DISCOVERY

I have stumbled across this photographer called Phyllis Galembo who I have gone slightly mad over. I love this side of research because you discover people that you would never have really been looking for but actually get really influenced by. She considers herself to be a fine artist and photographer and a lot of her work or possibly all of it resides around African culture. It is Galembo's collection of images from her 'maske' collection that fascinate me. She has used traditional African carnival participants as the subject and I could not believe the colour and craftmanship (and actual style!) that goes into these costumes that they wear. I think I will look at this for the knit workshop because of all the colours and textures. Take a lookeylook>>

DOWN PLAYED

COLOUR IS BEAUTIFUL

you don't see that everyday...

thinking about the context in which something is put in. It really can change to whole impact of a garment.. These are traditional african colours and prints yet made into modern day forms and very figure hugging femenine dresses compared to the usual robe like forms that the fabric is used for.

AFRICAN FASHION IS EVERYWHERE.. and is constantly being re-worked

AFRICAN QUEEN .

I had to put up these pictures from a photoshoot of Liya Kebede by Paolo Roversi. The styling was inspired by traditional African attire and the way in which they were shot is so beautiful. Kebede is stunning and the colour's compliment her skin tone so well. I obviously was drawn to it for textiles reasons and the African feel but the composition on the whole is lovely

TRADITIONAL YEAH

LET THE WEAVE COMMENCE

Clearly stated my thoughts on weave previously.. how little did I know.
Anyway, I started weave with Pop Up 2.. same as Pop Up 1 but this time helping to inspire is for weave and knit rotations. I started off a little shaky as always and had total block on the creative front. However I then started to think about African culture.. it is something that I have looked at for a project before but I like it so much and it does inspire me so I thought what the hell. I always tend to look towards culture for my project themes and sometimes this worries me but in this case I knew I wanted to look a bright, bold colour's and where better to look than african textiles. So let the research begin..

WEAVEWEAVEWEAVE

Pre weave thoughts: Will hate it, it's rigid, no creativity allowance, no freedom, simply making fabric.

Post weave thoughts: iuhuehueiwoiewqoioqwej I really really like this. 

over

I really enjoyed print, mainly I would say for the participation of the tutor Margaret. She was incredibly enthusiastic and obviously has a lot of experience in the area. She was as mad as a hatter but that kind of kept us going throughout the 2 weeks of manically trying to gather as much from print as we could! It was a little bit of a wake up call for me though as I did not feel that I enjoyed the rotation as much as I thought I would... possibly straight forward print is not the path for me but I'll cross that bridge when it comes

ORDINARY PRINTING INK/SILK DYE PRINT/ SILK VISCOSE DEVORE PRINT/ PRE-DYED SILK PRINT ON TOP

I COMBINED THIS STENCIL OF THE BIRDS HEAD WITH THE MAIN PRINT DESIGN FOR SILK SCREENING

AND IT LOOKED LIKE THIS:

CAD WITH KENNY

We were also having CAD lessons throughout the print workshop to learn a little about how to manipulate patterns and digital design through photoshop. This is something that has told me I REALLYREALLY need to work on my photoshop skills as they are pretty poor at the moment. I know how to do your basic things however all the lingo Kenny was using went straight through me. HOWEVER. We had to come up with 4 digital print designs based on our research and ideas so I started looking at Sri Lankan birds from some coasters than I have and I used bright colours to work with them. I produced some stencils of the birds -that I wanted to also incorporate into my silk screen print- and scanned these in to play around with them. I then set them up as a complete pattern matching it up all together and added colour to how I wanted. These are the finished designs

PRINT-ING

So stitch came to an end, and print commenced. This is the workshop that I was most looking forward to. It is something that I can picture myself taking further with my degree. It was so good finally being able to learn the real techniques of silk screen printing and learning how to make colour from scratch in the lab was a real bonus so yes we are all now PRO at making colour.. made me feel like a scientist. Started out with looking at our mark making techniques and object research from Pop Up 1 and we had to come up with 6 A3 designs as ideas for our silk screen print. I chose one that was basically this small mark making swatch blow up a lot on a photocopier. Voilà.

FINISHED SAMPLES

These were the ones I was most pleased with.

MISTAKES

are sometimes worth while, I was using some heat transfer paper get the right blue colour onto my cream polyester which had been manipulated by a flame (raised bubble appearance) and I realized that the transfer paper I was throwing away had the bubble pattern imprinted onto it. I took this and heat pressed it onto some plain polyester and it left behind a clean print on the heat manipulation almost resembling a bacteria-like pattern.

BURN BABY BURN

I was looking at texture and mark making during the research in Pop Up 1 ans because my objects were giving me too much information to narrow down I decided to look to the surfaces of them and take note of their appearance i.e scratch marks, lines, dust, staining, rust.. This then lead into me looking at stains and the formations of a stain spreading across something. My stitch tutor and I looked at this and she suggested that burning could be a nice way of showing this however I would have to make it look half decent and not just some bit of cheap material with burnt holes all over it. So I took it upon my self to buy one of the cheapest tackiest fabrics out there: 100% polyester in turquoise and cream. MMMM. I then started bending small bits of wire into shapes and burning with these, the results were very pleasing.

STITCHIT

My stitch workshop- the first one out of all four- came and went. It was enjoyable however reflecting back on it now, like anything else, when you are trying something for the first time it is very easy to let it pass without totally appreciating it. It was my first rotation and we were all a little unsure of how things were done so as much as I was happy with what I produced in the two weeks I do feel that I could have improved it a lot had I thought about it a little more.

WELL

I am incredibly behind with my blog.. about 1 1/2 months, 3 workshops, 5 bits of reflective writing, 4 lecture write-ups, 3 visits and 12535 images behind.. but better late than never.

I LIKE IT WHEN I CAN SEE THE REFLECTION

It's a shockingly bad view however I do like it when I can actually see past the building on a clear day. Makes me feel like I'm not just looking into a call centre/ pit of depression.