Sketching and Samples

[sketches from stand work, collaged onto samples]

After a two week break I felt very ready to get straight into designing and sampling, moving my project from research into development and design. Continuing with the shape, form, texture focus I kept both illustrations and samples pretty abstract. Using multimedia and layering to create textures and interest. I think this has helped me focus my colour palette too, out of the images I have collected so far the main ranges of colours that stand out to me are the blues and oranges. As complimentary colours, I feel these will be good to explore. Blue to represent the beauty and 'brighter' side of the project, whilst the 'burnt' orange tones bring in the sadness and ugly side.

The illustrations I started have been mainly collaged, this always helps me broaden my stand work as I can cut and paste different draping onto different body parts, creating more than one look from one piece of stand work.

[Samples (edited) made from paint, glue tissue and beads]

The samples I have refined started by sticking down or painting shapes onto pieces of paper, but through layering different media on top I created a large range of textures. Above are a few of the samples before I painted them, I simply scanned and edited them on Photoshop; I tried to bring out the 'skin' texture as much as I could. Converting them into black and white kept the focus on the textures created as opposed to the random colours I ended up using. I actually ended up painting them all white for this exact reason, if I were to improve these/ do them again I would try to keep within my colour palette of orange and blue tones as this would help me translate them onto fabrics. This week I will be visiting Berwick Street to replicate some of these fabrics, I will also look through (WGST cant remember the name) website to find the current tones in my chosen colours that are upcoming this season and also see whether my colours will fit on trend. 

I am really pleased with how these samples came out as I can use them over a range of techniques, the most obvious will be to translate these into prints but that is pretty boring, I think some of the larger less complicated textures might look interesting as a laser cut sample or an embroidery sample. Both of these I will explore this week at uni as I will have the equipment on hand along with a technician to help me.

In particular, the 'henna' beads samples I made on the heat press made an incredible range of samples. I have tried and succeeded in sewing a few of them together, and I think they could made a beautiful 'bralette' style top if I create enough. At a far off look, they give an appearance of a sort of lace but up close you can see they're solid plastic, which I felt was quite fitting. One of my aims for this project was to be more experimental with sampling and materials and I think so far I have achieved this. The henna bead samples got a good reaction from peers who agreed that they were quite pretty despite being plastic.