Work In Progress

In an earlier post, I said that I would add images of my current sketchbook work, but as it's still a work in progress the pages in my sketchbook aren't finished and there will be many more added but I wanted to post some images of what I'm working on at the moment. As it's a joint Fashion/Textiles project, I have used the samples that I worked on in Textiles and produced them to make a Fashion illustration, which is what I'm working on now. 

These are wheel and cog samples that I produced as a starting point.

I started out at a very different point than I finished with as you will see in my later post in the next few weeks. As it's a mechanical theme, I started stitching wheels and cog shapes. I then looked at various artists and came to the conclusion that I wanted to produce different circle designs as I got the inspiration from cogs and wheels. My colour palette for the project is blue, grey and black as when I found primary research at Gladstone Pottery Museum, a lot of the machinery was blue so I thought that I could incorporate it in to my project with the metal colours.

I looked at Ingrid Van Den Brand's work to inspire me.

This was the turning point for me as I looked at Michelle Moode's work and decided to create circles instead of cogs and wheels as I thought my project could become more diverse.

These are the samples that I produced using wax . 

Unfinished Versace artist reference, which links to my theme of circle designs as this collection featured circle designs on them. 

Fashion illustration which I started with but decided to move away from as the project developed as it didn't fit in with my other fashion illustrations. 

Unfinished Anna Duthie artist reference. 

Older Fashion Sketchbook

I work on sketchbooks all the time for all the different subject areas so in these following images there will be a past fashion sketchbook that I've produced. I had to make seams and pockets in any way that I liked so I made my own fabrics to work with out of various techniques including...

• Knitting
• Crochet
• Making Handmade Paper
• Felting
• Heat Bond-able Fibres

I then produced fashion outcomes and chose earthy colours as a colour palette for this specific project. All the different techniques that I used produced various outcomes. 

Issey Miyake fashion artist reference.

Pocket and seam sketches and some basic pocket  stitching techniques. 

These are small examples of the fabrics that I made to work with. 

I decided on the target market of outerwear and knitwear.

Julia Ramsey knitwear artist reference.

Fashion illustrations using my samples and photocopies and stitching the model. 

Knitting samples and photocopied paper samples. Also, adding all different materials and fibres and stitching them together.

Colour converting some samples on the photocopier and adding them to a stitched model.

The history of knitting. 

Textiles/Fashion project at the moment

At the moment, I'm working on a Fashion/Textiles project to do with mechanical forms. All the projects that I'm working on are based on machinery as that's the theme at the moment. In this post, I will be showing some work that I've produced for this project but as it's still on-going I will be adding some new posts later on in the next few weeks with the finished outcomes hopefully. In the following images, this is what I'm working on at the moment but when the project's finished I will add sketchbook and sheet work images. 

I used water soluble film to create this, I used black and blue cotton and used wool for felting, and string to make it more interesting.

This one was created with blue cotton, string and photocopies of my other samples which will appear in another blog post. 

This is a close up image of the detail. 

This was created with photocopies, blue and black cotton string and wool. 

I experimented with water soluble film and fabric to see what worked best. I found inspiration at the NEC Embroidery, Fashion and Stitch Show, where I spoke to Karen Casper tulleandcandyfloss.blogspot.com whose work is amazing. 

I really like the effect of this and when I add them to my sketchbook I may add the images on to a post if they look okay once everything has been put together. Here are some images where I've added my sample on to a manikin, I will be producing some fashion illustrations with photocopies of my samples and my real samples will be included. 

Mechanical Inspired Necklace

I created this necklace for 3D Design using cable ties, fabric, cogs, nails and the heat gun. I tied cable ties together in different ways and attached fabric by threading it through the cable ties. I then used the heat gun to melt the cable ties and burn the fabric to change the colour and the overall look of the piece. When the structure of the necklace had been created, I stitched cogs, added nails, and attached variations of wool to make the necklace look prettier. 

I used fabric to act as the chain of the necklace.

I then tied a bow with the fabric to make it more interesting.

This is a close up version of the cable ties with cogs, nails and fabric added to it.

As I finished adding all the cogs, nails etc on to the cable ties, I used the same fabric as I used for the chain and added it in small pieces and tied it to the cable ties to make it more interesting and pretty.

Here are some images of the samples that I produced before I made the final design. 

Also, I produced final sheets to present my work and my images which are included in the next images. 

Who am I?

I'm Alice, 

An art student currently studying the BTEC Extended Diploma in Art and Design which covers all aspects including Textiles, Fashion, Fine Art, Graphics, Photography, Illustration, 3D Design and Ceramics. I personally love anything to do with stitch so in a lot of my work, I try and bring some kind of stitch or textiles flare into it. Next year, I'm hoping to take Textiles and continue with it at University but I thought setting up a blog seemed a good way to start on my journey into textiles and different aspects within art and design. These blog posts will probably consist of sketchbook work, experimentation and development of work and I hope that people will find it interesting.