Evaluation of the Practice Unit..

To seek inspiration for my projects I tend to dig deep and look into my personal life: whether it’s taking a trip back home to the fresh air and beauty of my surroundings; taking photographic evidence of everything I see or just simply unpicking the favorite things in my life. Colour choice and style becomes a huge part of this, as the things I design and make become representative of me and what I feel strongly about. I like to dream and live big!
I see life in colour, pattern and texture. My work is bright and vibrant and full of possibility; my ideas link from one to another and try  I to tell a story; I like my work to become a journey. I look for  beauty in everything around me; picking the positive path reflects strongly within my work. I will continually return to this in my next unit.

 
My objective with this project was to ‘find myself’ and to figure out my textile purpose. I also wanted to try out a wide variety of new techniques to stretch and test myself. The title of the ‘Practice’ unit has been very close to mind since I first began in September. My range of new techniques include the following: 

 

•    Reconstructing my warp (I.e. tying in different yarn to give my sampling a different quality)

 

•    Piece acid dying to my woven sampling in the Dye Lab

 

•    Discharge printing to woven sampling in the Print Room

 

•    The Tufting Embroidery Machine

 

•    Flocking and layering to my sampling

 

•    Iron on transfer samples

 

•    Digital Printing

 

•    A much wider variety of yarn testing

 

•    Structure testing when on the loom 

 

•    Distorting my sampling when off the loom, by brushing, teasing and embellishing. 

 

Not all of these skills have been the success that I had hoped and the picture in my mind’s eye of the direction I saw my work going did not always go to plan. Learning new processes has been fun and exciting and have all played a massive part in the final outcome of this unit.

 
My Self-Initiated samples are my least favourite out of my four submissions. I found that I didn’t appreciate how long each process would take for me to complete, and my time management became a little tricky - clearly this is a stepping stone on the learning curve for me. I’ve learnt much about where I want the final part of my degree to go and I will be replacing my piece dying with a much tidier process of dying and will keep both my warp and my weft separate allowing me to weave much stronger sampling. As I’ve fallen In love with much of my ‘artist research’  I will carry on using their influence to inspire me in the future.

 
The outcome of this unit is that I have dramatically improved my art direction skills as well as beginning to realise my potential and direction of where I could go next. Interior Design is still my aspiration as all my projects are suited to this industry. I’ve learnt that heavy structures aren’t for me, and simple yet effective designs will be my way forward.