fab flowers

I was just browsing for colour ideas for fabric dyeing and came across these wonderful photographs of decaying flowers by Billy Kidd. I can really connect with the subtle colours and the fragile beauty of decay depicted.

Finished!

All the work for Level 4 is now finished, annotated and handed in. What a relief! I really enjoyed the Photoshop module despite feeling lost in a haze of gobbledegook for most of the time. I really found the best way for me to get my head around the techniques was just to go for it and play about.

The brief was to produce 2 A3 size fabric samples and 1 A3 picture of a model using own design to fill in the garment, using the path tool in PS to select the shapes. I never thought at first I would get how to use the pen tool, but practice makes not quite perfect but acceptable.

Here are some of the designs created

based on my drawing of cow parsley.

Cow parsley and poppy heads in differing scales

Poppy heads and fishbones

Lilies

Lilies and barbed wire

onion seedheads with poppy bloom brush.

poppy bloom brush and barbed wire pattern

Poppy seedheads and fishbone in adjusted colour

For this I tried my hand at Adobe Illustrator to make a block pattern and converted it to a brush for the background using different colours and then overlaid with a mirrored pattern,

This was the original block pattern which was defined as a pattern. overlaid and the joins tidied up with the patch tool

Block brush pattern with colours adjusted.

Model with fabric designs overlaid.  (Model image from the Stork magazine).

Oh this weather is too nice to have to spend indoors doing work on my personal development file. I think it's a bit of a joke really as a mature student who already has a lifetime career behind her to have to do this, but it's part of the course so I have to grit my teeth and get on with it.

Hand in of the last project was last Tuesday and there's a general sigh of relief within the group when this happens. As usual, I always wish I'd done things differently - why do my best ideas always come to me in hindsight I wonder? Anyway, too late now. Here is some more of my sketchbook work.

Feel like I've had enough of college work for today, so I'm off to look at a new book I've just had delivered, it's called Quilted Symphony by Gloria Loughman and is about experimenting with forms and colours to take quilt designs into the abstract.

Well at last my wallpaper is printed. I was a bit miffed that one of the designs had about 2 inches cut off the bottom, but I didn't have time to wait until it was reprinted. So here they are. My main ambition was to make them fun for children, with a story attached to one of them, hence the polar bears leaving the planet with their suitcase. The actual colours are brighter than shown.

Line drawing half drop repeat with background of collaged cut outs.

Pastel drawing made into brush and put down on a grid in different sizes.

Collage of textile, line and detailed drawing, mono-print background

and painting using half-drop repeat.

They are very different to what others in the group have been doing, so I hope they fit the brief.

I'm still here

I had decided to withdraw from my course as I've so many other interests wanting attention, but decided I would at least complete this Level qualification. Having been inactive for three weeks in doing course work I had to spend a weekend frantically trying to catch up. So I've been doing more drawing, painting and development work and fiddling around with Photoshop.
Here is some of the work

polar bear in soft pastel 

pencil drawing 

reclining bear drawing repeat

bear head in watercolour

ink drawing cut out

Moved on to Photoshop trying some repeat patterns, brush making and messing about with colours.

When I had finally sorted in my head what my 3 final project designs were to be I spent most of today making them into repeat half-drop patterns, using the healing tools on PS to blend in and finally getting them into A1 size. My next step is to take them to college tomorrow and have all 3 printed out. When that's done I'll try to take photos to post on here.

As well as doing the wallpaper project we're also having a Photoshop module with 2 hours tuition a week. I have to say it's doing my head in! The speed of delivery is so quick, I find it difficult to get my brain in place to take it in. No sooner have we been shown one application, we're off to something else before having a proper opportunity to play or make notes to remind us of what we did. I took some screen shots as we were progressing but looking at them they seem meaningless to me. I'll have to try to remember what we did and practice at home for the rest of the week so at least I feel more comfortable with the applications. For this PS project we have to design 4 floral patterns and place them on a garment, then we can have the designs digitally printed on fabric. Ha! can't wait to see how that one goes.

   

New Project

Well I'm a couple of weeks into a new project which is wallpaper design for infants or young children using one of four trends from trendbible www.trendbible.com
The choices for a theme were Supergeek, Seastorm, The Longest Day or Pioneer and to be in a style like that of Kate Usher www.kateusher.co.uk

I must admit to not being very enthusiastic initially as I don't like wallpaper, having wasted months of my life scraping other peoples choices from walls of houses I've lived in, but the idea is growing on me especially after seeing some of Kate's designs.

The colour palette of sea storm appealed to me most so I decided to go with that. Kate's briefing advised the group not to be too obvious so I veered away from fish, shipwrecks, pirates etc and decided I wanted some sort of story to tell. I began to think about icebergs and volcanoes and then on to polar bears and where will they go go if the ice-caps melt. The idea of them leaving the planet appealed and extensive market research (well,actually a fellow student ran the idea past her two young children) showed that this could be an idea to run with.

So I've been researching space rockets, Jules Verne, the drawing style of Fornasetti, back copies of National Geographic, icebergs, and planets to get me started.

Here I've laid together a rough collage of drawings,a fabric sample and photographs as an initial ideas board. 

I've also done a a bit of drawing and painting to try to develop a style that will lend itself to the theme and project. Trouble is there's not much in the way of primary source material to draw from so I have to rely heavily on photos from books or magazines.

Soft pastel 

fabric and stitch on painted vilene

graphite and pastel drawings

Early days yet but I'm sure the ideas will eventually start to form further and the drawings will develop and be fine tuned. 

update

Well, the Futuristic project has finished and the work handed in.

My colour scheme was to be shades of grey (not quite 50!) with a greyish lavender colour to accent. I had originally wanted to produce a futuristic collar, but abandoned this as it was deemed to be too much like something from Star Trek. So I decided on a sleeve piece using a fabric based on my circuit board drawings. This I printed off on my inkjet printer and heat bonded to white vinyl, then cut a geometric shape through so that both sides of the fabric showed. The cuffs were finished with triangles using a circuit board mono-print copied on to acetate. As I wanted some softness added, I decorated the shoulder with a soft vinyl which had been smocked in North American basket-weave pattern.

I enjoyed the whole project and show below some of the work from the sketchbook , sampling and final pieces.

Computer printed fabric, north american
quilting on PVC and i-cords with felt balls.

Samples of pleating reverse appliqued

to PVC with plastic netting bonded, patchwork

applied to felted background and mono-printed fabric 

with hand made felt applied.

Final designs of printed fabric, cutwork pattern
and prototype of sleeve on mannequin.

As I had lots of i-cords, I originally intended to produce a further sleeve using these, but time was running out and the thought of having to fit another sleeve into a body top put me off as my dressmaking skills are somewhat lacking. I decided to use these to add to a hastily made top using another panel of quilting.

The college Photography department kindly did a photo shoot of my garments with me modelling them, but I haven't yet had these sent on to me. I'm not sure whether I'll post the pics when I get them as I hate having my photo taken and dread to think what sort of model I made. We had quite a laugh doing it though, Jo was acting as Charlotte's model and had the full model props, with coloured wig and futuristic make-up. Charlotte was brilliant and hilarious as the shoot director, shouting instructions like a proper David Bailey. Here she is acting as dresser. Is there no end to this lady's talent!

Well now that one's over, it's on to the next project. So more posts to follow.