Final bag

Nature (Spring) Project Evaluation

     When I received the brief for this project (nature) I started to look for images and artists who produced art work, not just textile related, with the theme of nature. I looked into a weaving artist called Ellen Jackson who created weave samples with pieces of shredded paper then stuck it to a plain coloured background. I chose to look at her because she weaved with paper as appose to fabrics. I thought it would be effective for me to recreate something like her work with bits of old scrap papers including old music sheets in my sketchbook. I then looked at a felting artist called Gail Crosman Moore because she created small flowers out of felt and hand sewed small beads in the middle which i enjoyed doing on my last project and wanted to incorporate into my bag. Also I though the flowers were a good link to the nature theme. This influenced me to look at flowers in my work. I then looked at Inga Hamilton for a weaving artist. I chose to look at her work because she knitted all sorts of sea life creatures and incorporated them together in a very interesting way. Again this links again to the theme of nature. I also thought some of them looked a bit like flowers which again inspired me to look into flowers. I then looked at William Morris' work for things such as wallpaper and curtains. His work consists of very bright bold patterns with flowers and leaves. After doing research on the internet I visited the Natural History Museum in London to get some good primary research. I liked all the patterns and features on the butterflies I saw there. This swayed me to the decision to chose Spring in my work and final piece. I found a book at work with loads of close up photographs of butterflies to sketch from.
     After researching spring and different artists I did a few pages of sketches with fine liners in my sketchbook then developed these onto my mood board along with paintings using a range of media such as acrylic and water colour paints. I then developed these onto my themed sheets. I did all these with fine liners over a decorated background (masking tape & paint). I looked into various flowers and butterflies and created patterns from original fine liner sketches I drew.
     From these designs I did 3 sheets of bag ideas with the flower and butterfly I liked best from my mood board and visual sheet. For my final design I used one of the previous and changed the colours. I chose to do a slouch bag because I liked the look of it better and the butterfly i wanted to do on it looked better with this style of bag. I chose to screen print the butterfly onto a red and yellow weave I did on the loom and applique it onto the front and back of my bag. I dyed my bag red with procien dye and also screen printed small silhouettes of butterflies on the top of the strap. I decided to do free hand machine embroidery around these because the screen moved slightly making the prints a bit blurry. This neatened them up and hid the fault. My final piece related well to my theme as I looked at butterflies and bright colours which relate to spring. 
     I experimented with various coloured pigment inks through screen printing onto different fabrics such as white cotton, muslin, calico and bolsalini. I used puff binder for my screen print onto bolsalini because it is black and the white was a nice contrast. These all went well and I was very pleased with them. I also did a knitted, woven and felting sample. I chose to weave on the loom because it looked better and was quicker as I was using a thin yarn because it was better for screen printing over. I did not enjoy the felting as it was very time consuming and the final product came out distorted and not very accurate to the design I was trying to portray. If my bag was to be manufactured I think it could be easily re produced because the design was simple and easy to put together.
     If I was to do this project again I would chose different colours for my final bag. I think this because I already had an idea in my head and drawn up in my bag designs before I did any samples. Some of the colours such as yellows, pinks and blues looked a lot better against a white cotton background instead of the black I used onto a dyed red fabric. Also if I did not dye my fabric first I would have had a lot more time to concentrate on the prints, woven panels and construction on the bag as it is very time consuming dying, pressing, washing and waiting for it to drying between and at the end. However I do think the woven panels went very well as in my sample the screen print blurred and didn't look as neat. Also I used thick wool as well as thin yarn to test the screen print on. In the end it looked better on the yarn. I also liked the free hand machine embroidery of the  flowers around the base of the bag which I did differently to my design as it was very plain and I didn't consider this when designing my bags. I feel like I managed my time well with the overall project apart from the sketch book which was ongoing. I seemed to push it to the side whilst getting into the sheet work and final bag!
     I am pleased with the project as a whole but as mentioned above would have thought about sampling before creating a final bag design in order to see what looks best and fits better with the theme.