Week 9 (11/11/24) - (17/11/24)

 Monday was Remembrance Day and during Lareen's lesson we created poppies out of fabric, learning the best way to layout the patten pieces that they would use in industry for mass production. This wasn't too hard to understand. We then had to take our cut-out pattern and hand stitch a gathering stitch and pull it in to create the shape of the poppy. I think I made my gathering stitch too far in and could have used more stitches to create a better poppy, but I can always redo the poppy at home. To finish off the poppy we had to sew a button on, and I found this a bit awkward because I couldn't keep the thread going in and out of the same spots as I usually can because I can always redo the poppy and see if me doing it again with my knowledge now would help me make it neater.

The rest of the lesson was very confusing to me since we were learning how to add gathers and pleats into patterns. I felt like the lesson was going a bit too fast for me to understand and do the work at the same time so I got confused when I would be working on things, and the others would be on the next thing that I had completely missed because I was trying to figure out how to do the thing before that. It was very chaotic, but I managed to finish all the work that I needed with a basic understanding of what was going on in the patterns.

 

Stretch was the second lesson of our final project; I had completed the watercolour at home so I wouldn't have to do it I class. However, we carried out a peer review of one of our classmates talking about different improvements that they could make, and my advice was to use coloured pencils and deepen the colour of the background, so I used my friend’s watercolour pencils to deepen the colour and add colour to the rest of the subject to add depth. To not get rid of the colour I simply used a small brush to only get the background wet to blend it out. I started on my embroidery where I added leaves which was simple since I had done it before, but I needed to make sure the holes that I poked weren't too close together, so it didn't rip the paper. One new thing I did was sewing a rose, this was a new embroidery technique that I did, and I think it turned out good considering it was my first time and on paper.

In Sam's class we practiced making patterns using paper, dye and varnish. I found this lesson very insightful and using my patterns that I made in my book I applied some of them to the paper designs. I did find this a little bit stressful towards the end because I didn't think I would have enough time; however, I think I should have spent just a little bit more time on it so that the varnish could dry properly because it meant I couldn't stop the dye from seeping through in all the designs. However, I do like the designs that I picked with the colours that I chose to dye with on each design. I think they are interesting and none of them came out too muddy.

The last lesson of the day was CAD with Charlie where we learnt how to use illustrator and create repeating patterns. I found this interesting even if I had a few mishaps where I had to get help from Charlie to figure it out. I think it was an insightful lesson and simple to understand so I can carry this information of with me for my current and future projects.

At home I started the process of making my zine so I can't get it finished on time. My thought process for my zine is to use I fabric that I have that is white with blue lines as a sort of notebook like background that I can sew on and then join two sides together. I need to sort out my overlocker to make sur it works for me to make my zine clean but if I can't, I will use the College machines.

 

On Wednesday, we learnt how to do mood boards with Lareen since Lareen prefers a different style of mood board to Sam. She gave us insightful information and I now have a clear idea of what photos and format I want to use for my mood board. I did print out some of the photos I wanted to use but I figured that they were too small so I had to reprint them again. It is simply a matter of trial and error. I think that my placement is great because some are more spaced apart, some overlap and some look like they connect similar to puzzle pieces but my one gripe with he moodboard is the amount of writing that i have put on it. I think i could reduce the amount of writing on it down to specific key words but i put too many words on the moodboard. I also believe the moodboard would be better if i added some fabric examples.

On Thursday i decided that i needed to sit down and go through my sketchbook to produce better annotations instead of mediocre ones.  I felt that my annotations before were lacking and even if i went through the annotations and created better, more descriptive annotations, i still feel like i need to work more on my annotations and this will only keep getting better as i continue to write annotations and challenge myself to be more descriptive.

In friday's lesson we completed more dye and varnish experiments but using out sketchbook paper to see if the quality of the paper effected the outcome of our experiments. I found that it did and not only was i able to use my prior experience to fix any mistakes that were made during the lesson before but i was able to see obvious quality differences in the finished products. The saturation of the dye was much stronger than the previous ones, allowing the designs to stand out even further than before. I also focused less on repeating designs in the paper rather than making designs that i could use to create a repeating pattern. After this i carried out a variety of experiments including ink and bleach as well, eventually using all mediums (dye, ink and bleach) together towards the end of the lesson. I tried to see what would come if i created a pattern using those mediums because i thought they would work well together. I thought this because they are similar in them being watery and flowing and apply similarly. I think this experiment was successful because i was able to correctly apply my idea to the age with only a few mistakes.

After my lesson had ended i decided to stay in class to go through my first sketchbook to do the same process that i used to make patterns for my wallpaper for my patterns on fabric (topic: plants). This was now something easy for me to do because i had already done it before. Therefore i was able to take a short amount of time to find and draw without much detail so i could create seamless patterns when i got home. I also photographed things in my sketchbook in my flowers section to create my mood board for this section of my project so i could use my own work to inform my final ideas.

During the weekend i mainly focused on catching up with any work that i had missed beforehand so i wouldn't be caught up with too much to do with not enough time. Mainly annotating everything that i had missed in my sketchbook up to a better standard than before, now that i had made a small list on things i need to consider when i annotate my work. This helped me to better my understanding of what makes a good annotation. My main thing i want to keep in my head is the linking an the problem solving aspects that i want to include in these annotations. I also worked on some more experiments inspired by Andy Worhol so i could stick with a more colourful design process and develop my skills. I used oil pastels for this because i knew they would give a strong bold colour and they are able to layer but there are some mistakes that come from the inherent use of il pastels like not being able to capture small details well enough so it becomes a bit messy.

The final thing i did on the weekend was to create 15 designs for my skirt. I found this difficult because i didn't know what to change while keeping the designs similar to each other to i strayed a bit from making them consistent while trying to think of what would look good while creating designs that fit with my topic of fish. At first i started drawing on a plain piece of A3 paper but i found that i kept making mistakes in my drawings so i started using plain pieces of scrap paper so if i made any mistakes i could easily just redraw the designs. I would then stick them down to the page using double sided tape. This made it easier to create successful designs without spending too much time tried to put them down on paper.