Portfolio Crit.

The first tutorial back after easter was a portfolio crit session, which proved to be really useful in gaining feedback from peers. I think it was especially useful as the other people in the group were people that didn't necessarily know my work that well.  

I had put most of my portfolio so far together at this point, to gain as much feedback as possible. It was fed back that my way of presenting the work was good, but that I needed to really play upon the story of my work and how it has developed, and why certain choices have been made.

This is possibly something that I could write up, to have a story that goes along with my portfolio. 

Some of the most useful comments were;

- to introduce the embroidery onto the linen samples. 

- keep the mood boards simple, lots of white space. 

- perhaps have boards with visualisations as well.

Overall some really positive comments and feedback, it's definitely been useful to get other peers opinions. 

Black & White Tigerprint Competition.

This week I found out that my design was chosen as a runner up for the black & white Tigerprint competition. I entered one of my screen printed designs from one of my previous collections as I felt it was most fitting to the brief of an all over black and white pattern. It's been really encouraging to receive feedback from a design studio, and to see that my work would be commercially viable within a design context. 

As a prize I was sent Designing Patterns by Lotta Kuhlhorn and my work will be featured on the Tigerprint blog. 

Prints and Patterns.

I've focused on creating patterns from my illustrator drawings this week, I wanted to be as prepared as possible to get into the print room after easter. So to keep on top of things I have prepared the colour separations for these designs, which will be presented during peer discussion before getting them exposed onto screen. I wanted to have a variety within the collection, so having some busier prints as well as designs with more space. I feel that this as a collection is starting to work nicely together, I wanted the prints to be graphic and bold, without becoming too overwhelming, I will begin to visualise these designs this week, so I can check how they would work within an interior before printing them. I will ideally be able to print four of the designs onto fabric, and perhaps print one as a length of wallpaper.

Inspirations.

Sarah Morris

http://sarah-morris.info/?/Paintings/Rio-/

This week I've found Sarah Morris' paintings to be of inspiration, with her bold use of colours and a strong use of white within her works. The use of white keeps the paintings from becoming too bright and garish, which is something I've been trying to achieve within my print designs. 

Bridget Riley

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/bridget-riley

Bridget Riley's paintings have a retro feel to them, something I feel I have captured within my designs but with a more contemporary feel with the vibrant use of colour combinations. I think the way Riley uses colour to create shadow and depth within her paintings is really interesting and something that i'd like to achieve within my prints.

Printing & New imagery.

I have been working with heavier wools this week within the print room, working with dyes to create ground to work on. The wools were a lot harder to dye as wool is a lot more absorbent so the colour appears less vivid than on silk. I found this to be the same when printing onto the fabric, the pigment soaked further into the wool, dulling the colour. The silks allowed the pigment to sit on top creating vibrant contrasts between foreground and background.
It was suggested in tutorial that this perhaps could be enhanced by the fact I've dyed the wools myself, and it would perhaps help to source my own pre dyed wools where the colours would have a higher vibrancy.
I did however use the multihead embroidery machine on top of the wool prints, and feel that the stitch really lifted the prints, as the colours are much more vibrant within the threads, therefore lifting all of the back ground colours.

I felt it important to start creating drawings for my new collection sooner rather than later, so that I can run both collections alongside each other. I have been focusing on developing a colour palette this week, which I struggled with as I was unsure where to gain colour inspiration. Going back to the postcards by Margaux Soland at the Barbican shop, gave me inspiration and a starting point to work from.

Margaux Soland

Initial drawing I found hard as the visual inspirations are so different to what I am used to working with. I found trying to create clean lines to be hard, and the drawings weren't working in the graphic nature I was intending, and looked quite basic.

Illustrator proved to be a great tool in extracting shapes and creating composition and pattern, and creates the clean graphic lines that I wanted to achieve.
I think the Illustrator prints are really starting to work, and perhaps this is the way I will draw for this project, especially with the project being short, it's useful to be able to change around design ideas quickly.