Friday 3 April 2009

FINAL MAJOR PROJECT: A few weaves ....

Honeycomb Structure - Copper Wire
I began my weaving experiments by experimenting with different thicknesses of wire, structure and colour. As my main inspiration for using metals within my work was how the metals changed colour when heated and produced very vivid and luxurious colours. I began to realise that the white was dilluting the rich colours of the metals, and so I dyed a few black, but then felt this was too stark against the copper as well.


Undulated Twill - Brass wire

My first jacquard weave for the project, i really liked using the jacquard as it helped me mix the wires and the outcome was really beautiful. I also loved the weight of the fabric, its so heavy! Something I am defiantley try again as I think that it could help me further my weave and sketchbook development and fuse them together. Something which I am struggling with at the moment.








Tuesday 17 February 2009

FINAL MAJOR PROJECT: Exploring the Colouration of Metal

So far I have been investigating and exploring the colours that are produced on brass, copper, stainless steel and tin with heat, the unpredictability of this colour is the most exciting part of the project, I enjoy the fact I cannot control this. I have also explored mixing and blending colour with ink and paint on a variety of surfaces, as this gives me a little more control, yet the outcome is very different to how I could imagine it, another exciting factor.








Saturday 24 January 2009

Friday 23 January 2009

Roma

At the beginning of third year, we collaborated with Global Colour, a company that specialises in forecasting trends within Interiors. There were four main trends: CONTOUR, OPAL, PUNCH and ROMA, each shows a very different 'story' through their colour way.

I was given the trend ROMA (as seen above), the trend is described as folk meets punk, in that is is very colourful and expressive much like folk/gypsy style as well as narrow boats and it also has a much edgier side to it also. I felt this project was very challenging to myself as I am not used to working with so many colours at one time, and so the initial ideas stage and process was a difficult one to initiate. For inspiration I used both the tartan side of the trend and also lace, as I was keen to show how a delicate fabric could be very striking. To generate ideas I spray painted lace, weaved using a leno warp, combined my own woven tartan with lace using photoshop, and also used stitching to emphasise parts of my designs.

By combining lace and tartan with one another I produced many different effects, with the above being quite literal I needed to explore ways in order to stop my work being a little too repetitive, I also began to rely on the black a little too much, so I had to go back to the colour palette again and reinvestigate it. This is when I found myself using my own cups to generate colour ideas to see what colours worked best next to each other, this then began a mini project by itself but really allowed me to push forward with my ideas.