Week Five. 22nd October.

This week was reading week and I concentrated on my dissertation.

Week Four. 15th October.

After doing dye samples I dyed up larger lengths of fabric, which were quite successful, and were true colours.

I began documenting my found objects using watercolours, doing small studies of mainly mussel shells, as these were the ones I was most interested in for their colours. These were quite successful and I intend to carry on with them.






I created a colour atlas, of eight pages, for the reactive dye digital printer on silk habotai this week. this will be very useful if I decide to do digital prints, and will be good to use in collaboration with my RGB colours I have already chosen.






Working in the print room this week we experimented with different techniques, I was using devore, and in particular, reverse devore, By using opaque binder with a design and then an open screen, the binder will resist the devore and so the surrounding fabric will be burnt away leaving a small up-raised design. This worked particularly well on silk viscose velvet (which will take natural dyes) and I am interested in experimenting with this technique when appropriate.

Week Three. 8th October.

This week I continued with natural dye samples. For this project I think choosing and finalising colours correctly are very important, as this is one of the main reasons I was drawn to this subject.
I experimented with fresh red cabbage, pickled red cabbage and beetroot, I achieved some wondeful colours and I am very excited about using them further on.







For the next few weeks we have taught sessions in the print room, to familiarise ourselves with the new equipment and recap techniques that are available to us. This week we worked on Digital printing, with Reactive dyes, pigment and sublimation papers, there were some good techniques which I may explore further.

I have been lookinga t the work of Sara Singh and Sara Midda. I think their watercolour and ink techniques would be a valuable and useful medium for me to explore when drawing my found objects.

Week Two. 1st October.

The week began with me exploring my colour pallet. Having my found objects to draw colour inspiration from, I worked from photographs and the objects themselves to choose my colours. I firstly painted tabs of around 3inches square in acrylic to achieve a good, flat colour, using a base of grey made from the primary colours to achieve a good depth of colour. When I was satisfied with my colours I scanned them into the computer and regrouped them with the revelvant RGB numbers.



I began natural dye samples this week, working with fresh Elderberries, on Silk, Linen and Cotton, using Tin, Iron and Alum mordants. I mordanted for one hour and dyed for twenty minutes, having previously found this to be the best timing, I kept to these times for all dye samples. I really like the colours achieved by the Elderberries, and am definatley interested in using them further on in the project.



Influenced by fashion illustrator Maxime Touratier I began exploring different ways of drawing my shells. Using darkroom developing to emulate Touratier's style I created some illustrations. Although I liked these, I did not feel that they would work within my project, although I did not rule them out completely.

Week One. 24th September

My Project is based on a beach/ocean theme, having visited various beach locations over the summer and collecting objects, I decided that this would be a good theme to work with. I have never worked with a theme similar to this before, and am interested in what I could do.

The first week of this project was based around briefing, image collecting and thinking about possible fabrics and colour-ways.
I started by photographing my found objects of shells, pebbles, and driftwood.





I had an idea that I wanted to work with natural dyes so I mordanted up lengths of 1.5metres of fabrics- silk, linen and cotton, in Tin, Iron and Alum mordants ready for doing samples when I was ready.
I enjoy working with natural dyes for their subtlety and depth of colour, and think that it will be a fitting medium for this theme. I also want to work with other techniques, but will use natural dyes for my starting point.