Response from an artist!

After writing to a designer that had inspired my work during this project today I received a response! 

I wrote asking for an opportunity to work along side her for some experience and see how she works. I am so please I received such a positive response and hopefully soon Ill be working with this talented artist!

EXCITING!

Threadless.

Today I spent my time entering my new prints into the ongoing threadless competition. I chose this competition as I didnt feel at this stage my samples were strong enough to be used for any other live brief. Although I am very pleased with my new prints and feel they are strong competitors.

I named these designs TexJewel, a combination of texture and jewels as that is exactly how the print was made.

Contextualizing.

At this stage of my studies I feel my textiles is definitely aimed more at fashion for women. I have worked this project with the mind set of creating surfaces that could be used for womens fashion. I have really enjoyed creating prints that I could then work on top of and experiment with different techniques and work a lot closer with hand embroidery and develop my skills. Fabric manipulation is something I have always really enjoyed in past projects so I also enjoyed being able to bring that in to my work in the end and create some additional interesting developments.

Below I have done some fashion illustrations to show how I would see my designs in the fashion world. I have included the samples I am referring to to show how these materials/fabrics would look and the textures they would create.

Developing prints and manipulations.

After developing my prints I decided to choose a thicker fabric so that it was easier to maniulate and would hold its shape a lot better. I choose to use a heavy polyester silk as it gave a slight shimmer when printed and held the shape really well. The first fabric sample was made up of a number of separate pieces of material stitched into a cone shape then positioned into a large bunch. I chose this technique as the different angles and shapes of the fabric mirrored that of the flaking paint surfaces I began looking at and gave the sample a whole new dimension I was after.

With this sample I stitched the printed fabric into pleated lines, this gave the print a really 3 dimensional effect, to create added texture I also used hand stitch and french knots to create tactile areas. I feel this development in my work has been really successful and I am a lot happier with the outcomes once I began manipulating fabrics and combined different techniques. 

Developing Prints

 After further researching designers I decided to try and create a much more sophisticated print collection. I really like these designs below by Balenciaga. I am really inspired by the contrast between the bright colours and the injection of black. I used this inspiration to create more prints.

To create these prints I scanned in some previous samples and started to play around on photoshop. I used overlays and used several layers of different sizes to create a huge contrast of colour and darker tones.

I am much more pleased with these prints as they create a more up market style pattern and much more abstract and complex than the original prints I designed. 

Manipulating Fabric

Marit Fujiwara

This is a textile designer that uses a combination of printed fabrics and embroidery to create hugely textured surfaces. I am really inspired by this designer as she manipulates fabric to create tactile surfaces that give the fabric a whole new dimension. 

Fabric techniques. In my further samples I would like to experiment more with different fabric techniques to see the different textures and depths I can create with my prints.

                                                

Work Experience.

So I can widen my knowledge of my specialist area and get a first hand insight into the industry after university I have spent today emailing some of the inspirational embroidery artists I have come across in my past projects. I feel it will really benefit me in terms of getting to see how different people approach with different techniques and get to talk about how they managed to get where they are.