Delays

So I've hit a rut. 

If you are kind enough to subscribe/follow/link from the OCA textiles blogroll/stumble upon my blog regularly then you might be thinking 'what the heck' there are loads of posts dating months back that I haven't seen...?

Thats because blogger allows you to backdate posts and I'd rather present my learning blog in the timescales sketches/work/visits happened. I've also let the updating mount up until it became a bit of an elephant in the room.

Two other sticking points

1: I dislike French Knots. The stitch itself I have become more proficient at and more appreciative of. I have however come to the conclusion that when working french knots in large quantities they are a phenomenal waste of time and I do not have the patience to be dealing with them. I have been working on that "sample based on imagery" at the end of Stage 6 for about a month. Because I get bored of it and always have something more pressing or exciting to do

2: As well as my main job I 'moonlight' as a design company. I will hopefully add textile based design in amongst the other types of design I do, including websites, applications, interiors,products and bespoke design for companies needing anything and everything. But right now I'm working on quite a large contract that will double my 'main job' payslip for a good few months. Thats a large chunk towards the elusive house deposit... so as ever poor textiles takes a back seat.

I've still been sketching many many times a day, but they are not really related to textiles as the little note at the bottom of this sketchbook page shows - I'm kind of admonishing myself here!

I can reveal that I finished the french knot sample based on imagery (whilst at work) about a week ago.

I have caught up with my blog posts.

I know what I'm going to be looking at for my research point.

I am re-inspired after looking at all my work.

I have not done any of the following that I should be doing at this point:

• Note down colour combinations that seem to have a special energy for you: use any medium available i.e. paint, crayons, coloured papers, fabrics and yarns*
• Record your colour responses to changing moods and feelings
• Add to your collection of resource material with focus on colour
• Put combinations together i.e. yarns/fabrics/coloured papers
• Try out your colour media for use on textiles (though I have researched and gathered them at least)

*With a small amount of humility I will say however that I do regularly 'pin' images that appeal to me in terms of colour and they are on my 'Colour' board. When I look at this board as a whole I feel tranquil, calm, amazed, inspired, blissfully happy, almost aroused - is that safe to say?! Does anyone else feel that when they look at the colour combos they love?! 

And is it OK that I'm using a modern, technical, online way of recording my notes rather than traditional paper and glue? Is it too fast? Does that mean I don't have the required time to absorb each image, to process it, to learn from it? Yes and no!

Zentangle

I did a bit of zentangle work in my A3 sketchpad - I really enjoy working with the patterns and think the combinations of patterns (or 'tangles') look really nice. The details are fascinating.

I can see how these could be worked into fabric pattern design, or inspiration for other textile work.

Exhibitions and Sketches

First up, sticking things I found pretty on paper and exploring them. Then getting distracted by a bird I saw as I was making vectored birds for pattern design (perhaps more on that later). Also a bit on combining the Southbank centre line style I liked with Audrey Walkers stitching technique combined further by exploring stitching on paper.... I'm liking how much I've learned already - I'm pretty sure thats a big part of this learning process right there!

Can you guess which exhibition I went to?

This is a bit of a combination of the colour theory technique application I read about in Colour Index 2 (see my review: Book Thoughts - Color Index 2 by Jim Krause) and seeing Lichtenstein apply that technique! Lichtensteing does not use the right colour for the lady's skin but he does use the right value which is why our brain doesn't scream 'its wrong' at us.

I'm really pleased with this page. I saw 'Sunrise' 1965 and could not figure out during the exhibition itself how he managed to make the layers 'pop out'  - at first I genuinely thought the clouds/mountains were on a separate layers of clear acrylic in front of the rest. So I bought the postcard to explore later. I thin figured out the extra thick lines at the bottom in comparison with the thinner lines at the top trick the eye into seeing it as perspective. So I tried it on my bird from 3 pages up /\ /\ /\. In combo with some   desaturated benday dots and more of my Finland tree obsession in the background with even thinner lines (desaturation is also a perspective trick I've read about in 'the artist' magazine) I think it was very successful in making the bird look like it is projected upwards from the paper. I'm also please that this uses just 4 colours so it could be a very successful way of doing fabric pattern design doesn't necessarily have to be photo-style printed.

I bought postcards of the images I loved the best so that I could explore them and figure out why I love them so much,

I then tried to explore them by either imitating the style or exploring the technique.

Some more sketchbook work

So I was having a look at the suggested reading in the learning folder and decided to look up the UK Fashion and Textile association http://www.ukft.org. If you go to the 'business' tab and select 'publications' you can find a document that they publish (I assume every year) called the British Textile Colour Card. Which is a collection of colour schemes that are, forgive the Zoolander phrase, 'so hot right now'. Not just the colours but a lowdown on the mood that they embody and also some close ups of some amazing current textiles that blend into that theme. So heres also a link direct to the British Textile Colour Card 2014[pdf].

This was my attempts to get down on paper ideas I had buzzing around my head inspired by combinations of Pinterest, the Southbank Centre's light show exhibition and architecture/interior sketches that I'm doing all the time separate from textiles course sketches. It is a sad looking piece of A3 mainly due to the lack of resources I have in London with me in my little uninspiring room! I can however say with perfect certainty that I know exactly what I am taking about here, have figured out the proportions I would like should this be done in the future, and most importantly, the obsession buzz was quietened by getting the idea out on paper.

I was also attempting to use A3. Not loving it so far...!

Again with the forcing A3, this was me planning out my final section of Stage 6. I'm rotating back to the landscape, stormy colours and trees theme that has been running through my sketchbook work to "develop in terms of image making". So this is me working out my idea on paper first with colour pencils before making may sample based on that imagery. I love the yarn wrapping - I'm using the techniques I've learned to develop my work. After the slate sample I wasn't happy with in assignment 1 I'm glad I did this so I know my colours and threads look pretty darn good together.

I also used MS Paint to kind of 'pixellate' my image since I was working with french knots, and also drew the silhouette that will be the background fabric showing through the stitching. I'm still not loving working with A3. I write and draw so small - need to work on that so that all that white space doesn't look so lonely!

I was going to introduce this sketch by saying "in a book unrelated to textiles..." but that wouldn't strictly be true because its a design book. So: In a design book "Creative Workshop: 80 challenges to sharpen your design skills" by David Sherwin I was reading how sometimes the best creativity comes by making fast decisions and throwing out all kinds of ideas. The 80 challenges give time frames that range from 30 minutes to 2 hours and he makes a point that you can do great things in such short timespans. So I applied this and tried it out with some colour combos. I set a bleeping timer on my phone to remind me to think quick and move on!

I noted my favourite combos on the right and plant to revisit every so often to see if my tastes change with the seasons/fashions/my own learning.

Feedback from my tutor!

I received feedback from my tutor :)

I'm pretty happy with the feedback, there was a lot of encouragement and assurance that I was on the right track - I'm really glad! There were suggestions on what I can do to improve that I extracted and rather than post the whole thing up I'll extract what I think I should work on:

• Try techniques on a bigger scale e.g. large paintbrush to show effect of different surface textures
• Utilise skills learnt and continue to be experimental
• Consider looking at the works of Audrey Walker and Alice Kettle who both use stitch in their artwork, hand stitching and machine stitching respectively. From this I also feel perhaps I should explore textile artists further.
• MORE MIXED MEDIA, not just pen and pencil. Try collage, wax resist & painting more
• Try working larger, try out A3 size sketchbooks

So to summarise... 

BIGGER

MORE MIXED MEDIA

RESEARCH CONTEMPORARY TEXTILE ARTISTS

Book Thoughts - Color Index 2 by Jim Krause

So this book was part of a three book set all to do with design. It came in an orange box and I think the others were about typography and design basics. I've had the set for years as one of my mums cast offs but never really sat down to read them. I read this one since I was on the colour chapter and I'm so glad I did. Jim Krause explains the basics really well and has some beautiful crystal clear diagrams to show what he's talking about. He doesn't just talk about the fundamentals but explains how to use them in design. I especially liked his section on Value vs colour and I pretty much copied his examples into my sketchbook/workbook.

Here are a few pictures but at a low resolution as I don't want to discredit him!

After the short but learning filled intro you have hundreds of pages with tons of colour combinations. They are sorted first by main colour and then by the type of colour scheme i.e. monochromatic, triadic, analogous & complementary. A beautiful book which I have found SO helpful now that I appreciate it.

Each colour scheme is presented in a page wide vectorised image or pattern - great for comparisons, but also varied enough that you don't get bored of the same image repeated so many times over.

p.s. did I mention he gives CMYK and RGB codes for each colour? Its also worth properly reading the intro and 'how to use this book' section because it explains about expansion palettes, observing colour as an artist and how the colours are laid out to show which colours 'belong' to that section.

p.p.s. I believe Color Index 1 is similar but with schemes made up of 2 & 3 colours where as this is 3,4 & 5 colours.

Project 3 Exercise 5

Back to stitching! Heres Exercise 5 - an exploration into coloured stitches using two primary colours. Again with the brightness! In varying proportions and distances to show the different effects. I made notes of observations on paper and they are included in the last post 'Sketchbook Pages'

One of the things I did try to do was blend the two colours somehow to make a third. My weaving stitching at the bottom right was a somewhat unsuccessful attempt - even looking from far away! I guess too much contrast just does not work for blending.

By far my favourite section was the colour wheel which used varying tones of the primary colours. When placing the colours I tried to put saturated yellows next to desaturated blues and vice versa, as well as try the desaturated colours together and the saturated colours together. In this way I feel like the stitching started to look realistic and almost 3d - like the wheel of colour 'shone'. I was going for an almost coppery metallic effect and I think it was successful. Very happy with this.