Hand prints

It has been nice to have a change from using photoshop and going into the print room to producing prints by hand. I have used gouache paint to produce abstract, original prints. I really like using gouache paint, as you can get a flat, neat finished piece. I enjoy mixing the colours to get what I want and also experimenting with composition. It's not like photoshop, where you have to produce another layer to place a motif over the top of another or even like screen printing where you have to let the design dry,clean your screen etc, you literally just let the paint blend and lovely motifs will be formed. As I've said before, I like the detail; being able to see the brush strokes. I think its is because it gives it a raw feel to it; you can see how it's been produced and it adds texture and depth to a piece. It would be interesting to see what these hand painted prints would look like on fabric. I think it would have to be printed on quite a thick fabric; if sheer fabric was used, the detail would be lost and therefore the mood of the design.

 

 

 

 

I've always loved Matthew Williamson's work. His prints are abstract and some are painterly. Everything about his work is beautiful; the fluid motifs, painterly strokes, colours and even the fabric he uses. A few of his pieces in the Spring 2013 Ready-to-wear collection had aspects of painterly design. They're not all over prints but placement prints. Subtle but beautiful.

 

 

 

The thin/sheer fabric he uses is a perfect canvas to show off his prints. The material drapes beautifully and the designs hang from the models gracefully.

Art Nouveau Style

Some of my digital prints have a Art Nouveau feel to them; the fluid shapes and composition and repetition of the motifs. When I was looking at Liberty London's fashion prints, I noticed that a few of the designs had an Art Nouveau theme too.

'Ianthe was first printed for Liberty in 1967. A typical example of French Art Nouveau with highly stylised flowers in a swirly pattern, the design is derived from a wallpaper border which was produced by a French artist in c.1902.' (http://www.liberty.co.uk/fcp/product/Liberty/WOMENS/Blue-Ianthe-Silk-Scarf/83262')

The colours work so well together; some prints have a subtle combination of gradients of the same colour and others have bright reds,greens and blues. Motifs are repeated in a interesting way; colours highlighting key aspects of the shapes and the motifs placed in a elegant manner, emphasising the Art Nouveau theme.

Hue- Changing the colour

 Dance-capturing movement

 

This image reminded me of my pie chart development

 

 It has been really interesting working with changing colours of original images on photoshop. It means if there is a image you have collected but it doesn't match your colour palette, you can change it. As my project is based on recording movement, I took some more pictures of my sister. I asked her to dance but only using her arms. I set my shutter speed on my camera to a really low level so everything would be blurry. Once I got the images, I started to play around with the colour and composition.

 

I love how you can see the movement as a stroke and the blurred facial features. I added a masked layer to the image; I had scanned in one of my mono prints so I could use that to add texture. You can't tell it's one of my prints as I wanted the shapes and textures to come through subtly.  



 

I started to use my custom brushes to add pattern to the image. I reduced the opacity so the motifs were quite faint and I played around with the placement. I like these designs, however I think I prefer my other digital prints. But I do think they link really well with my theme and style of work; still containing detail, texture and mood of the theme.

Screen printing

I found it quite difficult to get the correct colours when mixing my dyes. Along the way, there have been some pieces of work that didn't work too well. Nevertheless this has made me push myself to do more experimentation and develop more ideas.

 

 

I'm really not very pleased with these two prints. The mono printed background is too faint and the motifs aren't the right colour. I used reactive dyes to print the motifs; I thought this would work as it wouldn't be as bold as the pigment dye. When mixing the colours and printing with them, the colours looked spot on, however when fixing the dyes and washing the fabric, the colour disappeared. This was very disappointing as it was a long process and I really thought about the placement of the motifs.

 

These irritating mistakes, really made me push myself. I started to go for it when mixing the dyes for mono printing and the colours gradually got stronger.

 

 

 

I went back to using pigment dyes; mixing deeper purples, creating a new mood with the contrasting textures.I continued to enjoy using mono print; again making the colours stronger and experimenting with the salt to create interesting texture. I quickly sprinkled the salt across the screen, making sure I used fast motions so the salt moved across the screen, dragging the dye with it. This created a really nice texture, enhancing the tone of the dye in places.

 

 

Throughout working in the print room, I have been so focused on mixing the correct colours, that I forgot that white is a main colour in my palette. I therefore masked off some areas on my blank screen. This meant that when I applied the manutex, the areas masked off were white. Nevertheless I wouldn't have been able to leave the print as it was because the contrast of white and colour was too harsh. I therefore decided to apply motifs on top. I think this works well as it gives the design a feeling of fluid movement; with the circles climbing up the fabric.

 

 

 

I'm really pleased with this print. The reactive dyes were just how I wanted them and the white sits perfectly on top. I definitely prefer my more textured designs. I don't really have the graphical style; I feel it's too static and there's nothing much to it. I like to see the detail; whether that's where the salt has landed, seeing the movement of the brush strokes and the bleeding of the dyes.

 

 

 

Peer Reviews

For this peer review session we needed to bring all of our work in plus two A2 presentation boards. Our boards had to include what we thought worked well and what's worth presenting. I wanted to show all aspects of my work; digital,hand drawn and screen print.

 

 

I was quite nervous to get my feedback, however I was quite pleased with the comments made. On my presentation boards there was a note saying:'Presentation- amazing. Good variety of prints. Work well as a collection. Sketchbook- clear good development.' It was also said that my colour strips were good. Nevertheless, all feedback needs some criticism. It was said that it wasn't clear where my inspiration had come from with my initial research. This made sense as all of this is in a separate folder, which wasn't there on the day. Hopefully this will help the viewer understand where my initial thoughts came from.  

I found the peer review very useful, as I could see how others had gone about their work and what they thought of mine. I think any feedback is good because you can see what isn't clear and then change it.

 

 

Screen and Mono printing

 I started the process by mixing all the pigment dyes so it meant that I didn’t have to go back and forth; I could just get straight on a print. Even though I enjoy printing, I find it quite infuriating in a way; I get impatient when I have to wait for my work or screen to dry. Nevertheless, I like the outcome so I’m going to have to make sure I have other things to do in between waiting for things to dry.
    I have never used the technique of printing a block pigment colour onto the fabric for the background colour, however I found it worked really well. I got a clean screen and decided what colour to use before simply using a squeegee to apply the dye through the screen. 
   After printing the motifs, I decided to do a mono print. I printed that onto silk once; next to the mono print was this pigment print that I had been working on. I therefore decided to apply the mono print on top of the pigment print. This is why there is a faint, purple, marble finish.
  I’m pleased with the colours,placement and general feel of the motifs on the second print. I think it works well with the fold in the fabric as it makes it look a bit more interesting. It took quite a while to do as I had to wait for each motif to dry before layering, but I think it was worth it.

 

 

  I really like doing mono printing. I think it suits my theme more as it has a softer finish and detail and texture can be made.

 

(First mono print)

(Second mono print)

 

 At the time of mixing the dyes and painting onto the screen for the second time, the colours looked better than last time however once fixed, all the colours went a lot lighter.  I think I might work on top of this print with embroidery, if I have the time. I will use this to make the motifs clearer. I really like the effect the salt has on the dye; it draws it all in creating that texture. I'm going to experiment with the salt more and also try to get more accurate colours. I think the dyes need less water in so they're stronger.

 

My mono prints reminded me a little bit of Alexandra McQueen prints in the spring 2010 collection. The softness of the print and the subtle blending of the colours.

 

 

This collection has a 'Art Nouveau' feel to it; the smooth lines, natural forms used and the beautiful use of colour. The prints have a soft texture and make the collection quite organic. I think I'm going to work on top of my mono prints with my screen motifs. This will create a defined pattern on top of a soft, light background.

Digital Prints

Experimenting with colour and digital prints.

 

 

 

After creating my brushes, I started to experiment with the placement and colour of the motifs. I have done some work using photoshop before, so some techniques I already knew, nevertheless I did have to get used to using the brushes. I had created my colour palette by eye; looking at the image I had chosen to take the colours from, I picked out which colours looked similar. I created a few designs, experimenting with the size of each motif and overlapping layers to see what arrangement worked well. On a couple of designs I used the gradient tool, sometimes just using it on the background or using it for the whole image, so the motifs would also change. Nevertheless, I really didn't like the outcome; it reminded me too much of producing PowerPoints in middle school!
   It was interesting to see what shapes were made through overlapping individual motifs. It made me think more about maybe emphasising the new shapes by adding a highlight colour.

 

It took me a while to produce correct digital prints. I had to play around with my colour palette as the colours didn't portray the colours from my initial image accurately enough. Also I didn't include all of the colours in my prints which meant that it didn't represent the mood properly. I therefore created an accurate colour strip and photoshop swatches and then started to work again. Even though I did make mistakes, I'm pleased I made them because I believe if I hadn't, my new designs wouldn't have been as good as they are.

I think these three designs are my favourite and will have to decide upon one print to go on to fabric. I’m really looking forward to seeing the design on fabric as I will be able to see if it works well as a fashion fabric. I feel that my designs represent the mood of my inspirational image well and I’m now pleased that I made the mistakes as it has pushed and developed my  digital skills and techniques further.