Development.

I've been thinking about how I can translate different elements from my photographs into my drawing work, work that will hopefully then be able to translate into my weaving.

This can be quite challenging sometimes & something I previously could have done better; this time round I'm determined to step outside my comfort zone & try more abstract ways of drawing, painting & mark making.

Using different artists & designers for inspiration, I found that I really liked the weave work of Jan Garside, and the abstract nature of Twombley's paintings was exactly what I was looking for.

From this I just decided to try as many things as I could such as stretching paper, using things like plastic cutlery to paint with, masking parts of images off, embroidery, dyeing & painting fabric. 

Setting up in the Weave Workshop.

For my workshop I have chosen Weave again & I'm so happy that I managed to get a place. It's not something that you can do once & get the hang of, it's definitely something that you have to do over & over again to become good at it, which is what I intend to do.

This time I am finally getting to go an electric floor loom rather than a table top like the two previous times. This is both exciting & scary. I really have no idea whether I'm going to be able to get the hang of a more complicated machine, however this time round I have tried to make the warping process more simple, choosing to use one warp rather than two.

I have though, decided to make my warp all in wool as I plan to attempt to shrink my samples to add movement at the end of the weaving process. I have also block threaded my warp so that I can create 3 different patterns next to each other & then the selvedge is also seperate. My warp has been threaded into half inch blocks which did take a while to thread as the whole thing is 14 inches.

Alongside threading up the machine & preparing to weave, I have also been drawing up structures on graph paper. The last couple of times I have woven, I have found that it really helps me to write the shaft numbers down too, next to the drawn out structures, seeing the actual numbers seems to help me apply the structures a lot quicker.

The Maratime Museum

As I'm giving my project a nautical theme, it was suggested that I take a trip to The Maratime Musuem in my hometown of Liverpool. Having not been for a number of years it was something to really look forward to.

There was a Titanic exhibition on that I found really moving, it was all about the passengers onboard rather than the incident itself; so who they were travelling with, where they were going & why, what class they were travelling in & then of course whether or not they survived. The idea was that you picked up a card on your way in with a photograph of a passenger on, with their name & details, then you followed their story through the exhibition until the end. 

I also looked at the old paintings of the ships & docks, loving the painterly quality & the blends of colour. A lot of them where very dramatic & stormy, something which I wouldn't mind trying to bring into my own work.

Outside I found that the sun on the water was creating some calm, light ripple patterns on the water, a total contrast to what I just seen in the paintings in the museum.

The Beginning of Intentions

Recently I've been getting on with work for the new 'Intentions' unit. This unit is going to be a lot more focused towards context & what we actually want to do after graduation, which is slightly nerve-wracking, however I do feel that the last year really to help to point me in the right direction. 

Now I feel like interiors should definitely be my context & I'm beginning to notice a style of my own appearing when it comes to colour choices & combinations. In the coming workshop signup, I'm hoping to be able to get back into the weave workshop & hopefully stay there so that I can really build up my skills & better myself within that area.

The visit that I made to the Tall Ships event over summer has been what has kickstarted this project for me. I've been contemplating the idea of story telling & showing a journey through my work. 

For now though I have just been drawing from the images & creating little paintings inspired by the sea.

Hopefully once I know what workshop I will be doing, the drawing & painting should gain a little more direction & then will be able to translate more easily into my work.