suburban sketches: October 2010

Sunday, 31 October 2010

Using Black & White

I chose the theme Journey and then had the usual panic that there were too many ways to interpret it and which should I choose

I took some photos from the car on a real journey

and did some sketches from them

- my final draft

which I inverted;

Our PC won't print at A3 so I cheated and used Paint Shop to play with the black and white

As you can see I got a bit carried away (this is why I won't finish this course in the shortest time....)

I then re-read the brief and realised there were supposed to be no lines in the final piece. I think the first image is the most effective so I used Paint Shop to further simplify it and take out as many lies as I could.

You could argue that there are still lines, the roof and the street markings, but I feel these are essential to keep the meaning of the image. I could now clean up the edges to make it look more as though I cut out the shapes but I like the rough effects, and from a distance they don't show.

What have I learned?

I draw a lot but tend to reject stuff that doesn't immediately look "right" I know I need to persevere with some images but I would never have taken a self directed image so far. I didn't expect the transition to black and white to be so effective. The final uncluttered image is quite striking - not something I thought that I was capable of producing. I've been feeling a bit uncertain about my abilities and this does give me a bit of encouragement.

Friday, 29 October 2010

Trip to London

Took a trip to the Barbican with my daughter to see the exhibition, Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion. To be honest it's not something I would have thought about visiting but we went on the recommendation of her Textiles teacher,
Many of the designs were clearly never going to be worn by anyone outside a fashion exhibition, but the influence of some of the designs on high street fashion was obvious. These were however primarily works of art, sculptural forms which were beautiful in their own right. A specific branch of art which happens to require a human body as support.

I particularly liked the work of Yohji Yamamoto. His designs enhanced the form of the manikins, elegant sophisticated shapes, many of which could be worn for real.

I also liked Issey Miyake whose origami derived designs were more youthful and casual.
Drawing the figures was essential to fully appreciate the works. I needed to take the time in front of individual pieces and explore the way the shapes were formed and how they interacted with each other.

Wednesday, 27 October 2010

A subjective drawing

My second item was my beloved woolly hat which has been all over the world with me

Colourful, dense, fluffy, wiry, warm, cozy,round, lumpy
I chose to represent fluffy

This is fabric sewn on with my machine. I think the back was possibly better....

Subjective drawing 2

I was interested in the effects I got from machining my drawing so I printed it out and sewed over the image on to fabric. Originally I intended to use the reverse side because it looked so good on my first attempt but it wasn't so clear using pink thread on a green background.

However I think the "right" side was effective. The machining created perforations so it was easy to tear off the surrounding paper & leave the shape of the boot.