work is taking overrr

My uni room isnt the largest and my work seems to be taking over, this was actually after a vigorous tidy up, so it doesnt look to bad! ive had to put all my work on the walls to stop them getting crumpled and messy and im using my drying rack to hang my samples on!

NTU StudioMade- growth and restriction

My brief from the ntu studio made competition

Growth and restriction Bones have been an influence for many designers with their connotations suggesting something sinister and gothic yet edgy and unique. I have been looking into African beauty and what their culture perceive as beautiful. I found their use of neck stretching with special necklaces and use of mouth plates very interesting. What they see as beautiful was exaggerating the body and challenging what is natural with what is extraordinary yet achievable, pushing the body to its limits by elongating the neck and stretching the mouth. Something, which to a western culture sounds nothing but barbaric and painful, for the African culture, is normal.

I began thinking about restriction and movement. I want to look in depth at bones and how they are structured and connected and how I can translate this into my textile development. I want to use new techniques such as laser cutting and the use of resin to trap my embroidery which will then be used as a fashion accessory or as placement and embellishment on a garment. I also want to inject some color into my work, by looking at flowers which represent growth throughout the seasons; this offers a direct symbolic contrast with the idea of restriction.

I want to crush and trap the flowers perhaps using flower pressing to distort them and evaluate the metaphorical similarities between bones and flowers. Bones grow throughout the life course, they grow thicker and stronger to support an ever growing frame, but then as you grow older they weaken and break or become bent which is much the same as the seasonal life course of flowers, certain flowers flourish during certain seasons and during other seasons they wilt and die.

Looking at the process of trapping and wrapping the flowers, this reminded me somewhat of the idea of mummification, a physical representation of entrapment and to contrast this also the idea of escape, the theme running through my work will be contrast, a symbolic contrast of ideas such as growth/restriction and entrapment/escape but also I would like these ideas to be represented visually through the use of contrasting colours. The colours I would like to use would be taking ideas from my inspiration of flowers and bones, so whites, grays and blacks for the dull tones of the bones but also an injection of colour through accents like orange, yellow and pink from looking at the flowers.

To kick-start my project I am visiting museums to begin thinking about and looking at bones and mummification. I will be drawing ideas from my visits and sketches as well crushing and pressing flowers. I want to work very structurally, thus I will work with the idea of connection (i.e. the connection of bones and the connection of flowers to their roots) and creating raised surfaces, incorporating use of cut work and building up surfaces I will then work directly onto the mannequin to keep in mind placement.

For my contextual research I am looking at designers who create very structural garments and accessories, such as Sandra Backlund who creates garments that are all about form, creating and exaggerating shape by the use of unusual materials and also knit. Alexander McQueen has also been inspired by bones and skulls so I will look at how he uses this inspiration whether it is very literal and visual or subtly within his garments through prints or the actual use of real bones. David koma was another designer I have looked at, I was really inspired by how simple his garments are but then the use of metals to add exaggeration to certain areas of the female body which also gives a futuristic look.

I want to design unusual fashion accessories or extravagant details in an innovative way for garments by incorporating both my visual ideas and my theoretical ideas. For this term I want to focus on expanding my techniques and experimentation within my textile development so at the moment. My project is working towards the studio made innovation brief creating structural samples for fashion garments or fashion jewellery.

“I'm interested in blurring the line between jewellery and clothing so that you don’t know where one starts and the other finishes” Michelle jank

Below are pages taken from my sketchbook looking at using petals, and floral drawings alongside my bone drawings.

Masks!

I just heard that my other mask has sold to a buyer in miami! wooo

charity shops!

Lately Ive been addicted to charity shops, i started going with my nan just for something to do, but then i discovered that vintage shops are pretty much rip off charity shops.

some of my finds -

This braclet! I paid £1.50 for it, its so unusal it looks as if its made of gold twigs!

This bag was only £2! its so cute, it has about a

milllion compartments, and in the front compartment has a mirror fixed in, it has a long strap which is detachable.

I also got this black and gold belt!

Orange braclet - £1

floral plate thing! - 50p!

little floral pendant - 50p!

I keep buying boxes, these two are my favourite!

I just bought an old wooden trolley for £5 from a charity shop the lady said it was her 95 year old mums trolley and that it was past down to her from her mum! so its like a million years old! im going to paint it and make it look pretty, and use it for my sewing machine!

The trolley before!

AFTER :)

Photography

I studied photography from GCSE to A level , here are a few of my favourite photographs that i have taken :)

This is my favourite ever evvver photo i have taken, it was inspired by martin parr, creating over saturated images of people caught unaware. I managed to sneak up behind this lady baking in the sun!

I love these photos, i took them in my garden , it was all about perspective and having something close and in focus.

For my A level photography show i spend hours photography people shopping and mounted them onto bean cans, for the show i had a massive stack of the bean cans with my images on!!

Two random photos i liked from my AS photography, the first i took for an alice and wonderland photoshoot , the second of a random COW!! i just like the space in the photograph and then as you move your eye down there is a cow!

Even though i didnt carry on with photography into degree level , im glad i have an understanding of it as it helps me within my textile work to be able to see my work as an overall image.

This is a photo i took in my art foundation, of my final piece for a project on "protection" the dress is made entirly of different papers. I love the colours in this photograph, the background compliments the colours of the paper used. This was take in clevedon beach :)

Dripping Jewels - water texcomm competition

The brief I wrote for water texcomm competition -

Water and its distinct forms provide many qualities to inspire fashion,ice is clean and structured, vapour is sheer and ever changing, and in its liquid state, the waves in the water creating both predictable patterns and mysterious waves.

"For its mystery, familiarity and constant change, the movement and structure of water inspires and mirrors that static nature of fashion" ( xenia Viray zoozoom magazine)

Around my theme i want to look at the beach how the waves effect the shore the idea of things being hidden underneath the sand, the waves eroding the pebbles, smoothing the glass, rusting the metals, and creating patterns in the sane.Looking at the glass and how the sea smooths parts and leaves other parts rough.Also looking at how water can freeze then how it melts slowly and drips creating patterns marking the fabric, this i can envisage directly into my textile design as heavy beading and embellishment dripping down the body.

For my contextual research i found artist katharina ludwig who creates jewellery out of ice.

" If water itself is worn as a jewel the preciousness of water is enhanced, put on the body it will melt by the body warmth, what will stay is just the core of it and marks the ice leaves on your skin" (katharina ludwig)

She designed some earrings that had pigment inside them, which when it melts it leaves traces on your clothes, while the earring is melting the jewel appears on your shoulder instead of on your ear.

To kick start my project I'm going to photograph different beaches, and also try to capture water dripping and marking different surfaces.Using mixed medias, building up layers to draw straight from my observations. Using my art work to inspire my textile practices.

The sort of colour palette i will use will be greys, blues,silvers,light pinks and browns,.Taken from my photographs and drawings of the beach.

I am designing for the high end market, my client would be a wealthy women between the ages of 18-25, fashion conscious wanting to keep up with the trends.

Below is a presentation i gave about my project, it has all my inspirations, artist research,drawings, development and final pieces.

I used a lot of different techniques to create my samples, to enable me to add structure i sewed in pieces of pelment vilene which stiffens the fabric.I made up lots of small structures and grouped them all together to create a larger structure. I used aquaful disolvable fabric on the Cornell machine for the shoulder embellishment adding an entirely beaded shoulder piece, with beads that appear to be "melting" off the shoulder. I also used plastic boning to create a corset like body so it contrasts between the structured and the unstructured.

Mixed media

This was a mixed media project, where i used old lace, marbles trapped in net, broken jewellery. crochet , knitted sections and hand embriodery on buttons and metals.