I felt it would be interesting to develop my sampling in a non-digital way to see which I preferred, so I began by creating a collar shape out of plain cotton and painting a horse character with inks. I then quilted the horse using special machine quilting needles and black cotton thread.
I need to work on this further with embellishments and non-flat colour. I do like the use of stitched words to echo the narrative of the piece. In this case 'round and round we go'.
I think to explore the non-digital ways of creating a character/ accessory piece I could sublimation print various textures such as laces etc onto fabrics as well as actually quilting and embroidering to create layers. Within my drawings I use small dots to build shape and texture but I could replace this in a non digital sample with small circles of machine stitch, beading and sequins or French knots.
Today we did a group drawing session which involved trying to work differently to how you normally would or developing your individual style(which I think I have finally found!)
I started by drawing a fairground horse on canvas trying to work in a larger scale than I would normally. I found that the boundaries of the canvas are to rigid so I am going to try and develop extensions of my drawings off of the 'paper'.
Today Grainne said that I can afford for my work to be gestural and a bit crazy with colour and movement. I can see that my work is almost an extension of my personality, my loves and my personal style. This is interesting to consider within the context of my research report where I am looking at makers who use their work as an extension of themselves. I definitely fit into this sort of making category. I find it hard to hold back with colour and detail and I don't think this is something I should try and do anymore, I just need to go with what my hands do!
I really enjoy using bleach within my work because it's a good cure to soften my colours when I sometimes get carried away. It is a wonderful way of illuminating areas of an illustration and therefore creating an ethereal, magical quality.
The bleach sometimes burns through papers and rather than panicking I found that it was best to go with what the material was doing, so if it wanted to rip and curl I incorporated this into the imagery. This texture adds to the collage/layered feel of my work. I find that this then directly relates to the freehand machine stitch and almost sculptural sort of embellishment within my sampling.
