Unit X - Week 5

Missoni as inspiration.

After sourcing new imagery and finding a new way of thinking in terms of pattern, this week I have been researching into designers and existing companies that work in a similar way.

Missoni are a company that specialise in fabrics for the interiors market, in the form of both woven and printed pieces. Founder Rosita believes that 'the home is alive, its constantly evolving and never finished'. It was her personal vision and ideas that have moulded the face of the company and turned it into the world renowned business it is today.

She talks about the fabrics with affection;

"Unusual, captivating fabrics; innovative, simple shapes for sophisticated settings; a feeling of artiness but with a light touch; important, seemingly simple elements that blend easily into existing environments, adding vibrancy and colour. Forms for separating and uniting, easy to move around including from indoors to outdoors or vice versa, enabling the magic atmosphere of the garden to be brought indoors."

The above selection of Missoni fabrics link in well with the images gathered last week, enabling me to feel confident about my new choices in regards to pattern and structure. It is my aim to try and in some way add the same qualities that Missoni have captured into my own work. My colour choices are, somewhat more muted, but I feel the decision to stick to a familiar palette is at this stage the right thing to do.

Below is a digitalised version of what I envisage my warp plan to be, I have strived to pick out colours according to the proportions in which they appear in my imagery, then using the proportions to create a repeated plan. The warp will be separated into 2 blocks, which through the process of sampling will be woven with different sized twills and satin/sateen's to further enhance the idea of colour blocking and layering.

Unit X - Week 4

Single cloth developments.

After looking further into the Moderica website and the notion of 'Application of colour' I stumbled upon the work of Sarah Morris, A British painter who's work uses both strong bold colours and sharp white linear edges. The proportions and composition Morris uses is something that has inspired me to add a different element to my woven pieces. The juxtaposition created gives the impression of movement and depth, qualities that I feel would add a new dimension to my work.

Proportion is a key element in how colour can be used effectively, with this in mind I began to extract my chosen colours based on how often they appear within a selected section. For the purposes of continuity I feel that it is right to continue using imagery that I have already sourced, as there are still ideas and concepts that were not fully exhausted within the last warp. The images from my visit to Spinngfields have both a strong, bold colour palette as well as sharp clean edges to work from in regards to pattern analysis.

Having spent the last 4 weeks working on 2 separate double cloths, I feel it is now the time to move onto a different challenge, my new found inspirations aiding my decision to do so. The plan is to next weave a single cloth, split between 2 separate blocks each on a pointed draft. This will enable the use of varied patterning and structures.

This week I also challenged myself to search for pattern outside of my usual 'Architectural' eye. This has helped me massively, finding pattern and structure within pavements, walls and shop shutters. Having spent so long looking at the world around me in a very linear way I have found this week exciting and although at first this self set task seemed challenging, I discovered that pattern is all around in so many different forms and guises.

As you can see the shapes that stand out are very repetitive and of chevron style. The fourth image has so far proved the most informative and I have been able to develop and plan potential patterning with this as my main source of inspiration.

Unit X - Week 3

Double cloth Samples

Clear and precise. This double cloth warp has worked exactly as I had hoped. The area of research and line of enquiry has seen its way into all of my samples, building the collection into a strong and informed body of work. I have captured the elements of bold shapes and Optical views with ease and feel the samples work well, not only as a collection but as samples in their own right. 

I will take elements of this warp forward into my next developments, as I am keen to create a portfolio of work that links together and works well as a whole.

The colours are working well for me at this time, I have discovered what hues and proportions work easily together and this is helping me to make informed decisions as I currently plan my third warp. It feels like a new direction is needed at this stage, I have taken on board my research into colour representation and shape development and this is now moving me forward into areas that are looking to be exciting and of a new direction.

Unit X - Week 3

Furniture Ideas.

As part of my research element to this project I found that I was drawn to the retro, bold and modernistic furniture that popped onto the scene around the time of the Bauhaus era.

With strong lines, sharp colours and ever changing designs I found a similarity back to my own practice. Each piece, despite being of a similar nature tells a different story and fits into a different category, traits that I am trying to incorporate into each of my samples.

I wonder how well my work would sit alongside furniture of this style?

Above: Bauhaus. Furniture styles. POLYVORE LTD. [Online] [Accessed 17.03.2014] http://www.polyvore.com/bauhaus_furniture/thing?id=51575689

Unit X - Week 3

Further exploration into Optical Art and the Bauhaus.

Taking into account the ideas of blocking, layering and shape positioning I did a search to see how other artists are interpreting this information in the modern day. The blog Moderica, works to show hows colour representation can influence and affect art, arcitecture, interior design and textiles. It exlpores colour therories by looking at Sir Isaac Newtons colour wheel, matching and changing opposite colours.

'The presence of all colours produces white, the absence of colour is black'

The quote seen above, Moderica Blog, 2014 [Online] fits in well with the idea of hiding and replacing colours. When solid panels of balck are seen in my cloth, the underside will be housing each of the other colours, showing the potential and intriuge to the fullest,

Th images above are a culmination of found online images (artists unknown) that work to push the boundaries or colour and shape manipulation. The sources are shown below;

http://dicknelsoncolor.com/2013/color-relationships-2013-week-1/

http://deirdrespencer.com/blog/

http://cs.brown.edu/courses/cs092/VA10/HTML/AlbersExplanation.html

http://www.presentandcorrect.com/blog/interaction-of-colour

Unit X - Week 3

Double cloth developments.

This week has once again been spent in the weave room, developing ideas and colour pallettes. I have created my next warp, using imagery from the last unit that i felt still had some life in them. The idea of shapes overlapping and sitting next to one another led me to use an image, taken myself, in the spinningfields areas of Manchester.

The buildings within the image appear to be sat on top of one another, with the start and finish of each one unclear to see upon initial viewing. With this in mind, i opted to design for a thick double cloth warp. Top cloth of even black and white stripes, with the base cloth a combination of blues, beiges, whites and soft yellows. The idea is to create an ordered, structured cloth that has hidden areas of detail. The top cloth with provide a setting for my optical art to be shown on.

As you can see above, the two cloths fit together at 1 inch intervals, meaning each white and black section of the top cloth have a corresponding section underneath. I have designed this cloth with my target audience in mind, keen to keep the optical elements in tow, i have used colours that i feel can work together with the strong black and white without being too overbearing for the home interiors market.

Above shows different variations of the finished cloth. These show how the cloth work would if the top and bottom were to not be interchanged, I plan to randomise each sample and incorporate up to four different changes in each one.

I have begun to experiment on Photoshop to see what effects could be created, taking inspiration from previous warps and also research undertaken. The edits below show how order, repetition and randomisation could alter the look of the cloth. So far it appears that the more ordered, repeated edits work best, as they best replicate my sourced photographs and overarching concept of shape and structure.

With this being said, it will be this approach that I will be taking when I begin to weave the cloth.

Unit X - Week 2

Optical Art or 'Op Art' as it is commenly refered to is a term used to describe paintings or sculptures that create the illusion or movement through their use of optical effects. Brought to the public eye in the late 1950's early 1960's, it was leading figures Bridget Riley and Victor Vasarley
who paved the way for Op Artists across the world.

With its strong use of pattern and colour, the veiwer feels a disorienation upon viewing the work, causing them to question what it is they are actually looking at.

This is a concept that has been playing on my mind quite heavily over the past few weeks. The idea that a peice can be viewed in several different ways is intriguing to me and i am keen to look into ways that i can create deceptive, mind scrambling pieces so to speak.

The above piece, found online (artsist unknow) shows Optical Art in its most simple form. The squares are placed inside sqaures of similar colours to give the feeling of movement and presepctive. Once a square of a completely different colour is inserted the viewer finds the overall piece difficult to look at, this is what is called an optical illusion.

Try it yourself, look at the first 4 squares on the top row and time how long you can keep your focus without feeling the need to look away to a different one.

The above piece by artists Victor Vaserley is en example of how, when sqaures of different size are placed within one another at an angle the illusion of perspective is created. The clever use of colour also lends itself well to adding a feeling of depth and space to the work.

Over the coming weeks i am going to attempt to create my own optical art style pieces, using colours found in arcitecture as a starting point. Although the colours used in these two artists work are strong and vivid, i feel that my work would benefit more from a controlled, precise pallette.

Unit X - Week 2

This week has seen me continue with the second Dash and Miller warp that I was working on in Practice. I opted not to cut off the left over warp and instead decided to use the free time in between projects to experiment and play with ideas and colours ways that I have previously shied away from. Becoming too comfortable with my current monochrome palette is something that I am keen to avoid, as a result this week I chose to inject touches of blue and pink to see what might happen.

Above shows the main key image that I used as a starting point, extracting linear elements enabled me to design a warp that captured the image entirely. (warp plan to the right)

The design of each sample created as part of this collection work well together, achieving effects that resemble art works from the Op Art era, as well as linking back to the research I carried out earlier this year into the Bauhaus movement. The use of pinks and blues through the weft are especially striking and give the samples an injection of life and interest.

Unit X - Week 1

After successfully completing the practice unit, it is now time to move forward and dive head first into unit X and begin to think about my degree show and future after university.

I established in the last project that I see my work fitting well into the home interiors market, therfor I will be sticking with this idea and working this into my final show. I have been brainstorming ideas as to what i think would work best and i believe that longer smaple pieces would be the best way for me to showcase my work, as the deatil and colour work used within my samples works better repeated over a yard or so.

My ideas regarding concept and inspiration will remain virtualy the same. The main source of interest will be arcitecture around me, with reseacrh into the bauhaus movement pushing my work further. I am keen to keep my work similar in style and feel that deviating too far away from my initial ideas would be taking away from what it is i want to capture and translate. Although i am keen to experiment with differnt medias to work with and may consider different weave styles and structures.