Colour Palettes

One thing that I really enjoy to make are colour palettes. Carefully pulling different tones from my sketchbook and visual research, I have produce to palettes that I feel are going to work well through-out the development process of my work. I feel that working with a piece of Danny Elfman's music calls for a story of magic and mysterious fantasy. When thinking about this- I begin to visualise deep hues and embellished fabrics, alike to some of the prints that I have found from my collaging. I wanted to incorporate block colour with fine details, for example brick work/ sequins. 

I feel that I have a strength for matching colours together- a good eye for colour combinations- something that really interests me in the industry. Looking through my sketchbook there is a definite over-arching colour story, with each page sticking to it's own palette. I am going to spend a little bit of time narrowing down my colour palettes in order to gain the best possible results for my next work.

First Attempt At Photoshop

This afternoon I met with my high school friend, Sorrel, who kindly made time to teach me the basics of Photoshop- as I was unable to attend my workshop last week, due to a clash in the timetable.

I have always wanted to learn how to use the programme, and couldn't believe how quickly I was able to pick up the basic techniques. We looked closely at the lasso technique, rotating and changing image sizes, layering, exposures and opacity- which I have now found out was a lot more than was taught in the workshops. 

Whilst looking at artist research, I came across graphic designer, Robert Colquhoun. His project, 'Transparency', (linked here: Robert Colquhoun) consists of layered images, used to create dream-like worlds. This is the idea that I wanted to try and replicate, through my own colour palette.

As a starting point I decided to take the Alice in Wonderland theme pretty literal, using the character as the main focus of the samples- as I wasn't sure where exactly to start, but I then started to duplicate the floral patter, and combined it with my own visualiser photographs to create my own, original pieces.

To view all of my Photoshop samples, Facebook page: Laura Kent Textiles Artist

I think that my overall pieces are successful, as I begin to develop my ideas I am going to look more closely at the overall colour palette, as these images are a lot brighter/ more vibrant than my colour palette.

Embroidery Tutorial/ Fabien Oefner

We have just finished this week's tutorial with Fiona, and once again there was only myself and Chloe there to talk about our work, which was rather disappointing as it would be nice to be able to see, and be influenced by other people's work, but never mind.

Work-wise, I have been looking at a few new artists, as a way to build up my Influences file. Photographer and fine artist, Fabian Oefner, looks at 'The Gateway to the Invisible'- using sound waves and vibrations as his prime source of art influence. Using the vibrations of music, he captures very beautiful creations on camera. The pieces, I think, are made using some sort of paint- however on the photographs they remind me of  my french knotting samples. http://fabianoefner.com

my french knotting sample, layers of the music

As there was only the two of us, we had more of an informal talk- speaking about our general thoughts about the unit and how we are coping. An issue that was mentioned by the both of us was time-management. Yes, there are only a certain number of hours in the day, but what do we actually do in those hours? A lot of the time, it seems, is spent doing a thousand and one other jobs, before getting down to artwork- which is shocking. Some weeks I can be sitting in Monday morning tutorial, and before I know it, it is already Sunday evening and I will have produced no new work to show. This is definitely a problem- Chloe and I picked up that it was down to coming to degree level straight from a structured a-level setting. 

Fiona gave some really great advice, and has offered to set us tasks every week as a way to keep to a time-plan, and to also print off weekly timetables in order to manage our social/ working times. I now feel much more positive about the whole course, and feel that this is the turning point in my working ethic. 

Experimentation

This evening I have been thinking more about the Learning Objectives for this unit, and the idea of experimentation. Throughout my project thus far there has been this re-occurence of a swirling circular foxglove pattern-  from my initial expressive drawings up to my floral research. I was thinking about ways that I could continue to re-create this pattern, and one thing that I have never done is played with inks and bleach before. 

It seemed pretty simple- layer of ink, draw with bleach.... The results proved opposite. I admit, I was pleased with some of the outcomes, mostly the ones that I used an old pen lid to draw the bleach on with, however it concludes that the two materials have minds of their own- creating individual patterns and splodges in places they were not wanted.... but it's experimenting, so that's ok.

Drawing Workshop

This afternoon Fiona set up a drawing workshop for the embroidery students- we were asked to bring two relevant objects to draw from, and a range of medias/ materials to work with. Given a set list of rules, we set off using different approaches to the objects/ materials, for example drawing with our eyes closed and feeling the object, or using opposite hands to draw with. Below are a selection of samples from the workshop. I am not a fan of mess in my sketchbook, so doing this in itself has been a massive challenge, however it has been a great afternoon of experimentation, and a fantastic way to loosen up and risk-take. 

Artist Research: Debbie Smyth

Believe it or not, whilst unconsciously scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed I have just come across a link entitled "When Music Flows into Pictures- 2013" . Clicking onto the link revealed the work of Debbie Smyth- an artist that responds to stitch/ embroidery in a completely new perspective. 

This has really helped to spark inspiration of how I am able to record music. The article reads that Debbie was asked to listen to a piece of music, and to visualise and produce a storyboard setting for the exhibition- which is similar to my current project. 

Full article: http://red-dot.de/cd/de/online-exhibition/work/?code=09-2535&y=2013&c=172&a=2

Flower Research

Following Fiona's suggestion to do some primary research on florals and the idea of SCALE, I have been home and looked through my photography from over the summer. I had taken an interest to florals over the summer, so had quite a range of pictures and colours to use. I have been looking at flowers as the re-occuring 'doodle'  of a foxglove pattern has caught my attention in my sketchbook. It is a pattern that I feel is going to be used in my development process.

Embroidery Tutorial

I have really enjoyed this morning's tutorial and feel as though I am going to have a productive week. I had worked on my colour boards, trying to get the palettes down to around six/ eight colours. I chose a mix of all dark, pastel and heavily embellished colours, found from a vogue magazine. These are all very separate ideas that can easily be merged together - it is all about trying to find the balance and set palette- which I shall be doing this week. 

We also spoke about the presentation of embellishment/ expressive work. Fiona suggested that I should go and familiarise myself with some more fabrics, so I went down to the A4 & More store after my tutorial and chose a range of delicate pieces, that reminded me of a fairy-tale like state/ dreams. These shall be used in my technical embroidery samples. Looking at some of the original Alice in Wonderland scene pictures- we also spoke about scale, especially of the contrast between oversized flowers/ small lightening. How can I incorporate this into my work? What would be appropriate medias?

Fiona has suggested that I should try and work more on my colour palette this week, maybe working on foam boards instead of my sketchbook, to try and get a sense of fabrics and colours, as well as stitching. 

Lecture: Risk and Experiment

Last Thursday we had our weekly year meeting lecture with Alex, this week entitled Risk Taking and Experimentation. In short, the basic ideas that were mentioned through the practice of risk/ experimentation were to improve practice, a mental exercise and to be 'creative on demand'. There were a lot of great examples on how to risk take, baring in mind that our degree, as Alex told us, will be the last time that we are able to experiment in the textile industry, before we have to work in the real world.

- turn abstract to real life, explore something that is difficult to express

- surrender control, draw with your mouth, opposite hand, eyes closed

- connect the unconnected, yarn bombing/ tagging

- do lots of the same thing, ink drawing/ abstract mark-making

- don't be afraid of simplicity, white space

- do something else for a bit, new combination of old elements

- break something and mend it, cut up, rearrange, destroy, deconstruct

I am really enjoying our year lectures, it is nice to be able to meet up every week and discuss important and very useful facts together, it stops the 'chinese whisper' game. Everyone is up to date and knows exactly what is expected of them .

This week I shall be taking on board the notes that I have written down, and try out experimentation. My brief is possibly the most expressive/ experimental out of the five, so shall be good to play.

Embroidery Tutorial

This morning we have had our first group tutorial, which was a great chance to talk to the rest of the group about the units that they have decided to research and the ways in which they work. 

Over the past week I have found it quite difficult to get my ideas down on paper, therefore began by looking at the french-knotting technique, trying to replicate sound waves/ visualisers through hand stitch and embellishment. The colours that I have chosen to use I feel some up the layers in the music. I tried to use each of the colours to show the layers, then incorporating sequin embellishments as that is my preferred style.

The overall feedback was positive, even with the lack of starting materials. I am going to spend this week looking at the drawing side of my work, also experimenting with colours and trying to work out a specific colour scheme for this project. I have also been advised to start looking at material choices, as well as the materials that are being used on the surface.

Fiona has advised us all to book onto some of the industrial sewing machines, in particular for me, the Cornelly machine- as it produces the most beautiful, intricate designs- which look very familiar to hand embellishments (without taking so long!).

Visions of Sound Starting Point

As my starting point for the unit, I wanted to dive into this unknown world of 'expressive drawing', as after-all, that is what this year is all about- risks.

 Listening to the piece rather loudly, I let myself get carried away to the music, experimenting with inks, paint, and different drawing materials- sponges, combs, sticks etc. Noting the expressive proved more interesting than I had first thought. There seemed to be a sense of uncertainty, a magical black and white world of pattern- alike to the patterns that are created by the iTunes visualiser. 

There are quite a lot of examples here- obviously some working better than others- but that's the chance that you have to take for expressive pieces. I love the pieces that were made with the comb teeth, they look really effective, they would look great in embroidery.