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Artist Research - Rhino 3D Design

To help expand on my own work, we were asked to explore a range of artists that use some of the same techniques in 3D Modelling that we would be learning. Here I have a collection of artists with work that not only links to mine in some forms, but also has work that I personally enjoy.

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Artist Research - Glass

To help expand on my own work, we were asked to explore a range of artists that use some of the same techniques in glass that we would be learning. Here I have a collection of artists with work that not only links to mine in some forms, but also has work that I personally enjoy.

Pam Armitage: Attended a Fine Art Foundation Course at Abingdon College in 1994, which she then went on to do two years of classes, with well known Oxford Glass Artist Vital Peeters. When she first started, she studied Stained Glass, however later moved on to Glass Fusion. Pam is known for her use of vibrant colours through Bullseye glass to create a range glass collages on plates, bowls and decorative pieces - however, she also makes jewellery. I decided to explore the work of Pam due to her extensive look at bullseye glass, and how her work can replicate landscapes through the use of colours and how she portrays them within her glass panels and plates - this reflects my own work, as we’re both exploring the imagery and idea of nature. Not only this, I also decided to look into her work due to the range of work she produces - I find it interesting that she hasn’t let herself just work in one range of products, and instead delves into interesting ways of portraying her colourful imagination and designs. This is something I connect with, as I really want to delve into the world of glass in second year, and would love to be able to re-create my visions and designs into a range of different objects.

Fiona Bryer: Fiona graduated from the University for the Creative Arts in 2014 with BA (Hons) First Class degree in 3 Dimensional Design: Glass, and is inspired by natural forms which she explores deeply with the glass work she creates; not only does she look at the forms found in landscapes and costal areas, but also the textures - which is an interesting element to portray in glass work. For the colours she uses in her work, she also takes inspiration form nature to develop her palette, exploring the “hues of sunsets and skies, the freshness of Spring and the colours of the ocean” - http://www.fionabryerglass.co.uk/about-me.html. This is one of the main reasons I was inspired by the work of Fiona, as we share a mutual interest in nature, and delving into the properties of nature form their designs, colours and textures; although I may of not explored this deeply in the work I created for this glass project, especially in the way of texture - it is something I’d love to look into more as I advance on this course.  

Kaby Bitten: Kaby takes inspiration for her work from the coastlines and countryside of Wales, Devon and Cornwall. This inspiration is then developed into original patterns and shapes, that are transformed onto a range of different products; such as dishes, coasters, jewellery and even decorative pieces that can be displayed on walls. When it comes to her inspiration, she takes notes and sketches as she travels the coast and countryside; which she then develops into textures pieces that are test pieces, exploring a range of colours and patterns that would transfer well onto glass. I was really taken by the work of Kaby, like all the other artists I have explored; a key theme runs throughout them all that can be seen in my work, and that is how we are all inspired by natural elements to develop pieces of work. She also uses a range of beautiful tones and colours, and textures through the use of frit glass - a technique we learned while doing this project; which I really enjoyed, and would have loved to have developed more in my own final piece.

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Artist Research - Embroidery

To help expand on my own work, we were asked to explore a range of artists that use some of the same techniques in embroidery that we would be learning. Here I have a collection of artists with work that not only links to mine in some forms, but also has work that I personally enjoy. 

Sarah Walton: Sarah makes illustrations through her sewing machine, allowing her to develop sketchy-like visions with textile elements - using the black thread as her ‘pencil’ and the textured fabrics as ‘paper’ and ‘paint’. Her main inspiration comes from people and the relationships that they develop with a range of elements, mainly seen in everyday life. In a way, she’s developing ‘photographs’ through the use of fabric and thread, capturing special moments with an interesting use of mediums. I really enjoy the work Sarah creates, and I had the same ideas when I developed my own final piece - I wanted to use the sewing machine and the threads to create sketchy illustrations; as I believed it was the best way to portray my own style through embroidery. I love the use of fabric in her work, as it adds depth - especially when she only uses fabric on one certain element within a piece; it draws you in. It’s obviously looking through her range of work, that she enjoys the look of floral and natural designs within her fabrics, which I also enjoy - and wanted to explore in my final piece of embroidery, however I explored this with what I ‘drew’ with the sewing machine - rather than the fabrics I decided to use.

Hillary Fayle: Hillary grew up in Western NY, and earned a BFA from Buffalo State College; to then go on and get an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University. Within her work she uses botanical materials that range from leaves, branches, flower heads and even seedpods which she then adorns with embroidery techniques. Her inspiration behind this work is to look into ‘human connection to the physical world’, this is by combining materials that are organic with handcrafted human techniques found in needle craft. I am so intrigued by the work of Hillary, being it something I’ve never really seen, or thought of doing before - it’s such a smart and interesting technique to bring in the material that many people would rather draw and take inspiration from, than using the organic material itself. It adds a depth to the overall piece, and a real sense of realism that can’t be found in traditional  methods. The way she uses embroidery techniques to bind pieces together or to patch up holes that developed on their own through nature really strengthens are passion and ideas behind her pieces, which I really appreciate.

James Merry: James is a hand embroidery artist from Gloucestershrie - however has now moved and bases his work in Iceland; where he has been living and collaborating with Björk - singer/songwriter, since 2009. He is a self-taught embroiderer, who originally studied Classical Greek at Oxford University. I am intrigued and in love with the work of James, ever since I saw it online a few years ago. I find it so interesting to bring such beautiful, hand-crafted embroidery techniques that are so delicately done to sportswear. It’s such a contrast to what typically sportswear would stand for, being usually for a male audience and having a sense of strength, and power behind it - that isn’t typically portrayed in the dainty and 'pretty’ nature of botanical designs, which are seen to be more feminine. I chose to look at James’ work due to the subject matter he portrays, that being one of natural designs - which I also explored in my own work and my final piece, however not to the detail he has gone into. However, I would love to look more into learning these techniques to develop such hyper-realistic embroidery pieces; as it’s something I can’t do through the means of drawing, but feel like I’d be able to grasp in the means of embroidery.

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Rhino 3D Design - Week 4 & Evaluation

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Rhino 3D Design - Week 3

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Rhino 3D Design - Week 2

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Rhino 3D Design - Week 1

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Technical Notebook - Glass: Week 4 & Evaluation

Throughout the 4 weeks of learning the techniques in glass, we were asked to develop a technical notebook. This notebook is to explore the different styles, and the processes behind them to create and achieve good quality work, as well as to document my own work and how I feel about it.

On Thursday, after I had developed my floral panels for my two tealights - I discovered that it wouldn’t be possible to slump the tealights into the shape I wanted. The only available sizes were bowls, which wouldn’t be small enough to create that tealight shape; instead it would create a panel with a slight curl at the edges. So, knowing that I was going to develop some coaster-like panels for the tealights to be placed onto once done in my original plan - I decided to change my idea, and instead develop a tealight that looked like this.

Instead of having wood for the bottom of the tealight, which I didn’t think I’d have time to create - I decided to use the glass panels I was going to develop into coasters, this giving the effect that I still wanted. Which was to have the coaster decorated in leaves make it look like its moving up and growing into the flowers that would decorate the tealight - but now will be the front of the glass panel tealight. To help portray the area the tealight would stay, I decided to create some small glass panels that would be decorate in glass frit portraying the colour of the flower, these will be UV glued to the panels.

Here are the glass panels that I developed, these will be fired in the kiln ready to be put together for Friday.

Once I pieces has all been fired, it was time to assemble them to create my tealight design.

For this, I had to sand down the edges that would be glued to other panels - this is due to the glass being uneven and misshapen due to being fired in the kiln, if I left it as it was it wouldn’t stick down onto the other panels correctly, and would look uneven.  Once everything was sanded down, I had to glue them with the UV glue. For this, you’d apply the glue to the areas you wished; then once placed on the glass you wanted it to be bonded to you’d place it in front of the UV light; this develops the glue and makes it stick. 

I was extremely content with how my tealights came out, although I had some issues throughout this project of not being able to develop what I wanted in the first place - as well as having to take some time off for personal reasons; I believe I came out of it well and have created something that I’m proud of.

With our project for glass, we had to explore previous themes. I decided that I really enjoyed the idea of creating tealights, a product that I would be able to use – so I took the inspiration from ceramics to do this; then, for the imagery and the designs on my tealights I decided to explore the photographs I had collected for embroidery – this is because I felt like I didn’t delve into embroidery as much as I should of, so wanted to do the research material justice. From the first day of glass I knew this subject was for me, I found it really easy to work with the glass and create successful sample pieces; especially with my sandblasting slumped bowl and tealights. In the beginning my idea was to create 2 panels of glass, which would have accents of bullseye coloured glass to portray the flowers; which would then be slumped into small tealight-like shaped bowls. These would then be accompanied by 2 coasters, which would have foliage details on them, created through lampworking. However, after fusing my two panels we came to the realisation that there would be no bowls small enough to slump into – so I changed my idea, keeping the focus on making a tealight but just changing how it would look. Instead, my tealights would still include the fused floral panels and foliage panels – as they would be UV glued onto each other; having the floral panels facing forward, with the foliage panels being the bottom. To have a place for the tealights, I developed 4 small pieces of glass that had accent colours of the flowers. I am unbelievably content with how my final pieces and samples for glass turned out, I really believe this has been the project that has developed the best work especially after my run in with problems in embroidery; it has helped me get my confidence back with what I produce.

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Technical Notebook - Glass: Week 3

Throughout the 4 weeks of learning the techniques in glass, we were asked to develop a technical notebook. This notebook is to explore the different styles, and the processes behind them to create and achieve good quality work, as well as to document my own work and how I feel about it.

After I produced my coloured bullseye samples last week, that portrayed the colour scheme for the flowers I was using as inspiration for my final piece. It was time to start creating samples that explored the imagery on Thursday, rather than colour scheme. Before this however, I booked myself in to practise lampworking. Instead of making beads however, like everyone else, I went in with the mindset of creating something that could be used in my final piece - from the demonstration we had last week on how to do lamp-working, we could move and bend the stringers to create certain shapes; and even twist them together. I decided to create some leaves, these leaves were made by heating up the stringer of bullseye under the flame twisting as I go - then as it hit the melting point I’d pull it from the flame, and using tweezers pull on the end of the stringer. With the flat end of the tweezer, it creating the effect of a leaf, and I just pulled and moved the molten glass around until I got the shape I desired.

I then used a few of these in my samples portraying the imagery for my final piece. 

After creating these samples, it gave me a strong idea on how the colours would look once fired - I used the green bullseye from the stringers, the orange glass from last weeks samples of bullseye work - and french vanilla bullseye frit.

On Friday, I decided to start the beginning part of my final piece. I decided I wanted to create some tealights from scratch - this was inspired from my tealights developed in ceramics, which also had a floral design to them; as well as the imagery I used in embroidery. To create these tealights, I would have two square pieces of bullseye clear glass, which would then be decorated with coloured bullseye glass in the shapes and designs I desired to portray my imagery - both of these pieces would then be fused separately, to create 2 solid glass pieces. I would then slump these to create the tealight shape, I also decided to create some fused glass that would have vines and leaves embellished on them, these would act as coasters for the tealights. These would be done next week however, on the Thursday lesson.

Here are some photographs of how the process went:

For my second tealight, I decided to use different imagery - however it also came from my embroidery project, I used this photograph as reference.

Here are the photographs of this glass tile being made:

I then put these in the kiln to be fused, then will be slumped next week. In the mean time, I decided to create something for myself. In the explanation of how to use the machines from last week, our tutor used glass bottles as examples of glass we can work with. So, I got an old rum bottle I had - and done some more sandblasting on it.

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Technical Notebook - Glass: Week 2

Throughout the 4 weeks of learning the techniques in glass, we were asked to develop a technical notebook. This notebook is to explore the different styles, and the processes behind them to create and achieve good quality work, as well as to document my own work and how I feel about it.

This week was a short week for me, due to having some personal problems - I had to miss the Friday lesson. However, on the Friday we were asked to explore some more sampling, as well as work on the machines that we learned how to use on Thursday; which I was there for. I had also created a range of samples in the previous week.

On Thursday we had to get acquainted with the machines in the work room - this is so we were knowledgeable on how to use them safely, as there was a chance we’d need to use them for our final pieces in the coming weeks.

The first thing we looked into was lamp-working, this was an interesting technique to learn as we were able to develop beads, as well as look into how we can melt rods of bullseye glass and other kinds of coloured glass to develop interesting shapes. 

Important things to note when working with lamp-working, is that you need boots and goggles on at all times - this is due to how the glass sometimes can get too hot too quickly, which means it’ll break off and can fly off; so could hit you in the eye etc. However, the goggles used when being in front of the flame should have a blue tinged - this is so it blocks out some of the brightness from the flame allowing you to see what you’re doing with the glass rods in the flame.

Here are some of my notes from that lesson, I decided I didn’t want to explore creating beads as it wouldn’t help with my final piece and what I wanted to create - instead, I wanted to explore how I could use heat to manipulate the bullseye rods to create interesting shapes; maybe to develop flowers or leaves.

In the afternoon on Thursday, we learned how to use the main machines in the glass room, we also put our sandblasted panels away to be fired into a slump bowl - which will be done by next week.

With the saw, it’s safe to use - there isn’t a way for the blade, which is embedded with diamonds on a steel base to cut you; however, once the glass has been cut it will be extremely sharp until it’s sanded down, so that’s something to be careful about.

The flat bed is used to grind down and soften edges of glass, it needs grit and water to work - like a water-based version of a sander. When sanding down the edges of your glass, you need to work in circular motions. I didn’t get a photo of this machine however.

We then looked at working on the drill, the drill has water on it as it acts like a coolant - water needs to be on the glass as well so it works.

The last machine I got information on and a photographs of was the UV light machine, which is used when gluing. Using a special UV glue, having it in the UV light allows it to bond together and have a strong hold.

Due to personal issues, I wasn’t able to make it into the lesson on the Friday; however, it was work I was easily able to catch up on and I had already worked on previously in the other weeks.

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Technical Notebook - Glass: Week 1

Throughout the 4 weeks of learning the techniques in glass, we were asked to develop a technical notebook. This notebook is to explore the different styles, and the processes behind them to create and achieve good quality work, as well as to document my own work and how I feel about it.

On the Thursday of this week, we were introduced to working with glass - cutting it to create small samples that would be then put into the kiln. The samples we were created would show examples of inclusions, which is when you can put an organic material between two pieces of glass and see how it reacts to the head of the kiln, and the use of powered enamels - which is a very fine powdered glass, this did not have to be covered with more glass due to it being glass itself.

When cutting the glass we had to use a glass cutter, this would then score and not fully cut the glass - keeping the screw facing upwards we’d cut in a 45 degree angle. The cutters we used were using oil, which helped it slide across the glass, if there as no oil in the cutter we could use baby oil.

Once we had scored the glass, placing a thumb on each side of the scored line we’d break it - lifting up and pulling away.

With the samples we cut out, we needed some small thin lines and also a curved piece, which was created by just moving the cutter in a curved pattern - this was achieved due to the cutter having a head that could wiggle around.

I started to then add to my samples, I brought in a piece of organic material in the form of a dried leaf from a plant I have in my room - I was interested in seeing how this would develop in the kiln. I then started adding metal wire, enamels and just other pieces of glass ontop of my other samples.

On Friday, we got to see how our pieces developed in the kiln from Thursday.

I find the pieces interesting as I wasn’t too sure how they’d turn out - being it the first time I’ve explored glass and that everything is an experiment once put into the kiln. I realised that I didn’t clean some of my glass well enough, as it seems to be foggy when trying to look at the inclusions - which I dislike. But I like the colours I had chosen for these pieces.

We then got to work with looking at sandblasting. With this technique we’d be creating a glass panel that is 25cm x 25cm, into a bowl through moulding, then using some glass tumblers to explore how using vinyl tape can create patterns. For my tumbler, I used vinyl tape all over the front of my piece, then through the process of drawing with a fine liner I created a motif of a flower - this was inspired by my vinyl cutter jpg. I created the night before for the vinyl cutter, which will be used on the large panel. It was then cut by a scalpel.

This piece was developed from a photograph I took of some flowers that helped also inspire my embroidery work.

Here are the photographs of my tumbler:

The sandblaster is sand compressed with air through a gun, that is then projected onto the piece of glass - scraping at it to create the frosted effect seen above. It is done just like when we glazed our ceramic pieces in ceramics, just like spraying paint. If you want, you could even create holes in the glass just by keeping the sandblasting gun on a certain point for a length of time.

We then moved onto the 25cm x 25cm glass panel, for this we’d be using the technique of a vinyl cutter to get our designs onto it. The vinyl cutter is used through the aid of a computer, and the program “Cut Studio” - once your jpg has been downloaded onto the program, you need to trace the lines of the image so the vinyl cutter knows where to cut and what to keep a solid shape - this is done by going to object - image outline. Getting the blue edges for the lines of the motif.

Here is my piece of vinyl after I peeled away what pieces I did not need, the pieces that have gone will be effected by the sandblaster - giving off that frosted look. As you can see, I used the scraps of this big piece of vinyl and put some of them on my small tumbler. 

To then get my vinyl sticker onto my piece of glass, we needed to use transfer tape - this was placed on top of my vinyl design, which then the back of the vinyl design was peeled off and placed on top of my glass; after this was done and stuck on through the use of a card to get rid of bubbles within the vinyl the tape was then removed to reveal my design. Before this however, the excess was cut off the sides.

It was now time to sandblast my piece, which was done the exact same as I did it with my tumbler. 

Because I ran out of time, this piece will be fired and molded into a bowl next week.

Finally, we were back to creating samples with small pieces of glass - however this time we were using bullseye glass, a coloured varient of glass. In this part we had to have three pieces of coloured glass cut up into 3, and then shared around the class - so everyone had a different colour palette to work with. This was the sheet I was given to begin with.

And then the three I ended up with, including some clear glass.

Like Thursday, we were just asked to experiment - putting different coloured glass on top of eachother, using inclusions, enamels and other pieces to add to our designs. 

These are my samples, I decided after creating my vinyl piece from the design of the flower photograph I took - I wanted to create a colour palette that explored that of the flower, so kept to creams, orange/yellow and white.

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Technical Notebook - Embroidery: Week 4 & Evaluation

Throughout the 4 weeks of learning the techniques in embroidery, we were asked to develop a technical notebook. This notebook is to explore the different styles, and the processes behind them to create and achieve good quality work, as well as to document my own work and how I feel about it.

Sadly, around this time in the project - I began to have some personal problems; although it is not an excuse, I wasn’t able to work to the best of my ability and take notes to fully get a grasp of the techniques we were learning at the time, so the posts for the next few weeks will not be as detailed or as intricate as I would usually be.

Over the weekend I created some illustrations and watercolour paintings based on the photographs I had collected in the previous weeks of flowers at the arboretum - this was so I had a clear understanding in my head of what kind of subject matter I wanted to illustrate on my final piece through the use of free-hand embroidery.

I was still unsure on what I wanted to do for my final piece at this point, and was starting to get really nervous on how I would create something with only two days left on this project. My tutor however helped me out, by sitting me down an exploring the samples I had created in the previous week, we agreed to look at what I had already created and to see if we could just blow up a few of these pieces into big-scale designs - re-creating their look and maybe attaching them together to create some kind of sequence. 

I sat down at this point and looked at all of the pieces I had created, putting up my favourite pieces together on a wall and standing back, looking at which one I thought would really compliment eachother as a sequence.

I decided in the end to go with the three main samples I made, these being the first, second and fourth in the above picture - these were the first samples I made and the ones I really believed to have some depth in them with my illustrative designs as well as the textural elements of having other fabrics adorn them to add colour and depth to the pieces.

Knowing that these were the three I wanted to work on, it was time to develop the backing fabric on my own time - for this, as stated in the previous week I was going to use gouache paints to paint the fabric and develop that tie-dye pastel effect I had found on fabrics in the work room. To help with this, I photocopied in colour the three samples and blew them up in size, to really get a grasp on how they would look in my final piece.

Now that I had my developed background fabric, it was time to lay it out against the samples I had made to see how I wanted my sequence to go - with this, I also started to collect spare and scrap fabric from around the workroom to get that effect once again that my samples have of that embellishment and texture through a range of fabrics that share the same colour palette; I also used some of the fabrics I had left from the previous weeks sampling.

After having a mess around with the order and the fabrics I was using, I was confident in what I wanted to develop and was ready to start working. First, I began by developing the illustrations of flowers that would adorn the base fabrics. I decided instead of going with the exact same illustrations I had done on the samples, that I would change it up a little. For the first panel - I did create that simple, cartoon-like flower head design as I did really like how it looked on the sample - however for the panel underneath that, seeing that the original fabric for that sample had some splatter-like design on it; I decided to replicate that through the use of free-hand embroidery, which I thought was a nice touch instead of trying to do it through the means of paint. On the final panel however, I decided to take inspiration form the final watercolour painting I did in my sketchbook, in which I took elements from all the photographs and samples I created to develop one main motif.

Once I had completed the illustrations on the panels, I then went to work on adding the small embellishments and adornments of other pieces of fabric and texture to give off that dimension I had in my sample pieces.

At this point I believed I was done with my final piece, as I had created what I set out to do - which was to develop three panels that were in a sequence; exploring the imagery and style of my sampling work in my previous weeks. However, once I looked over it with my tutor - we agreed that it would look unfinished and somewhat half done if I didn’t back the panels. So, to keep it simple and not draw the eye away from the main body of the work - I backed the pieces with some of the same fabric I used for the painting, but kept it plain; and then using free-hand stitching developed some simple lines across the back in the two main pastel colours I used for the whole piece, blue and pink.

In the end, with what I went through and having to change my final piece idea so far into the project; I am quite content with what I finally produced. However, I know that if I was able to do this project again I would create something that would of had a lot more thought behind it and something that would be of some use. I feel like although I tried my hardest, I could of done something that was a lot better and well thought out - especially with my background in Textiles.

Evaluation: 

For embroidery I wanted to keep with some of the themes I explored in metal with the video game Skyrim. This being the idea of alchemy through the means of floral elements, however, I wanted to use my own photographs I had taken of flowers as my inspiration; at the beginning my main idea for my final piece was to develop a fabric book, that would have embroidered, quilted and used hand embellished elements to portray floral designs. Sadly, due to some issues with time constraints and stress I was unable to see this idea through. With some help, I was able to go into embroidery fresh.  Instead of coming in with an idea I decided to let my designs and samples speak for themselves; which then lead me onto my final piece. My final piece consists of 3 panels that explore the use of machine embroidery through free stitch, use of embellishing with textured fabrics, hand embroidery and dyeing fabrics. These three panels were then backed and sewn together. At first, we explored the idea of it being used as a chair runner or a wall hanging – however, through doing a photoshoot of my final piece I decided it looked better as a fine art piece; the purpose isn’t conventional and can be used in a variety of ways. Personally, I would see myself using it as a wall hanging rather than for a functional use due to the delicate nature of the design and production. Overall I am pleased with what I have produced in embroidery, I have went down a route that at the beginning I wasn’t comfortable with – that being one using a sewing machine as well as going into a project without a clear idea of my outcome, however I believe I have pulled through and produced something that explores my theme and the style I enjoy.

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Trip - Johnson’s Tiles

In between our project for embroidery, we took a trip to Johnson Tiles; this was to be briefed on our final project that is to come after glass. In this project we will be working in teams to create a tile design either for the commercial market or for those found within restaurants, hotels etc. It will consists of research into each market, designing the tiles and developing colour palettes and textures, to then finally choosing the style, size and finish of the tiles. If our team wins, these tiles will then be produced by Johnson Tiles.

The beginning of the day we were split into two groups, one group was taken around the factory to get a better understanding on the development and production of tiles. The other group was taken over the project brief, getting the information on what is needed and being able to ask any questions that they needed.

In this blog post I will just be posting photographs of the trip.

Boards Throughout the Factory:

Clay for Tiles:

Within the Factory:

Notes Collected on the Process:

Once we had been taken around we were then introduced to the project brief, at this moment in time I have no idea on which route I will go down; so I will need to think about that. We were also allowed to look into Johnson Tile’s predictions for 2017, which was really interesting and an honor to look at - this gave me a lot of inspiration, as most of the work portrayed explored my own themes such as floral and natural designs. 

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Technical Notebook - Embroidery: Week 3

Throughout the 4 weeks of learning the techniques in embroidery, we were asked to develop a technical notebook. This notebook is to explore the different styles, and the processes behind them to create and achieve good quality work, as well as to document my own work and how I feel about it.

Sadly, around this time in the project - I began to have some personal problems; although it is not an excuse, I wasn’t able to work to the best of my ability and take notes to fully get a grasp of the techniques we were learning at the time, so the posts for the next few weeks will not be as detailed or as intricate as I would usually be.

The beginning of this week was quite hard for me, especially with what I was feeling when creating my sample pieces in the previous week - I come to the realisation that I had set myself a task that was too hard to really develop in the few weeks I had left on this subject. After speaking to my tutor we both agreed that it would be best to scrap that idea, but take some of the things I really enjoyed so far in the course and use that to help develop something totally new for my final piece, this being the idea of using free hand embroidery as a way to develop sketchy and illustrative pieces through the means of stitch. With all the previous projects, I had always had my final piece in mind before really getting too far into the weeks, however having to start my idea from scratch on the third week really took me aback and made it hard for me to really get to grips with what I wanted to create. 

I decided that the best thing to do was to start sampling, and to help with that I looked at what I really enjoyed making in the first week of this subject - the free hand and braiding foot techniques. With these ideas in mind, I looked back on some photographs I had taken the week before of some flowers in the arboretum; using this as my subject matter - I got to work on developing some illustrative designs on fabric, rather than sketching them out first in my sketchbook.

The first two designs that I developed, taking inspiration from the first weeks example were quite heavy handed with the stitching, having a very dark and heavy outline that somewhat took away from the braiding foot that I had used to highlight certain colours and pieces of the flower motifs. After looking at these examples, I realised that this wasn’t the way I wanted to go with my designs, and instead decided to just look at free-hand embroidery on it’s own, without the use of braiding foot. Instead, I would use free-hand embroidery in a range of different threads to develop the colour and depth to the pieces that the braiding foot would of given off.

With that I came up with these two designs, and instantly realised that this was the route I wanted to go down - it definitely captured my illustrative style when drawing, and really gave off that dainty and ‘pretty’ look that flowers would have - instead of having that really heavy style I experimented with before.

 After developing these samples, I was then asked to explore different types of fabric and colours I could use to really get a colour scheme going on. I decided that I wanted to work with real pastel colours, which were some of the colours I used in the first week of sampling when we did the range of hand-processes on the first day. This meant looking into pastel pinks, blues, yellows, greens and purple/lilac colours.

For this, I looked in the fabric bins around the workroom and found a range of tie-dye looking fabrics, which were either painted on by other students or dyed using fabric dyes. When washed out, they gave that pastel look I was looking for, I really liked the idea of having this fabric effect as my main fabric; so then I looked for other pieces of fabric that hand the same colour scheme to use as accent pieces. 

At this point I had a really good collection of sampling going on that really showed what I wanted to develop for my final piece. At this moment in time however, I was still unsure on what that piece would be, meaning if it would have any use or just be a decorative/fine art-like piece. I decided for the final week of this project, I wanted to develop some of my own fabric to use as the base fabric for my final piece, so to do this I used gouache and water colour paints to paint directly onto the fabric these pastel colours I had accumulated through my sampling process.

I was getting a bit more into the game once again, and starting to have some confidence in my work after being knocked back the previous weeks - although I was still unsure on the real outcome of my final piece; I was getting excited through my enjoyment of making my samples to see what I could really develop in my final week.

[victoriamcalpine-blog]

Technical Notebook - Embroidery: Week 2

Throughout the 4 weeks of learning the techniques in embroidery, we were asked to develop a technical notebook. This notebook is to explore the different styles, and the processes behind them to create and achieve good quality work, as well as to document my own work and how I feel about it.

Sadly, around this time in the project - I began to have some personal problems; although it is not an excuse, I wasn’t able to work to the best of my ability and take notes to fully get a grasp of the techniques we were learning at the time, so the posts for the next few weeks will not be as detailed or as intricate as I would usually be.

In our second week of embroidery, we were asked to start developing samples that would begin to explore our ideas leading onto our final outcome for this project - as well as looking into some new techniques by forming 2 and 3D materials; through heat moulded polyester, darting, quilting and pintucks.

The first technique we explored this week was pleating with heating polyester fabric through the means of foil. For this, we were asked to take 100% polyester, as well as any other fabrics we thought might be interesting to see how they would turn out, and fold, manipulate and pleat them through the means of foil - this allowed them to keep their shape.

I did a range of shapes in this technique, from pinching the sides of the fabric; to folding it in a traditional way to get a pleat effect. The fabric had to be completely covered in foil - to do this, I had 2 bits of foil for each piece of fabric; one underneath the fabric and one over the top - this is so the fabric wouldn’t be exposed to the heat and would also maintain it’s shape better. Once that had been completed, the foiled pieces of fabric had to be placed into an oven for around 5 minutes at around 180 degrees; this is so the fibres within the fabric can displace and move around, allowing it to take on it’s new form developed by the folding of the foil.

We realised however, that either some of the fabrics used weren’t suited for this technique, or that they had been in the oven for too long as some gave off an odor of burnt - as well has having a hard or ‘crispy’ feel to them; as mine certainly did. 

Although they may of not worked out too well, it was still an interesting technique to learn as I had never done it before - and it’s a great way to get certain forms and shapes out of your fabric without having to stitch into it.

On Friday we looked into the other techniques, first being that of pintucks. In this technique you mark out on your piece of fabric triangles on each side at regular intervals - this is where you’ll pinch the fabric to make a tuck; once you have created this tuck in the fabric, you’d pin it down so it is kept in place - then with a running stitch you’d sew close to the edge; allowing the pintuck to stand on it’s own adding depth and interest into the fabric.

To add some more interest to my pintuck sample, I also did a pintuck down the middle of the ones I had already created, this added some more depth.

Darting was the next technique we learned, however, at this point it was optional if you wanted to create something to explore this technique - I myself didn’t make anything, as I wanted to concentrate on the techniques I knew I’d explore later on down the line in this project to work with my final piece. However, I did take some photographs of examples, and have the darting information sheet in which it explains how to do it.

The information sheet also came with some example patterns that you could explore whilst doing this technique, which is a good thing to have if ever in the future I wished to explore this technique further. 

The final technique that I explored in this weeks lessons was quilting, this was something I was very interested in learning about; because at this time in the project I wanted to explore the idea of creating a fabric book for my final piece - and for this, I would of wanted to of had a quilted front cover and back; so I really wanted to get the hang of this technique as it would be something I’d certainly be looking to use as the weeks went on.

There are two different types of quilting you can do, the first being English; which is the one I decided to go with. In this technique you have three pieces of fabric, one being the cotton/polyester wadding that goes in the centre of two other fabrics; these being the fabric you wish to be quilted (on top, normally with a pattern or something embroidered onto it) and then the base fabric, which is usually a basic fabric as it is not the stand-out piece in this technique. 

The second kind of quilting you could do, which I myself didn’t look into, is Italian quilting. This is when you create two parallel lines of stitching - allowing for some space in between the fabric, which you can then stuff with yarn or padding. This adds some dimension and depth to your textile work; especially if you don’t want to have the whole thing padded, this is a good technique for just adding it to certain parts of your piece.

For my quilting piece, once again I wanted to keep to the same imagery and subject matter I have throughout this projects examples - which is that of floral imagery; also, due to doing a textiles based subject in my foundation last year I had a range of floral fabrics that I hadn’t used, so I used this as my main fabrics in this weeks techniques. 

To begin with, I had my piece of fabric and as learned in the previous weeks lesson did some free-hand stitch onto it, developing some illustrations of flowers. Once this had been completed, I pinned it onto a piece of basic cotton fabric with the cotton padding sandwiched in between. Then, using a running stitch I stitched down the edges of the fabric; keeping the wadding securely between the two pieces of fabric. 

Sadly, I believe I developed quite a crude example of quilting - due to the running stitch on the sides being very uneven, and when cutting off the excess fabric I accidentally cut into the base fabric - leaving the wadding exposed.

This was a technique I was really excited about delving into and looking to use in my final piece; and realising I wasn’t the best at executing a good example of it really hindered me and my ideas on what I wanted to create for my final piece. At this moment in the project I was starting to gain a lot of self doubt in my abilities in embroidery and textiles, and felt like I set myself a task that was too much work for the amount of time I had left. 

[victoriamcalpine-blog]

Technical Notebook - Embroidery: Week 1

Throughout the 4 weeks of learning the techniques in embroidery, we were asked to develop a technical notebook. This notebook is to explore the different styles, and the processes behind them to create and achieve good quality work, as well as to document my own work and how I feel about it.

The first week of embroidery was just getting to grips with a range of techniques through hand-stitched methods, as well as exploring methods developed on the sewing machine. I have previous experience with embroidery doing a lot of it in my foundation year of Textiles at Newcastle College; so I was excited to begin this part of the course, being it a subject I’m very passionate about and wanting to advance further - I was very confident with hand techniques, however had never really gotten a hang of using a sewing machine, so this was a great chance for me to develop my skills and explore new ways of creating textiles. 

First, on Thursday we looked into hand processes; developing new kinds of stitch that we could later implement into our final pieces - as previous stated, I am confident with embroidery; so was excited to learn about a range of new stitches that I hadn’t done before. In my selection I chose to do running stitch, double running stitch, split stitch, outline stitch, back stitch, stem stitch, herringbone stitch, chain stitch, open chain stitch, fly stitch, detached chain, ox head, seeding and finally star-filling. 

I really enjoyed getting back into doing some hand embroidery, and really liked what I came out with after not delving into it for a few months. As we were working on this, we were also getting hand-outs exploring these techniques on a deeper level, these are to help for when we start putting our technical notebook together - I will be putting these in with my technical notebook.

On Friday we had our machine room induction and health and safety, this allows us to be able to work in the rooms throughout our time in the course - as we have an understanding on how everything works and how we should act to keep ourselves safe whilst using certain machines. For this, we got a range of demos for each of the machines - as well as some hand-outs that go in to more detail on how we can keep ourselves, and our peers safe; from keeping bags away, no MP3′s or drinks around equipment. Once we were clear on how the machines worked and how to conduct ourselves within the workroom, it was time to get onto the sewing machines and to begin exploring a range of simple techniques that could be developed in the weeks to come for our final pieces. At this point, I hadn’t used a sewing machine since Textiles in GCSE; so I was nervous about getting onto the machine and working, as I had forgotten how to use it. Thankfully, with the demo we were also given a hand-out that indicated everything on the sewing machine and how to get it set up and running, this was extremely important for me it gave a photo of the sewing machine; I need to have it visually in front of me for my head to get around it.

We started off by looking at free hand embroidery, but before this we had to set up our embroidery hoops - for this we needed to wrap some simple cloth around it and secure it with masking tape; this adds some grip to the fabric once it’s within the embroidery hoop, making it harder for it to move around or slip out.

Once this was done, I sketched out a small floral design on my fabric - this was so I knew where to stitch when beginning my free hand embroidery on the sewing machine. 

It was then time to set up the sewing machine so I could do free hand embroidery, there are certain setting the machine has to be on to allow you to move the fabric freely - rather than in a straight stitch as you would normally expect on a sewing machine. To start with, you must have a darning foot on the sewing machine - this foot has a circular end to it, rather than a flat foot if you wanted to do straight stitch; this is so your fabric doesn’t get pulled up as your needle goes through the fabric. The most important thing is to have the feed dogs on the sewing machine lowered, otherwise the fabric would get stuck and won’t have the freedom to move freely with your hand movements. 

As shown in the photograph, I decided to explore not only using a straight stitch while doing free hand, but also looking at using zig-zag stitch to add some depth and sketchiness to my design; seeing how it’s how I work when doing illustrative work. To do this, I just changed the stitch width on the sewing machine by making it higher, between 3-5; rather than having it on the lower end of the scale for straight stitch.

After we had got the hang of doing free hand embroidery, we looked into doing another technique - this was the technique of braiding foot. As the name of the technique suggests, the foot on the sewing machine has to be changed to a braiding foot; this is because you need a special hole in the foot to feed through a piece of ribbon, braid, cord etc. that you wish to embellish your piece with. To get this to work you need to have your sewing machine’s setting changed once again, like with doing a zig-zag, the stitch width must be changed to the lower end of the spectrum, this is so the thread can get over the material you are feeding through the foot - and locking it in place with the zig-zag. For my practice piece, I decided to use some coloured velvet-like thread that would really brighten up my illustration of a flower, through the colour selection I decided to go with one that would make my illustration look like a rose or tulip motif.

I was very happy with how this piece turned out, being it the first time I had ever done the technique of braiding foot and the first time I had used a sewing machine in years, I was excited with how well my first day was going.

We then moved on to looking into techniques of applique and aqua-film, creating things through the means of embroidery and other materials that can then be adorned or used to embellish other pieces; I hadn’t had much experience with either of these techniques so I was excited to learn more about it.

With the technique of aqua-film, you use a sheet of a plastic like material (named aqua-film) and can stitch into it like any other fabric on the sewing machine, however as the name suggests; water is used in this technique to have some interesting effects. Once water is applied to the sheet and the stitching within it, it melts off, leaving just the embroidered piece left. Leaving this out to dry makes it so the end result is your stitched piece, but hardened through the glue-like residue left from the meted aqua-film. This means you can leave it as a stand-alone piece, or stitch it back into some other form of textiles to add some texture and depth to your work.

As shown from my photo above, I once again wanted to explore the floral imagery I had previously in my free-hand experimentation. However, I also incorporated some floral fabric into my aqua-film, by stitching it on with free-hand techniques (leaving the material behind the aqua-film, pinning it down prior to stitching) to add some more dimension and interest into my work.

Sadly, in the drying process some of the stitching began to unravel - leaving the leave design I had on the stem of the flower to come undone. 

With the applique we looked at both just hand-stitch applique of applying another fabric to your main fabric through the means of embroidering it on yourself; as well as looking at iron-on applique. With this technique, you’d apply a special bonding paper (Iron Bondina) to the back of your fabric, by sticking it on web-side down - once it was on you’d then iron it to your wanted fabric; leaving it stuck on, however before you do this you want to make sure you’ve taken off the backing paper of the Iron Bondina. I was really interested in the means of iron-on applique, and looked into doing this with my free hand and braiding food example. 

I was really impressed with the range of work I had completed on my first main day of working, and couldn’t wait to see what else I could accomplish in the coming weeks.

[victoriamcalpine-blog]

Colour Development - Week 3

As part of a small side task we had to complete as well as doing our main projects in different subjects, we had a colour development module.In our third, and final week - we had to take our artist research and through putting our samples together, find a difinitive colour palette from each one consisting of 6 colours. I once again, was not here for this week; however completed the work before the lesson.

With our final colour palettes, we were asked to develop a range of 6 colour palettes - then come to the final decision of what would be our perfect palette for each artists work. My final colour palettes are shown on the masking tape.

Georges Seurat:

Lize Meddings:

After creating each palette, I came to the realisation that they’re actually quite similar - even though I chose two completely different artists. I think this goes to show what my personal preference on colours is, being that of pastels.