development samples

Having looked at visualisation, and I started sampling this week.

Compared to the technical exploration over the last few weeks, the second phase of sampling is more straightforward as I simply mix and match the techniques and designs. The two different aspects (technical and visual) of my project are finally married this time, and I am happy with it.

For the first development sample, I chose from my drawings instead of from developed designs. This is because I aimed to develop my samples in the same way that I developed my designs, also because I still doubt if it is necessary to transform the original drawing into 'textile patterns' that we usually see.

Unlike the technical samples, the new samples were produced in a systematic way in order to translate the drawing into embroidery as precisely as possible. Accordingly machine work was needed, and it was new to this project, new to myself too. I have been interested in laser cutting since I knew about it, and I have been curious about the collaboration of hand embroidery and innovation. The attempt turned out successful, although I do need to collect right materials for the final.

Left: Adobe illustrator drawing for laser cutting  Right: Stitching a part of the sample   

Left: Original drawing  Right: Stitched sample (approx.15x24cm, painted card board, straws, beads, snaps)

                  

Left: Photoshoped visualisation of the drawing  Right: Sample on a mannequin

In later this week, I created another sample in the same style but with the different material so that I can familiarise myself with varied materials that are potential for future sampling.
The plan for the next week is the development sampling of abstract patterns, that will be followed by sampling of repeat patterns.

Left: Cork sheet being vinyl cut  Right: painted and stitched sample (approx. 9x15cm)

visualisation

Visualisation is a challenging task for me at all time. As an embroiderer, I am often dominated by embroidery ideas throughout the project and used to make less effort at visualisation. To avoid this, I had to obtain another perspective as well as textiles, and in this project it is fashion.

digital collage—scaffolding and a man

Above is a digital collage which I combined my primary research photograph and a male model. Recently I recognised my technical samples are comparable to scaffolds at building sites, and this is an attempt to link the technical and contextual aspect of my project.

Below, there are 3 sets of photoshop visualisation.  The first is experimental collages. It focused on silhouettes rather than patterns but I am happy with it because I used to apply patterns into ready-made clothes and felt less personal about it. The second, patterns exploration, was not a plan at first, but some of repeat patterns turned in positive way as they looked fairly different to the original blocks. The bold, one-off pattern worked well but it didn't exceed my expectation, and overall I felt those patterns might be 'too safe' to achieve the aim of the project. The last is the combination of repeat patterns and abstract accessories that I drew inspiration from medical casting and splinting. It is the most potential visualisation as it included the elements of both drawings and technical samples.

silhouette exploration

patterns exploration

cast-inspired accessories

In next week I am going to continue visualisation, and hopefully start sampling some of those.

self-directed study—am I directing myself to the right way?

This week was one of difficult weeks in my design process.
I urged myself to 'produce' and neglected to 'think', and it prevented the progress of this project as a result.

The week started with continuing work of the technical exploration that was a only successful part in this week. The focus of the exploration was changed from the stitch itself to the overall appearance, so that I can imagine those embroidery samples as products. As you can see in a couple of samples below, forms of samples started being natural that fit to the body, and it let me look into fashion context rather than interior.

 

Although the samples are successful from the technical point of view, it was doubtful if they were relevant as a part of my project. I started wondering if my technical exploration is slightly going wrong direction, as I have recently relied upon my personal 'taste' specially for material selection. It must be okay to explore around the core idea but what I have been doing seemed to be out of theme, out of control. Accordingly I decided to visualise my design process (below) and it helped me to understand the current situation.

During my tutorial, it is emphasised to look at all my drawings in order that I can identify what is successful and what is not through the reflection. The target of a coule of weeks ahead is to bring the components together and get the right direction towards the final design.

Annual DP(design process) time has come! — take a look back and plan next

Term1 started slow but passed quickly.
The theme of my final project is building sites and construction. I selected this theme because of three reasons. Firstly, I was attracted by boldness and heaviness of materials. Secondly, I liked brightness and strong contrasts of painted colours. And the third is, how the first and the second are opposed to general impressions of embroidery.

Embroidery has a very long history in many regions around the world, and the fine pieces by skilled craftsmen (and often housewives) are seen in museums and art books. This type of traditional embroidery seems to be independent from contemporary embroidery techniques, and thus traditional hand embroidery is less popular within contemporary embroiderers while machine embroidery is becoming popular in textile industry.  It was natural for me to challenge the combination of two —traditional and new— so that I can demonstrate the traditional stitches are still great techniques as means of creating new textiles in this contemporary world. With my intention to reconstruct the general impression towards embroidery, I am going to have three key words—bold, masculine and modern.

As a starting point, I selected and combined multiple research photos. The result was satisfactory but I needed to translate the photo collages into coloured paper version, in order to analyse colours and shapes. Paper collages helped myself to consider about compositions and colour combinations, but a lot of details and texture have been dismissed in the process of simplification.

To focus on texture and details, I had an idea of getting inspiration from completely different themes. Melted candies and candles have been set as the second theme, however, it did not work together with the original theme and I abandoned this idea at the end.

Although the previous attempt drifted myself from the mainstream, I was able to try out many different materials. Also, this experiment added 3D qualities to my work, and accordingly the second half of term1 was spent mainly on 3D exploration. Firstly, I am interested in clay. The clay objects were good enough in terms of texture, but forms and sharpness were far less satisfactory; therefore I had to find another way of expression. Second challenge was painting on wood board, however, again it was not successful because of mixed dull colours and rectangle templates. Finally I found foam boards as the best material to work with.

Unlike clay, farm boards are still flat without manipulation, and I had an idea to solve this problem—layering. Layering is very simple but effective way of giving 3D quality to drawing, and I liked it. Artists such as Frank Stella is looked as Secondary research. First challenge of farm board 3D objects are still small, less texture and even colours are not as fresh as my 2D paper collage. Therefore I decided to double the size, and made texture and colour samples beforehand. Not all samples are successful but I am still happy with some of details on texture samples, and applied them to bigger layered objects.

 

My first consideration about my textile design was textile design for menswear, however, after 3 months of exploration I started thinking that my designs do not necessarily need to be fit into garment shapes. In this new term, I am going to find out the best way of presenting my textiles, as well as developing my designs as embroidery.

small 2D drawings

Considering about compositions and colour combinations through painted paper collages.

recent drawings