Printing Day

Spent some of today in the workshops printing on the sublimation printer.

Materials: Polyester sourced from charity shops including curtain netting.

What worked: the mixture of polyester and some sort of coating on the netting created softer colours which was what I was wanting to achieve. Hand painted dysperse creates better tones for the colours I'm trying to achieve.

What didn't work: the colours weren't what I wanted. Some of them were too acid or murky so I experimented with dysperse dyes from the pot with water enabled the colours to become pastel tones.

As much as I like the literal representations such as fish and teapots, I don't think this ties in with the sculptural, textured feel I want to create in this project. I'm thinking literal representations can be reserved for the embellishments or kept very simple such as a half drop repeat with a simple background. This way it won't be too much with an embellishment. The other direction I'm also thinking of going is sticking with textured prints rather than conversational so that the embellishment flows with the fabric.

Development:

Stitch and bead onto seahorse and shells.

Experiment with burning patterns into the large prints.

Experiment with foils.

Consider placement on shirts.

Work Placement continued...

This week I have been dealing with the Star Wars exhibition. Sitting in whilst people look round, talking to the public. Whilst doing that I have been continuing work on the favours for the Surrealist Soirée. Finger knitting with wire has been fun, results below!

Inspiration Boards

Collected images from my Pinterest boards that have initially inspired me within this project. Mermaids, textures, sea-life, encrustations and adornment...words that create ideas for me.

NEC: Fashion Embroidery Exhibition

This exhibit was something I really wanted to go and see. I found materials such as threads etc were expensive, its still cheaper to buy online. 

It was very interesting to watch the catwalk of City and Guilds and Uni students Textiles work.

Butterfly machine embroidery on display- unknown
Textures created via layering and quilting.

Peacock Costume- layered netting, dip dyeing and feathers.  Intricately detailed and rich colours.

Above: I had a go at Marbling (see sample in sketchbook). I would like to take this further used as backgrounds for drawings or as fabric decoration. The fluid movement lends marbling to a sea themed project. 

Red machine emroidery- a collage of various stitches and materials combines to give a luxurious sculptural appearance to surface decoration.

Below: Combined textile piece, use of emotive text as if on a journey.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karen Casper

My favourite find of the day was the work of Karen Casper (Madeira Threads) on the sponsored stands. I adored her pieces, in fact there was nothing about them I didn't like. They are quirky, sculptural, colourful, mystical and eclectic- the epitomy of mixed media which is something I want to focus on. Her work can't be pigeon holed maintaining qualities suitable for fashion, art and costume.  Below her work can be seen literally dripping with lace and embellishments combining tradtional techniques (devore, quilting etc) with other materials such as Latex.

Above: vintage lace and sculpted fabrics into millinery pieces

Karen's s

ketchbook- it was good to see that she overlaps her drawings with her evaluation and her samples. Somehow this way of working makes everything come together more.

Article: http://lancashire.greatbritishlife.co.uk/article/karen-casper--the-young-mum-from-helmshore-creating-waves-in-the-design-world-44609/

Karen Casper had never touched a sewing machine until the age of 31. But when I met the mother-of-two five years later at her Helmshore home she had just graduated with a first class honours degree in contemporary textiles from Blackburn University Centre. Not bad for someone who has had to learn from scratch.

‘I have always been creative, but never did anything with it,’ says Karen who previously worked as a personal assistant at the BBC. ‘My sister taught me to hand sew and I just thought that if I don’t take it further now I never will. When I first started I remember my tutor having to show me how to thread the sewing machine needle!’

Soon she was using needles to create beautiful embroidered designs on fabric and that has led to even more innovative designs and materials. Techniques include devore, quilting, embroidery, fabric manipulation and embellishment to produce fine art pieces and commerical items.

‘I’m known for a particular piece using glow-in-the-dark wire,’ says Karen. ‘I like to give texture and depth to the pieces I create whether it’s a textile for the wall or a cape to wear.

‘I always start off with a textile but it often turns into something wearable. I mainly do one-off pieces but have been spending the summer looking at creating more for sale, things like head pieces and fascinators for fashion shoots or special occasions like weddings or the races. I don’t like to use just one medium, I tend to use mixed media like embroidery, screen and digital prints in my work.’

Karen’s reputation is growing as an innovative designer and maker of items from the vintage era to the futuristic but she intends to continue her education with a master’s degree in Manchester. ‘It’s been hard going back to college, studying and looking after two young children, but I have loved every single minute of it.

‘I’ve always tried not to hem myself into one particular box so that I can grow and develop. My tutors say my talent lies in costume, so who knows what the master’s degree could lead to, maybe collaborating with other mediums like sculpture?

‘I would love to work with a team doing editorial and costume pieces. The work Sarah Burton is doing for Alexander McQueen is amazing – that would be my ideal job producing avant garde couture in a place like that. I want people to interact with my work, to touch it.’

People will soon be able to do just that. Karen has been selected to take part in a project being staged at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester.

You can see more of Karen’s work at http://tulleandcandyfloss.blogspot.co.uk.

Kurt Schwitters Research and PDP

After my tutorial with Brian Falconbridge I decided to do some research into some of the key people in the art world that he said I would be interested and inspired by.

Kurt Schwitters

In 1917 the 30 year-old artist was drafted into military service, which he spent in the orderly room, due to his suffering from epilepsy. He was discharged after four months. The impressions of the war and the inflation made him a modern artist, who even left Expressionism behind; his first collages emerged in 1918, for which Kurt Schwitters used litter found by chance.

Cover of Anna Blume 1919

His art and literary texts became a Dadaist institution in Hanover, which he called "Merz", a fragment of the word "Commerzbank". "Anna Blume", a collection of poems and prosaic texts published in 1919, made him famous far beyond Hanover's boundaries. He got in contact with Herwarth Walden, Hans Arp and Tristan Tzara and took part in the "Sturm"-exhibitions in New York and Zurich.

From 1923 on he worked as a commercial artist, graphic designer and typographer for several companies from Hanover and beyond.  Apart from this professional work, he continued the collages and material pictures of the "Merz"-series.

In the mid-30's he was successful on an international level for the first time; in 1937 he emigrated to Norway. His exile in Norway was followed by his escape from the German troops to England.

In 1941 he became involved with the London art scene and his work began to engage with British society and culture, shaped by the use of new source materials for his collages and poems. 

His work began to be shaped by the material culture of the wartime city. The fragments of paper and found objects that he collected from London’s streets were incorporated into his collages and assemblages. As his work was made from discarded everyday items, it reflected the environment in which it was made. The materials he used included sweet wrappers, bus tickets, metal toys, pieces of linoleum and a scrubbing brush. 

This form of recycling materials into art is something that captures my interest.  I think where possible it is kind to the environment to use and re-use naterials again and again.  It's also more inspiring for me to deal with less prescious "scraps" rather than clean paper.

Schwitters also explored the transformation of ready-made images, using photographic reproductions of nineteenth-century paintings as a starting point for collages. He was fascinated by English words and typography, and incorporated fragmentary phrases which make references to contemporary popular culture and politics, and also seems to comment on the process of adapting to making his work in a new environment. Words, as disscussed previously are a massive influenece of mine, to take this forward I would like to find some poetry with the of sealife and/or mermaids.


For Kate- 1947


Kurt Schwitters died in 1948. It is only after his death that his life's work is appreciated internationally. Schwitters was far ahead of his time and strongly influenced the art of assemblage of the neo-dadaist artists.



Das Undbild - 1919

Photos combined with text and textured papers.



1923- Aphorism

http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/schwitters-britain/

http://www.schwitters-kurt.com/

Storming my Brain

Material Processes I want to experiment with in BA6

Types of embellishment:

• Digital print (photographic backgrounds possibly) 
• Machine and handstitch
• Sequins/beads/metals etc
• Experiment with embellisher machine
• Burning
• Melting

Possible materials to source and use:

• Ropes (as seen at Premier Vision 'Trends')
• Metal from cans
• Polyester for melting and sublimation printing
• Continue with bath mat experiments
• Wire
• Polyester threads
• Silk threads
• Metallic threads