Sampling Unit

Weaving

For the first three weeks of my new textile world, I started learning the craft of weave and how to thread up and use a loom. This was something I have been looking forward too as I have never used this technique before. When I first began learning to use the loom, it was quite overwhelming and frustrating as it is a very long, delicate procedure. I never realised how much effort went into creating weave. After grasping the basic understanding I am beginning to enjoy using the looms. I find the idea quite nice that after all the effort I have gone through, I will have a piece of fabric that I have created completely from scratch. 

 The colours I have chosen are to echo my palette that I have used for my data project, which is focusing on the hands. I decided to incorporate a little bit of black onto the weave, not too much to overpower the other colours, as I have used a lot of black in my drawings. I outcome is starting to look very graphic like with thick black outlines. 

Sampling

Drawings Of Hands

These are some drawings of my hand that I have created. I have decided to experiment with different materials such a watercolours, oil pastels and coloured pencils. This is because on my last brief I felt that I didn't push myself when it came to drawings, see what worked and what didn't. During this brief I plan on using as many different materials as possible to see what works and what doesn't. 

These pictures are done using watercolours, one outlined with pen, the other outlined using pencil. I like the idea of using colour thoughout my drawings as I usually have just stuck with black and white. At first I found it difficult trying to place the colours in the right position but after a little practice I feel I am progressing. 

Sampling

Data

  For my next brief I have been set the topic of 'Data' with the ideas of; recording time, recording movement, recording connections, recording stories and rules. When first introduced to this title, I found myself a bit confused on what I wanted to base my work on. I began at the start and looked into all the mentioned artists. I began focusing on the 'recording stories' part of the brief, looking at artist who record different moments of their lives, for example Annie Toop who records the memories of her ex-lover or Kathryn Edwards who records mundane task but using bright materials. 

After focusing on the ideas of stories and memories, I again found myself at a loose end. I began typing data into google and different abbreviations of the word data to see what appeared, to see if I could take inspiration from that. The idea of hands and the body came up. This immediately struck a cord and I began looking into the hand and the different meanings behind it, such as pressure points and palm readings. People believe the hand can tell you anything about a human being and their life. The hand is now my main focus of my 'data' brief.

Evaluation Of Origins

During this project I have developed my work through a connection between practice and research. At the start of the project it was the visual research that forwarded my project and helped me settle on an idea.

An important part of the project was to edit and select ideas to develop the work further. This technique was introduced during the machine part of the textile world. I was creating samples, then looking back over them to edit out what I liked about each sample and then creating another one. This was very useful as it taught me how to look at my work in a different way. It also taught me how one idea can lead onto another idea, that the more you do the more ideas will spring from it.

Whilst working on this project I have made some important self discoveries that will hopefully in the future will help move my work forward. One of them being stopping during a project. At certain point in the project, I stopped at a point and just made the same samples over and over again. I felt that i didn’t push my idea further enough and played it a little too safe rather than experimenting. I felt that I was worrying too much about what I was creating rather than just sampling. 

During this project I have learnt to take a step back and look over visual research properly and take time to notice what the picture is telling me. This is something that I have never really thought of doing before, which I believe is where my downfall is when I stop during a project. Again, this was pointed out in my assessment as something I should be doing often on every project I do. 

Looking back over my work, I don’t believe I used my contextual references very well. I think that I picked good artists and designers to influence my work, but never looked back over them and used their ideas in my work. Again, this was brought up during my assessment, I was told that I should broaden my research and look at other artists, not necessarily textile artist. 

I believe that I am using my studio and workshop time wisely. During the start of the project I didn’t make the most of the time and focused on working from home on independent study sessions.Then as the world went on and I switched to machine embroidery, where the work was a big more structured, I began coming in and using the machine rooms. I think this has got me into a good routine of coming into university and working in the studio. 

Origins Project

Machine Samples

These are some machine samples I created during the machine workshop. During this workshop we were taught a number of different machine feet, such as the tailor tack foot and the pin-tuck foot. We were also taught to use the embellisher which is something I enjoyed a lot as it was very fast and had very quick results. We were then asked to created a certain number of samples using each foot. We also had to stick to a monochrome palette. This is something I found very difficult as first as I struggled using the machines, I also found it very hard to stick to just black and white. To overcome this I spent a lot of time practicing on the machine to see what samples I could produce. 

Origins Project

Hand Stitch Samples

These are some hand stitch samples I created in reference to my idea of rain. I decided to stick with the colour pallete of blues and greys. These samples are an experiment I did using the idea of random stitch and not having a pattern to stick to. The middle photo I used tinfoil instead of a fabric, then added french knot on top in a random pattern. The tinfoil worked really well during this experiment as it creased whilst I was stitch onto it. Also, when I pulled the thread too tight the tinfoil started to rip, this gave quite a nice effect as you could see the stabiliser underneath. 

Origins Project

Photography

These are some photographs that I took during our trip to Liverpool. These were taken from the coach window, at the start, during and end of the journey. As you can see it was raining during the journey. Having struggled to connect my drawings and my samples I began to look through my photographs for inspiration, which is when I came across these photos. I deiced to focus my hand stitch samples on the characteristics of rain. I started focusing on the blue and grey colour pallete using stitch in straight lines to represent it falling from the sky.