Final scarf!

I have completed my final scarf! It was a long and sometimes frustrating process but I am happy with the overall result!
There were a few problems along the way which I had to resolve such as rolling the seam and stitching it, a very fiddly job and also had to make sure I selected the right stitch tension on my machine, as the fabric at one point kept getting chewed up. It was quite a task working on such a bigger scale when painting my design onto the screen, as I'm so used to working on a smaller scale. Also the large size of the screen meant I had to keep rotating it so I could reach the top of it to paint my design. I needed help when printing onto the fabric as the screen needed to be held in place as I used the squegee. Fortunately my design did not come out smudged because I had help holding down the screen. However there was a slight pink tinge down the centre of the scarf when I removed the screen but I think it works with a hint of colour in the background to correspond with the pinks and purples of the lilies. The only other problems I encountered was the time it took to dry, then fix in the steamer then wash and allow to dry, the size meant it would take double the time for these tasks to be completed as opposed to my smaller sample sizes.
 I am very happy with the way the design falls when draped around the neck as it has a flowing and trailing effect with hints of the different colours. The size of the scarf works really well too as it is more versatile to style i.e tie around the neck in a knot or worn hanging either side.
The design is also versatile enough to be a pattern on a maxi dress with the way it falls down the silk too. If I was to design this scarf again I would possibly introduce a background colour so dye the silk before printing onto it. The design is quite striking on the blank background though I think a soft, pastel colour could add a more deep and vibrant character to the design.

Final scarf piece - the process!

                                         

Over the past couple of days I have made a start on my final scarf piece which has been quite hard to say the least! The Habotai silk I used is a square meter in size ,which first of all involved folding over the edges and pinning in place which took a while! After pinning I then used an iron to carefully iron the folded edges in place, the frayed edges were still visible so I then folded the edges over once more and pinned in place. It took quite a while on my sewing machine to stitch the seam as I had to keep changing the tension on the dial of my sewing machine as it kept eating up my silk! Though carefully retrieved my eaten fabric and started again with a looser tension and a very fine straight stitch.
My next task was painting my Lily design onto a very large screen, this was quite tricky as I had to keep rotating the screen so I was able to cover the whole area of the screen with my design. After much time drying I used a squeegee to print the design onto the silk. I taped my fabric to some paper and rolled around a tube to be put in the steamer for fifteen minutes to completely fix my design onto the silk. At the moment my crinkly silk needs washing in cold and hot soapy water to get rid of excess dyes, which I will wash at home as it's fairly big enough to hang out on the washing line!

Final design proposal...

Above is my design for my final silk scarf! It is an A2 watercolour piece painted from an observation of lovely Lilies. I have slightly exaggerated the colours to have a more vibrant and vivid effect against the pale, white background. The red and green complimentary colours also add to this appealing design. The Lilies work their way upwards going from large to small so when printed onto silk the wearer has a nice trailing effect of florals when draped or tied around their neck.
Before printing onto the silk (Habotai silk) I will roll the seams of the square metre of silk and use a very short and fine stitch to prevent fraying and make the scarf look professional (as from my secondary research I found all silk scarves have this finish).
I won't dye the fabric as I really like the idea of a white background as it looks quite pure and projects the design quite well, also I was worried about having too many colours in my colour palette.
I aim to start printing this Thursday as this large design could take a while to produce!

Online portfolio and selling my work...

I have recently created an online portfolio of my work which is....

http://tulipdesigns.carbonmade.com/projects/4279936#1

At the moment I have just made a portfolio of my my final major project work so I can upload primary photographs, drawings, paintings, fabric print samples etc but I hope to add previous works to my account soon and also my handmade cards.
Also I'm going to create an Etsy account to promote my handmade cards and hopefully sell them. It will also give me an idea of what it is like to sell online, keeping track of orders and sending cards. Selling online also gives me the benefit of a larger audience (The Teenage Market quite limited to buyers) and so my designs need to be more varied and look at designing a new range of hand made cards for pother audiences. I will look at expanding my greetings cards for other occasions such as engagements, new house and sympathy cards.
Another way to sell and promote my work is speaking face to face with shop owners and asking if they would be interested in selling my cards, the downside to this is that they could take a large amount of commission, however this will be a good way to get my work around. In the next two weeks I will aim to get this done!

The Teenage Market stall....

Just got back from The Teenage Market today and had quite a successful day! Sold half of my greetings cards and a couple of fashion illustrations which was brilliant as I thought I was going to come home with a huge surplus of stock! I have never had a market stall before so this was very new to me, I felt a little self conscious doing a stall on my own but found it easy talking to people who asked about my cards. I also enjoyed having my own stall as I was able to present my cards and signs however I liked, more importantly I had to layout my cards to appeal to the public and keep re arranging them when people bought things or picked them up.
It was a lovely day packed with a variety of stalls including second hand clothing, jewellery, photography, printed t shirts and some tasty looking cup cakes! It was nice having people looking at my work and getting it out there, people were very nice and someone suggested that I should make more of my good luck cat card! It also helped seeing what sold well or did not sell in order to have enough stock for next time. The cards which sold well were the watercolour florals of sweet peas and tulips (so in future stalls will produce a lot more of this particular design), I was quite surprised that my biro drawings of florals didn't sell to well as I thought the textures and shades were quite striking. the greetings cards with the drips of paints falling down the page sold fairly well to but I think I could develop those into a more busier card as they are quite simple against the blank background.
For future stalls I think I would maybe produce watercolour paintings of my flowers and possibly bigger fashion illustrations as they could work well as paintings, this would also mean I could charge more for paintings due to the larger scale of the work. It would have been nice to suspend my cards against the back wall so people would be able to see my work from a distance (attract more buyers).
Taking part in The Teenage Market has given me more confidence to take part in future fairs and to be able to talk about my work more openly, it was also reassuring to know that people would buy my work and speaking to people helped me find out their dislikes and likes with designs. This has given me a head start to think about how I will present my space at the degree show soon and what to include such as, layout, business cards, illustrations etc.
I really enjoyed the experience and a great way to publicise your work, now I need to start making more and find another craft fair!

Sample scarves....

Just thought I would add a few photos of how my scarves are coming along. Have been wrapping and tying them around my mannequin to see how the designs fall and drape. As they are sample scarves they can only be worn tied in a short knot around the neck or hang loosely either side. However I do feel quite happy with the size as there are a number of scarves that are fashioned in this way. I think for the end of year exhibition I shall be taking along my trusty mannequin!

Teenage market stall...

In between all of the hustle and bustle of my final major project, I took some time out to think how to market my work and most importantly start designing business cards (in preparation for the degree show).
I thought about getting my business cards professionally printed but it would loose the textures and shades of my drawing, I like to stick to old traditions and methods! It did take some time to make the business cards but I'm very pleased with the outcome. I have showed my business cards to a few people and have been asked why I did not draw tulips (as my business name is Tulip Designs) but I thought the essence of my work is mainly floral patterns and paintings, I like the sound of Tulip and it has pretty and flowery connotations which sums up my work!
Luckily I found a great opportunity to sell some of my work locally at The Teenage Market, which is happening inside the old Stockport Market hall 1st April. The stalls were free to young designers/students which was a big plus! For the stall I will be selling greetings cards and fashion illustration postcards, however I still have a few to produce yet. I'm looking forward to getting a taster of what it is like to sell my work, also to think from a business perspective and how I will price my work and present it. It's going to be a really busy day from the sounds of it and so many varied stalls ranging from vintage/second hand clothes stalls to dancing! http://www.theteenagemarket.com/

Silk screen print samples...

Managed to book time in the print room and finally get started on some sample silk screen prints! Unfortunately I have only completed two silk print designs at the moment but aim to produce several more on Tuesday! I used an A3 size board to paint my designs onto as I wanted to create bigger, fuller designs, as I tend to stick to small and confined paintings.
I'm very happy with how they both came out and especially how some of the colours have merged together. The Peacock design is exactly the kind of colour palette I want to use and I also think these two particular designs (I copied from my current sketchbook) fit well in a scarf design as they have a good flowing, trailing effect. It will be good to hang these samples from a mannequin and see how the design appears when wrapped around a neck and how they can be worn.
My next step in designing is possibly trapping some fake flowers against a painted background and putting into the heat press, I would love to see what kind of outlines and shapes this may give the fabric.

Pattern designs...

After speaking to Jane Bews who suggested I look into fashion, I started to produce pattern designs that could be used in fashion. I used watercolours to capture translucent and flowing effects of silk, which is the fabric I want to use when I produce my final outcomes. I decided to use the beautiful iridescent colours of peacocks and also thought they had a sense of elegance and beauty which I could reflect in my designs. I've started off with a few dress designs but hope to upload a few scarf designs too so will keep you posted!

New year, new brief!

Have been thinking about Final Major Project and decided my next brief will be to design and make a collection of silk scarves to be sold in a highly desirable designer shop, e.g Selfridges. Which is similar to the negotiated brief but this time I want to pursue it further and come up with some really striking colours and designs!
For themes I have decided to focus on floral, insects and birds, Peacocks in particular! I have been inspired by iridesent and transparent blue hues and greens. Also want to try and capture the patterns on insects wings and the Peacock's feathers for some colourful, abstract inspired designs. 
 At the moment just compiling research together and drawings, have taken a few photographs of some pretty, pink Orchids (above) because they have such a beautiful shape.

Final Scarf Design

Finally completed final scarf design! After many decisions on what colours, print technique, type of fabric and dimensions to consider! My final design measures a square metre, (which I decided on from measuring some of my own scarves) is a discharge print, using dark pink and warm red and brown colours. I decided on creating a scarf which would also be warm and durable enough to wear in cold weather as well as just for aesthetic purposes, this is why in the end I decided not to continue to design a silk scarf as the fabric is quite delicate and fine. However I think it loses its exclusivity from using discharge print as opposed to silk screen printing.

I decided on a trailing and overlapping layout, as I like the way the roses appear to move and cross over creating more interlocking lines and shapes; this I feel works very well and is a good feature of the design.  When the scarf is worn and drapes around the neck, it also has a positive and trailing effect too.

Unfortunately when I was printing I used a bit too much paste which has left lines, although I like to think it could work as it is repeated throughout the design so could be part of the design?  Another problem with the print is the colours. Though I selected pink, red and brown they were a little too muddy and darker than I would have liked. When I was researching Liberty and Echo Designs they used sharp and bright colours which had a contemporary style, though I don’t think I mixed the dyes very well to create these bright, pop colours! 

Though after all of the testing and trialling of printing and designing patterns I’m pleased with the outcome. 

More experiments....

I’ve been continuing with my experiments in the print room of floral prints and colours. This time I added more texture and tonal variety by being braver and mixing different dyes together. I’m really pleased with how the heat press samples turned out as the colours look very strong, whereas in the last samples they looked a little weak and the designs too being very small. Also wanted to work on a larger scale of fabric with my silk screen printing just to be freer with my designing and enlarge features of the flowers. Working on bigger pieces of silk also helped me see how the silk would hang and drape and how the design looked from this. I wanted to use Liberty’s idea of shocking and sharp colours to have a more modern take on the florals as sometimes with floral designs they can look a little oldy worldy.  

I also found a very useful book in the Library today, with many photographs of Orchids and Lilies that I think I will start using in my designs; getting to the point where am painting the same one flower over and over again – not good!  I will use this book as a resource for doing a few more large scale paintings of flowers.  It would be nice to have long trailing Orchids flowing down the fabric so it appears as though they are moving.


The images above are photos of my most current silk screen prints and heat press prints which I have layered ontop of one another, want to organise them on a couple of boards so I can present my experiments and sampling to other people.

Printing samples and experiments...

Silk screen print

Heatpress transfer

Heatpress transfer

Two Layered silk screen pieces

Two layered silk screened pieces

I’ve been busy in the print room the past couple of days! After spending much time painting and collecting various bits and bobs for primary research I felt ready to get on with some printing. I have been experimenting with various designs, motifs and colours using heat press transfer print and silk screen printing. I choose these two methods as I like the see through and trailing appearance and often ghostly effect the print can give. I also put the mirror effect techniques to good use and continued my theme into colour.

The transfer print of the roses motif worked considerably well and I think the strong red outlines are very bold, I’d like to pursue this one as a repeat print. Perhaps a nice silk scarf? Though the top image of the blue flowers could work better if it were to be repeated multiple times, thus giving a fading and disappearing effect.

Unfortunately, I feel that some of my transfer prints ended up a little too ghostly and quite transparent! I think that I probably didn’t use enough dye and mix it enough, however these ghoulish pieces compliment very well when layered on top of each other (like I have done in the photograph of the silk prints) as you can see subtle lines and colours peering underneath. Maybe this could be an idea to use when mounting work and presenting? I think to push these designs a little further I could do with repeating a motif several times as the blank white background is a little plain. I think I could see these prints working well on silk scarves as well as print for a dress, so looking into how print can be applied like border, repeat, motif are things to consider when designing a final outcome too.

Negotiated Brief

Bright Colours

Old Glamour My Studio Space

I decided to take a different route with my design work and will be focusing on the fashion side of surface pattern design. I've been inspired by bright colours, jewels, paints, insects, florals, Madame Gres dresses, P. Horst and old glamour! My brief is to design a pattern to be printed onto fabric, suited for a runway dress. So far I have collated my drawings, photographs and scans from books/magazines to create two moodboards. One moodboard theme is Old Glamour where I have gone for black and white colours only, to reflect the idea of old fashion and P. Horst's photography. My second moodboard is Bright Colours, which is about fun fashion, bright paints, paint experiments and florals.

My next step is to experiment with silk screen printing and hopefully combine my two themes together to create patterns.