Diary entry: Monday 24th March

Today I started my second mood board, and started looking more into Japanese style pattern.

Diary entry: Friday 21st March

I started my first visual sheet, I did my background in tea, then used gouache to paint on paint my images and I am trying to develop on image/ pattern for my pillow print.

Diary entry: Thursday 20th March

Today i did an A4 piece of Japanese art to go inside my sketchbook.

Diary entry: Wednesday 19th March

Today I started collecting examples of business cards I then reviewed them  deciding if they were good or bad examples. I also finished my mood board.

Mood board: One

I started by preparing my background to my mood board by staining it with tea. Then painted with gouache paint and stuck on images I found that I found interesting.

Diary entry: Monday 17th March

Today I started looking at the Japanese artist Hokusai and created a page in my sketchbook based on his work, also I started a mood board.

Professional practice: Buisness cards

 

These are buisness cards that I though were good examples as they are interesting and creative.

 

These are buisness cards that I thought were bad example as they are messy and don't look professional.

Final major project.

Background: For my final major project I will be focusing on Japan. I will be looking at both art and everyday life and culture. For my final product I am hoping to produce a set of pillows designed for a Japanese tea room. I decided to look at japan when I sat a piece of traditional Japanese art on Pinterest.

Focus: I will start by looking at Japanese artists who work in both textiles and other media, to start my research and help develop my ideas. I am going to look at native plants,  such as cherry blossoms and Japanese pine, as they are used a lot in Japanese art. I’m going to look at the design of tea rooms in japan, and the geishas. I will look at the geishas costumes, like kimonos, and also look at samurai costumes, because I’m focusing mainly on traditional Japanese culture, including religion. In japan there are two main religions; Buddhism and Shinto, Shinto being the more traditional so I will be focusing on it more than Buddhism. Also I will look at Japanese myths and legends as I find it very interesting and as it is used a lot in traditional art. To collect my primary research I am hoping to go to the Manchester museum, because they have a section on japan.

Artist of interest: Donna Watson and Mary Maru are both textile artists. Kiyokata Kaburagi and Hokusai are traditional artists.

Live brief: evaluation.

The project I have been working on is called ‘live brief’, in this project I was told to create a selection of sheet work, a sketchbook of research and a range of samples for a small clothing company from my local area. The design I was told to create was for an Avant grade dress, but it had to be in monochrome and one other colour, and the theme was sea invertebrates.

To start my project I collected a selection of research, both primary and secondary. To collect my primary research I went on a college trip to the Liverpool museum where I took photos in the aquarium of sea invertebrates so I could get a good idea of pattern at colour I could possibly use in my final design. I produced a sketchbook to record my research and to show my own ideas and sketches.

Once I had some research I produced a mood board of the secondary research I had collected, from this board I selected images and colour to take forward to my visual sheets. I produced two visual sheets from the images I developed from my mood board. From my visual sheets I produced two design development sheets with a strong colour theme and design, as I have to use these design development sheets to design my final design.

The parts of my sheet work I took forward into my designs were the colour theme of rd, yellow, pink and brown, and also the shell pattern and coral formations.

My experience in the print room for this project was over all okay, I did come across some problems, the most prominent problem was that due to the fact that I had never work on stretchy material, I have trouble re positioning my material to print my second screen., this created problems because due to not being able to line two of my prints up, I had to completely start them again, but this time I made sure that a kept the fabric taped down so that the design wouldn’t move and I could then line the second screen up fine.

Throughout this project I kept a diary of my progress and what I was doing, this really helped me keep track of my time and how long I have to do things.

Overall I am satisfied with my work,  the only problems I had with my work was in the print room, with lining up my prints.

Print room samples

Sample 1: A3 cotton
BG: Yellow MX3R 15ml
        Orange MX2R 5ml
S1: black BM 3ml
S2: black BM 1ml (grey)

I found this sample easy to do because I used cotton, and cotton is very easy to work with as it is not very stretchy so the first print on the the fabric doesn't move when it comes to doing the seconds screen print.

Sample 2:  A3 cotton
BG: yellow MX3R 10ml
        red MX2R 5ml
S1: black BM 3ml
S2: black BM 1ml (grey)

I found this sample easy to do because I used cotton, and cotton is very easy to work with as it is not very stretchy so the first print on the the fabric doesn't move when it comes to doing the seconds screen print. But with my second sample I  found that the grey colour didn't work as well, because the background colour was darker on this sample.

Sample 3: A3 habotai heavy silk
BG: red MX2R
S1: black BM 3ml
S2: black BM 1ml (grey)

using heavy silk was very difficult when printing, although this sample is the better of both my heavy silk samples because after I  printed the first screen on my 5th sample, which i did before this sample, I noticed that the pattern was impossible to line because of the fabric moving and being so stretchy, so with sample 3 I made sure I taped down the fabric so that it couldn't move to prevent having trouble lining up my design.

Sample 4: A3 habotai heavy silk
BG: red MX2R 15ml
        orange MX2R 5ml
        yellow MX3R 5ml
        turquoise MXG 5ml
S1: black BM 3ml

I didn't complete this sample due to problems with lining up as stated under sample 3. Also the outcome of the colour was different to what wanted, as I originally dyed it brown, but after washing the procion out i wasn't left with the colour i wanted.

Sample 5: A3 devore silk viscose
BG: red MX5B 15ml
        orange MX2R 15ml
        water 15ml
S1: devore.

this is my sample of devore only, and I only printed one screen because of lining up problems the same with sample 4. I think the colour came out nice and worked well with the project theme of the sea, as it is a very coraly colour.

Sample 6: A3 muslin (white)
BG: none.
S1: black BM 3ml
S2: brown RRT 3ml

mulin is nice to print on becuase the colours stay vibrant and seem to have a nice finish. also it is a very light material so I feel it fits nice with the theme of the sea, as it is very flowing.

Sample 7: A3 muslin (white)
BG: red MX2R 15ml
        orange MX2R 5ml
        yellow MX3R 5ml
        turquoise MXG 5ml
S1: black BM 3ml
S2: puff binder (no colour)

 mulin is nice to print on because the colours stay vibrant and seem to have a nice finish. also it is a very light material so I feel it fits nice with the theme of the sea, as it is very flowing. the colour on this fabric worked batter than on sample 4, as the colour I got after washing was more or less the same as before.

Tracings.

This is the tracing I produced for my final design. There are two sheets because i have two screens, one for each colour I used.

print samples: dyeing the fabric

This my my dyed fabric before I printed on it. I used procion to dye my fabric. With procion you first have to dye you fabric, dry it, press it at 180 degrees, then wash the remaining dye out and then dry your fabric again.

sketchbook: part 2