Scarf research

I have started to think about making prints, but all attempts at Photoshop so far haven't ended very well. Now I have decided that I am sticking with scarves again this project, I decided to needed to get some inspiration for long scarf styles, to see what the National Trust already sell in their shops and what styles, colours and patterns are currently on trend in the womenswear market. 

Generally I found that most National Trust scarves varied between £15 - £35, but most were quite simple designs, with at most only a handful of colours. I think it would be nice for National Trust customers to have some more choice and variety, so I have decided I want to create a more heavily patterned scarf that fills a gap in their stock. I looked at scarves from a similar price range, in this case comparing with Accessorize, and found that they championed soft colours and predominantly floral details. For image and pattern inspiration I looked at more high end brands, and found that the more expensive a scarf was, the more likely it was digitally printed and content heavy. I particularly like Athena Procopiou's collection - even though they are square scarves, I would like to try this busy layered style in a long scarf shape.

Baroque motifs

Finally started to make some baroque frames using my motifs. I really like the overall effect but I'm not sure if they look a bit too solid and harsh - I'm finding it hard to adjust to this flat graphic style as it is something I am not used to. Hopefully once I start using colour they will begin to look a bit softer and more feminine, as I feel the rectangle ones in particular look a bit hard and masculine, not particularly suitable to prints for womenswear.

I am however very pleased with the frame below, perhaps because the motifs themselves already had quite a baroque feel to them. Can't wait to create a print with it, as I think it will be really nice to have a pretty baroque style print, that when you look closer you realise it is actually made up of jelly moulds, carpet beaters and sewing machines.

Drawings and motifs

Over the Easter holidays I have been purely concentrating on making motifs for my prints. I have been thinking a lot about this idea of doing my own take baroque patterns, so I decided to build up a stock of drawings so that when I get back after easter I can start putting them together and making collages. I decided to focus on the miscellaneous objects I found on the National Trust website, collecting together a big folder of all the ones I found most intriguing. I tried to choose a variety of items, things with a baroque feel such as the carpet beater, the cut-glass bottle and the floral toy sewing machines, and other things that are more ambiguous to intrigue the viewer, such as the slightly squashed lantern, the straw animal and the unusual lampshades. 

I began drawing with my usual detailed pen and pencil style, but I didn't feel there was anything exciting or new about it. So I decided to take a more graphic approach (shown in the collage above), using only black pen and gouache, and trying to draw as if I was creating a paper cut, in the hope that when I begin to collage with them they will look more like lace than the shaded pencil style drawings. 

Patternmash submission

The most reccent Patternmash theme was 'Facade', which I thought perfectly tied into my current Unit X project. I decided to use scans of my paper cuts to create brushes and elements of my photographs from Taton Park to add a 3D element to my Photoshop collage. I think this would be a great starting point for my print design as I had some really good feedback on these prints after they were featured on the Patternmash site. 

http://www.patternmash.co.uk/post/82989367031/lucy-smith-is-a-textiles-in-practice-student-at

Collaborative drawing workshop

After the 'speed dating' event where we pitched ourselves to the other group members to see if we wanted to collaborate, there was a few people who all said it would be really beneficial to our work to do a collaborative drawing workshop. We all brought along objects or images to draw from, and pitched in with different exercises to challenge our drawing styles. This was a great way to get to know some of the girls from 3D designs and learn from them how they like to approach the drawing stages of their projects. 

Below is the piece I ended up with, filled with several drawings based on the baroque elements from Taton. We played around with long and short drawing times, such as quick 1 minute ones varied with longer 5 minute ones. It was nice to feel encouraged to use different mediums and drawing styles, as I think it is easy to get stuck into a rut and to always start the project in the same way. I actually really liked the drawings where I had to draw with my eyes closed as I drew in a more organic flowing style rather than trying to be completely perfect and rubbing things out and reworking them. I now feel I have a really good starting point with my drawing and feel really inspired to go and get stuck in with my project.