Developing Print Design Ideas Project

I can see the theme emerging here. The first section of this assignment was about colour - now we're on to composition. I've had a pretty good time with this section, although I am a little worried I've personalised it too much! Being rather a headstrong person, I like to decide on a goal when learning a new skill, then use what I learn as I go along to better image the process for reaching that goal. My goal in this section was to make a nice print that involved some sort of natural motif. In my first 'inspiration from the library' post, I talked about some antique prints, and had my goal confirmed by their themes: I wanted to do a natural motif or scene, yes, but I also wanted to work out how to make a repeating pattern that was large enough to look spontaneous. It was with this in mind that I sketched for this section. The first couple of exercises, I felt, weren't too interesting, though the point got across - it's easy to change the perception of a space, or a background, if you like, by adding different elements in disruptive positions, just as it is to add clashing colours and change the whole feel of a background tone. When I started the next exercise, taking some extracts from different resource material with a viewing frame, things started to look up. Whilst I'm writing about this exercise, I should say where my images are from. As the major part of my 'resource material' collection is made up of books, scans from books, and museum collections, as well as a section of pieces of fabrics and objects I have personally collected, I'd like to keep a list of the books I've taken inspiration or partial images from. For my first sketches, I used my viewing frame on images from The Grammar of Ornament, 1856, by Owen Jones, then A Mirror of Japanese Ornament, by Kawanabe Masao, 1915, and finally, two small sketches (one of which I have now taken forward) from Dress in Detail From Around the World, 2002, a V&A production from Rosemary Crill, Jennifer Wearden and Verity Wilson.

 
I got a surprising amount of fun from drawing the same detail in a couple of different ways - and, as we go, the piece I took a detail from for these follow-on exercises is available here. As you can see, it is part of the fringing from a traditionally bright Chinese-made skirt from 1980. Here are a couple (not all) of the sketches I made of this piece.

On the left is the dry media piece - in pastel and pencil. On the right, the wet media piece, in ink. In the centre is the wild card. Again, I've focused on texture for this sketch, and done it in my signature 'paint-and-nozzle'! Although as yet, I couldn't see the connection to how to transform the pictures into prints - they all seemed (and to some extent, still do seem) far too complex to understand how to reliably put their image accurately onto something as unpredictable as fabric, even stretched!

Next was the still-life set-up, which gave me a good deal more trouble. Initially, inspired by the bold fabrics of the Chinese skirt I had been working on, I chose a bright set-up of 4 items, the funkiest I could find. my large striped sombrero hat, a stretched frame of partially complete silk embroidery, a pincushion, and an ornamental duck. It's a strange and otherwise un-themed collection:

I played about with the composition on the camera, having read a little way forward, and came up with quite a few different combinations, some of which are displayed here in thumbnails:

As you can see, by the last one, I had decided that I could never find a way to simplify such a complex arrangement, and sectioned off a colourful pin-cushion-side to sketch. I worked a little more on this idea, but eventually, I realised that I couldn't make this idea work for me. So I took what I've learnt so far, and I went out for a walk around the garden, taking pictures of plants with the potential for repeating patterns - you see, an idea had come to me. Sure, it's important to make a pattern that can repeat, but wouldn't it be even better if you could make one with, as it were, 'tiles' of printing blocks that could be moved around, maybe made interchangeable, like a kind of puzzle? That way, each section of fabric would have a different mixture of pattern and plain, of print and fabric, and so on. A good few sketches resulted from this as I moved into stage 4, Developing design ideas. I think my favourite for sheer boldness was this one:

It was developed from nine identical squares, arranged together into one larger square. Each section was marked along the sides with exactly the same measurement groupings, one for a large stem, one for a medium width, and two small stems. That way, no matter what design was placed within those borders, the set of nine could always be rearranged, and would always match up. I created four special tiles - the roses and the broken stem in the bottom left corner - and five standard tiles, featuring only the pattern of branches. Were I to take this forward to the print stage, I think that I would use the standard tiles to create most of the fabric, only using the special tiles very sparingly.

The piece I have decided to develop further in this section is this sketch of bamboo leaves (again, taken from the garden).

This particular picture is the result of the development exercises at the end of this section - initially I wanted to paint on fabric, creating a very naturalistic scene (I won't be uploading all my sketches here, but I've done a good few, trying to find my favourite parts of a complicated plant, then creating this picture from imagined details). However, looking at the demonstration pieces shown in the folder, and thinking about how unlike a printing process is from anything I've done before, I've decided that this sketch is the one I'll work from as a basis for the next series of exercises. It's simple(ish - there are no layers or unnecessary details, just block shapes) and has a kind of hidden repeat in it - it can be printed in repeat both upwards (very straightforward) and side-to-side, offset by about 3/8ths of the length of the paper. Before I move on to the printing stage, however, it's time to answer one of the end of section questions I haven't addressed. I think that I would be quite happy to work independently with this method in the future - I would have done more sketches for it here had I had more time - I don't think my trials with the bamboo, taking different elements and combining them were shown off to their best. However, there have been quite a few different ideas mentioned that I actually don't think would've occurred to me to use at the moment, such as literally using a mirror to mirror my pattern. I may revisit this section in part, depending on how the bamboo prints. It may be possible to combine the print with layers of other foliage developed in this stage.

A Research Point - and Further Cross-over Painting.

Here is part of the textile piece I've chosen to look at for research. It's got plenty of sentimental associations. This was one of the pieces I worked from when doing my final piece for my previous OCA module, Practice of Painting. When I looked at the piece, I was doing a similar project to the previous one I've posted - 3D painting techniques of my own devising. As you can see, it's a piece of lace. It's machine made, of an unknown date, and was probably used in a church - you can see it's motif above the fronds, IHS. It's mostly openwork, though with two borders of a fine fabric where grapes and vine leaves have been stitched into. I'm not certain of the fabric, but I suspect it is cotton, or a polycotton blend. It is 32 x 187 cm. I have owned it for about 18 months. It was bought for me by someone who knew of my interest in anything ecclesiastical, from a charity shop, so I do not know much about it's origin. I feel it is almost certainly made by machine because of it's uniformity, it's boldness, and frankly rather crude execution, especially at the ends of the length, where it is folded and tucked, rather than 'finished' with a fancy edge. I wouldn't like to guess at the date, though it must be 20th century. What I like most about it is the openwork section with that elegant lettering - yes, it's machined. But it's still beautiful, especially on black. It's something I'd be proud to hang up in my home. As I was saying, this was a piece I looked at in my painting module, and the result of that look was probably my favourite piece produced therein! Here is a picture of the painting, followed by a close-up on the technique. What with some threads being thicker than others, I layered directly with the white main colour.

Having worked looking closely with the piece for such a long time, I felt it was as good to me as any family heirloom I could have looked at - this just feels very 'current', considering my previous couple of posts.

Some Exercises for a Future Project

Doing the Seurat sampler has given me an appetite for cross-over art. When I was stitching Seurat, I was turning a painting into an embroidery. I wondered if a good idea for a project would be one that turned an embroidery into a painting, and studied it for a while. This painting is the result of those tests. It is based on a Japanese embroidery sampler I've been working on, and that is part of a book called The Techniques of Japanese Embroidery, by Shuji Tamura. As my own sampler is not yet complete, here is a picture of the original illustration. As such, this picture is the property of the Japanese Embroidery Centre, and is not a picture of my work!

My own piece, the painting seen at the top of this post, is constructed from layers of acrylic paint, first laid out in lines dispensed by a very fine cake icing nozzle. This layer of the relatively inexpensive white paint is then painted (with a brush) with two layers of metallic gold. Then the pencil lines for the diagonal frame were consulted, the nozzle was loaded with metallic silver, and the diagonals drawn on top of the already raised surface. Once this layer was dry, I added the rows of tiny silver diagonal flicks to mimic the twisted orange silk shown in the original sampler. Finally, I cleaned the nozzle, filled it with copper metallic, and painted on the horizontal bars. When this was dry, I rubbed out the construction lines, and painted the background plain white.

I was very happy with the result, and, wishing to explore further the possibilities of crossing painting and embroidery, did two more sampler exercises: firstly, an idea I'm keeping back for the final project of this course. I'm thinking of doing a project that involves showing the different silhouettes of historical eras and how the clothing of each age changed the outline of the body. This could perhaps involve making some kind of doll or figure that would wear each outfit, the outfits themselves being made of clear stitch-able plastics, such as vinyl tablecloth fabrics. In this way, the silhouette of the person could be compared to the outline lent them by their clothing. I had a little clear vinyl left over from an old sewing project - one that involved machine embroidery. Unfortunately, the vinyl was not suitable for a kind of sewing that meant going over an area of 'fabric' several times and stitching through it - it soon tore. So perhaps a painted 'fabric' sewn together, with a recognisable pattern adapted for each era would be the solution? Here's a sampler of vinyl with some blackwork motifs (this pattern has been in my computer's library for a long time, but sadly I could never attribute it) painted onto it. I was experimenting with oil paint in black, and acrylic in white. Unfortunately, the oils were very difficult to dispense without a good deal of linseed oil added. I will have to work on finding the right ratio, as it is far more durable than acrylic.

Finally for this post, I wondered whether it would be possible to further improve on the first sampler - and somehow create a woven surface on which to paint my 'embroidery'. Sadly, this was not possible - it just wasn't feasible - I would have needed some of the 'threads' to have woven themselves under already laid paint. What I did manage was three kinds of knitted fabric bases.

From the top, they're garter stitch or plain knit, then stockinette, right side, and thirdly stockinette, wrong side. Here are some close-ups, followed by a little garter stitch construction.

I hope I won't come across badly if I say that I don't think I'd want to cover these with embroidery: they're so effective, just as they are.