Interim Critique

Today we had interim critiques in front of the tutors, this involved a short four to six minute presentation explaining what we’ve done so far and what we intend to do in the up coming weeks. The main purpose of this presentation was to prepare us for our external examiner visit next week and to also take some constructive criticism to improve and build on our work.

Tutors: Keiriene Canavan and Sally Grant

My presentation was at 10 am so I started it off with a big good morning to both tutors,  I went on to introduce my theme, inspiration and why it was I choose the Cornish coast.

• Coastal walks and trips to the beach
• Imagery over the summer and winter break

I briefly spoke about my inspiration board – taking some feedback from keiriene at the beginning of the project, not just see my photographs as seascapes but to look at them from different perspectives and to think about  the textures and colours within them.

Wrote my brief after having a tutorial with Jane – she asked to me think about the concept behind all the ideas and what is it about Cornwall that interests me. This was a really helpful tutorial!

• Recent news in Cornwall
• Sea storms
• Pollution
• Sea waste
• Sewage

I then gave a summary on each of my mood boards:

Theme – my own imagery with two pictures from the internet. Talked about ‘collections’ and what I’ve picked up from walks on the beach like shells or drift wood. The 18,000 pink bottles that washed up on the Cornish coastline January this year.

Colour – All colours choosen have a meaning, all but two of them are sourced from a colour atlas from my images.For example pink to represent the flowers on the cliff and the mysterious pink bottles washed up.

Client Board – Aimed at people aged 20-45 with a high disposable income wanting a ‘home from home’ feel to their soft furnishings.

Market Competitors – Coincides with the client, sourced and researched companies with the same target market.

Products – For the final show I’d like to design interior living/bedroom accesories like a patchwork quilt and matching pillows.

Techniques – I rounded the presentation off by talking about the techniques I’ve been experimenting with like shibori, dyeing, heat transfer, marbling and beginning to do some digital stitch. Also added in that I’m trying to utilise the idea of ‘collections’, incorporating found and natural objects into the making process. The next step was to create exact colours from my palette and log this in my sketch book.

FEEDBACK

First comment made by both tutors, not to be so nervous and to be confident when speaking about my work. Something I know I lack in but I will try my best to improve this, especially for next week.

I had a feeling this was going to be brought up but Keiriene did mention the black border around my mood boards, that it was very heavy and this detracts from the images. I did take her feedback to do this the week before however because I was unsure about them I only blue tacked it down therefore was more than happy to take this off and to also paint over the mixed blue boarders underneath as that also too busy.

Sally said that she really liked the large projector drawings I’d done and to think about using these in the final collection OR to take sections of them and produce some smaller samples.

Although I’d already considered natural fabrics for soft furnishings, Sally did mention that she liked the silk habotia shibori samples I’d done and to think about using silk – after all silk is natural as it’s made from protein. Adding to this she also said she could almost take one of my drawings and see this onto a thin silk curtain floating in the window. I will definitely consider this idea and experiment with it further.

Both tutors said that they like the idea of ‘going big’ and to be very confident in taking this idea further into the project. That my development so far seems very developed and ‘bespoke’ – an idea that a lot of people would respond to.

A final comment was made by Sally about not getting to caught up with the recycling side of it but to include it in a subtle way. I would agree with this comment to an extent however this is still the development stage and who knows where it’ll take me. I intend to experiment with found objects in the dye room and I’ll review this comment again at a later stage.

Overall I think I highlighted all the important things relevant at this stage. I did go over the time by about 15-20 seconds so I intend to practice more with presenting. I think I’m going to struggle to narrow it down to two minutes because I’ve go so many ideas. The feedback has really helped me to understand where I am at this stage in the project and to carry on with my design development.

Mark Making

Once I was completely happy with my improved colour board, I began to create my palette using gouache paints. I doing so I was able to start adding colour to my current sketches and mark making using various brush types. I will continue to do this experimentation but to a larger scale, perhaps A1 or A2 loose sheets of paper.

Quick mark making experiments using a fan brush and stippling brush, referring back to my Cornish coast imagery. These simple design ideas could potentially be translated into backgrounds or repeat designs.

Mixed media mark making

Today was a studio day, at this stage in the project I still feel as though my sketch book is okay but needs more development therefore I choose to dedicate a couple of hours doing some mark making using oil pastels, paints, inks and using my paper marbling samples I did the week before. The image above is a page in my sketchbook where I started to layer paints, tear bits of paper to add in areas, constantly referring back to my inspiration board. The designs created are meant to be very abstract and they don’t necessarily need to make sense as I’m drawing sections from various images. I’m really enjoying this design method, its very free flowing and unpredictable.

Valentines Bake Sale

 Today we did a Valentines day themed bake sale to raise money towards our degree show! A lot of effort was put in from the textile third years to fill the stall with baked goodies. A small team of us rotated on the stall every two hours and we were able to raise £91.00 in total which was brilliant.

Chocolate and vanilla marble cake I baked!!

Projector Drawings

I’ve been doing some drawing and mark making in my small sketchbook containing my 6×4 photographs and a few in my A3 sketchbook. During the process of this course I’ve found that I confine myself to my sketchbooks and thought it was about time I went bigger in terms of my drawing/mark making. During one of my tutorials Keiriene suggested I use the projector to blow up my images onto a wall, I took her advice and decided to layer my drawings on top of one another which gave me some interesting marks to work from.

I found this way of drawing interesting and inspiring, a technique I’d consider for future projects. I was a very free flowing process and I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect especially when taking a step back from it.

After adding some colour I felt as though the drawing started to come to life. I really like the fact that this is a summers day layered on top of a storm but you wouldn’t necessarily know that at first glance. I feel as though this drawing, or sections of it could be translated into stitch in an abstract way.

Marbling Technique

My theme is based on the Cornish coast and most of my own imagery is based around the sea from different angles and perspectives. This got me thinking about  how can I translate ‘the sea’ using different mixed media techniques and textiles. To get the ball rolling on this project I decided to try a technique called marbling, this is where you add a thin layer of water to a flat surface or tray and simply add drops off ink to it, preferably oil based inks. Using a cocktail stick or end of a pencil gently mix the inks to create a marble effect.Get either paper, card or fabric and place it flat onto the surface of the water for a few seconds and the inks should stick to the surface revealing a marble like effect.

I really like the many different effects you can create, it’s very unpredictable, much like a storm which links to my theme.However I did find it difficult to control the colours during the process, perhaps next time I’d consider using the proper marbling inks rather that the silk paint inks, both of which use the same process.

This technique could be scanned in and used as backgrounds in digital designs or potentially stitched into using the right fabrics.

Here are my outcomes, majority onto paper or card.