PRINTS IN TEXTILES_

Swap over, time to create some amazing textiles prints. I'd now fully settled into the course and was enjoying what was on offer, so I didn't feel nervous like I had previously. Silly me. 

Immediately as I walked into the room my eyes were filled with interesting textures and shapes, due to wonderful displays to get ourselves inspired. Using these textures, the aim was to exaggerate them and create a series of pages using mark making. I used swiggely lines, bold direct lines, scratchy paint with biro on top, and soft sweeping lines, all used to represent the objects in the room. This part I I had plenty of ideas for, but still I was a bit un-confident (I tend to look at other peoples work and compare it to mine, a bad thing in my eyes). The next step didn't come as easily to me. We had to cut up our textural mark making pages and layer them together, stick some on top of each other, or place cut up pieces onto black/white paper. But I felt my pieces weren't working together well, they didn't click and scream an amazing print. That was until Will cut up some of my textural paper that I had discarded, and put different widths of paper together, leaving a jagged edge. I was crazy about it, and really felt it was successful! The scratchy paint (applied with an old wall brush and minimal paint) with biro in the opposite direction was simple yet so effective, and the layering of different sections on top of each other worked well. At first I thought I liked the strips all heading in the same direction, but as I started playing around with the print, I decided that it looked even more special about laying/weaving some strips vertically on top. It was a very raw and sketchy print, representing me and I my style I feel.
As I wasn't too crazy about the other prints, I really concentrated on the one print I loved. I used the photo copier to downsize the print, then put many of the prints together of different sizes to create a large scale print. The detail was incredible, it was so intricate and scratchy, and I could already see it coming together in a garment.
Leading on from this I refined my print, creating another scratchy painted background, but this time concentrating on the biro being more bold and striking, having a closer knit piece to work with. I then cut this up into different widths, exaggerating the size difference, and layered them together similar to before. However this time I felt it look more effective with all the strips laying in the same way. It looked a lot more refined and professional, but also the scale improved the look. Again I could see it curving around a shirt, or being cut in half on the front of a shirt. So I began photo copying the print in different sizes, and using the pattern blocks created a collar using the print. It actually looked quite professional, and could definitely visualise a plain shirt with this textural collar.
This was a very valuable workshop, with some brilliant results produced. Although I got a little bit stuck to start with, I feel I came through and and made a really strong print.