture to where Jose Romussi used embroidery in a small dose.

It was fashion that kept cropping in my mind of bold prints though, but from literally adapting my work last minute of creating grounds it was bringing back to the original thought of tattoos, and what if the grounds became tattoos on the body, just like how peter has this tattoo on him?

Over this sampling unit the word context has been hard to consider but with the body of work produced over the last rotation to this 3 week of sampling I feel the context has finally been considered.

'Everyday Superheroes'

‘Everyday superheroes’ it brought fun, pop art, Andy Warhol and Peter(my dad) into my mind, it was easy having all those ideas in my mind but to get me

going was not so easy. During the week it been a struggle. It’s not motivation, it’s getting going. Producing a mood board to help generate the ideas to which that should be the start of development... Googling the definition of ‘Everyday superheroes’, asking others on social media just to get the ball rolling...

Week 2- Still not confident with the idea, the artists I looked at have inspired me of not going for the approach they have done of basing them on original superheroes or 1970s women to then embroidery artist physically embroidering onto magazines or photos, generating an idea is hard at this point. Taking part in the group critic was an eye opener today, seeing everyone’s work has made me realise time isn't on my side at the moment... Samples, drawings starting off their development and I’m still stuck on the word. From the critic I did take strong criticism which I needed to push me now, from the critic I took that I generally need work or a good body of work. Drawing is the focus, drawing the superman logo and to see where that takes me.

I've been focussing on drawing all week, taking from previous embroidery drawing day of continuous lines and blind quick second to 1 minute drawings of this logo, looking at the drawings they look more like patterns with the same colour theme and placing of the colours, humour to communicate the smallness of the logo which is placed on peters chest, the context is more like its designs for tattoos but more patterned tattoos which is where the humour is involved even more of having a pattern on the chest area. The materials chosen was more to do with superhero costumes of stretchy, strong, tight and bright material which combined with your usual cotton or linen, the designs produced reminded me of Peter Mondrian’s work from the blue, yellow and red being used and the shapes. This week I pushed to aim for 10-15 samples to prove to myself I can do this.

It’s the last week what has really inspired me, being the Tuesday of group crits it was a different approach of looking at previous students work and talking through them and seeing what they did, how and why and what they are doing now... This is what inspired me as you could see it’s what they loved doing, they made a brief there own, so why aren't I? That’s what I asked. I wrote down what I love, I know what I love doing as that’s why I'm doing this course. Having one to one feedback of looking at the work I quickly produced it was so clear it was not me, I have no passion for shapes or neat composition’s. My passion is layers, collage, madness of colour, strong mark makings what was in my sketch book was me but not the samples- no connection at all.

The context now from my work has changed from how it is not a straight forward everyday tattoo its grounds, simple, textured backgrounds which can still be in the same context as a tattoo design but not as perfect any more or a series of these grounds in a gallery all connecting to each other, just like the comic book superheroes were told from.

‘Everyday superheroes’ the trending word I chose. 

Connections: The what, how and why in ‘Drawing’ and ‘Embroidery’

I did not really identify what to draw specifically, from my research of data I produced mark makings which I suppose I did identify to develop further into embroidery. To begin it was the samples that lead the direction of what I was trying to communicate through grounds and basic machine work to re-create these marks through texture. The samples I'm talking about are the five I produced towards the end as I feel they do have a connection which tells the story of how I have achieved these samples. With the samples that I created I chose them because of the development process I went through of re drawing from samples and identifying key areas to produce further designs from them which I then planned out of how embroidery can interrupt these basic designs.

Seeing from how I started to seeing the final 5, the connection is clear that drawing has really influenced the designs to which have now became something different on the machine, it is easy to draw and create simple and hard designs on paper with a Biro

or pencil with dashes of colour to then recreating on the machine it’s a different story as the machine and even hand, does take control and gives the designs more life more texture to what your original, simple design is on paper. Colour in my sketch book was not intentional I just used any colour but I started using a bright yellow to which I liked using and in contrast with black and white it made the designs come to life more, so to keep the connection I chose yellow PVC material, this PVC I have not used before and I generally chose it because of the bright colour and when feeling the material it linked well as it was a flat fabric just like the paint, the PVC was mainly the only fabric I thought about in comparison to the other fabrics I combined it with cottons, the use of hand and machine with appliqué technique made the samples more textured.

The body of work produced I feel is up to standards for the time given as through drawings and development it shows the connection to the samples to which like I said I decided to work into more of samples to develop the marks. To then that’s when the time frame fits in, to produce 10-15 samples a week was a challenge and to keep at it was hard to juggle machine time and drawing time and to make fast decisions but the decision making was not as hard as I thought as I allowed myself to roll with it and see what will happen with my work when it is put to the machine or hand, I would of preferred longer to really push my samples more by being based on further drawings.