Textiles final piece evaluation

Overall I'm not too happy with my final piece as I originally felt it was too flat when it was just cream and brown, although I liked the pattern I'd created with the small pieces of paper. But looking at my research on morpho butterflies, the cocoons are green so I decided to add some texture and colour to the cocoon bodice by glueing kitchen roll to the paper and painting it with watercolours. This gives a stiffness to the kitchen roll and makes it really textured. The kitchen roll soaks up the watercolour and the colours blend really well. I stippled over the whole bodice with brown and green acrylic paint also to give the colour some depth.

If I was to redo the garment I would probably paper mâché around an actual person, as the mannequin I paper mached around was a strange shape when I tried it on myself. I might also build the shape up a bit more and create a more angular bodice like the angular cocoons. I probably would add more blue for the wings too and maybe create this in a more delicate style, possibly with a satin fabric :)

I'm happy with all the research I've undertaken and the skills I've learned / developed, however I wish I'd had more time to put these skills into a better final piece.

Textiles - Finished final piece

Textiles - final piece - macrame neck

Textiles - final piece - adapted to be greener

Textiles - final piece - frills on skirt

Textiles - start of final piece - butterfly cocoon

Marbling ink video

This is a short video of me just playing with the ink on the surface of the water to give you some idea of how the ink reacts to the water :) enjoy!

My marbling ink samples

These are the photos I took while I was using the marbling inks! I used a tray and poured some water into it - not a lot but enough to fill the bottom with a little depth.

 

Below are the marbling inks I used, I didn't have many colours but they are all quite bright.

This is the sample that looks like elephant skin, all I did was drip some black ink into the water and it started to spread out so I quickly threw a piece of white cotton in to capture the ink as it was spreading! I really like this sample actually and I also think it looks a little like water where the light catches the ripples, only on the bit where the ink has spread out more though.

This was a paper sample I did but the ink just stuck to the paper and looked really greasy! It also took absolutely ages to dry and it's made the paper more, sort of, brittle as well. It does look quite cool now it's dried though!

This is a small fabric sample where I was just playing with colours and how they swirled around each other but didn't blend together! The power of ink! I vaguely remember why from science lessons at secondary school... something about hydrophobic and hydrophilic, oil is hydrophobic so has a "phobia" of water and therefore they won't mix! Hydrophilic is when the substance will mix with water :) science taught me something at least...

 

For this sample I used black and orange inks to try and create a tiger fur kind of effect, however the colours stayed mainly in their 'blobs', rather than spreading and forming stripes like I'd hoped, but ah well, it's all experimenting! This was also on paper and has given the paper brittle, greasy kind of feel.

These four images show the process, the first shows the ink having been dripped into the water, it just sort of stays in it's blobs and gradually begins to spread out, but doesn't mix.

To create this effect I have just swirled the colours round with a stick to make swirls and mix the colours more.

I then put four small pieces of cotton into the water and as you can see, they have soaked up the ink! :)

These are the four pieces of cotton that I marbled, now stuck into my book! I like the top two best as they both capture the swirls that I created.

Marbling inks

"Suminagashi or "floating ink" is the process of marbling plain paper with water and ink to transform it into something vibrant and colorful. It originated in Japan as early as the 12th century."

This is traditional marbling that I found on youtube, I have some marbling inks so I tried this technique out and it produced some great pieces of work! I originally was going for how 'scum' is like a skin on top of water, like a swirly, oily, foamy froth, and having used marbling inks as a child, I remembered that they might be able to portray the kind of effect that I wanted.

I ended up having a play with them and created something that looked like elephant skin! I also used white cotton mostly instead of paper to see what kind of effect that created, which looks fab because the cotton soaks up the ink. The only problem I found was that when you pull the paper / fabric out of the water the inks run a little, but you just have to be careeful when removing it. Sometimes its good to drip the inks in and then leave them, rather than swirling them round with a stick, this is what created the elephant skin effect. I videoed myself using the technique so I shall put that up on here too along with pictures of what I created.

Idea for skins project - butterfly wings / cocoon

Mum just inspired me! I really love looking at the microscopic images of butterfly wings and how they are the skin on the wings so the butterfly can fly! She mentioned that they have a butterfly farm at her school and how they can watch the butterflies "shed their skins" and turn from caterpillars into butterflies! This have me a great idea to show the shedding of the cocoon and the bright butterfly underneath! I'll do some initial sketches later before the idea turns to mush in my brain - but this idea looks like a good one :D fingers crossed!

Butterfly wing scarf

Found a scarf that reminded me of the pattern on butterfly wings- could create this kind of effect using batik and then painting the sections with fabric paint / dye

Tights! Like a second skin?

While sat with a pair of tights on I noticed the tiny pattern on them and took a photo! Tights are skin tight, like a second skin, so this relates to y skins project! I could make some sort of skin tight garment, all about covering up? Not being comfortable in your own skin? This tiny pattern could possibly be created using knit? But on a larger scale, obviously! Hmm thinking time...

Butterfly wings - furry?

It's almost like there's a fur on the wings that leads into tiny scales, this could bring another element into my garment designs when I get to that stage in the project! These images fascinate me :D

Microscopic butterfly wings - skins research

Microscopic butterfly wings, look like scales! Beautiful colours, some rounded on the ends, some spiky! So interesting, so many ideas for garments just looking at these 3 pictures! would be very difficult to get some primary research on this so could weaken my designs, however there's plenty of secondary research available!

Skins inspired garments - scales

Corset / leotard snake skin inspired? Scales, very textured! Really like this, simple colours and small garment but very effective. On a larger scale such as a dress could look even more extravagant, maybe add colours? Would be very time consuming but definitely worth it! Might have to make a sample for this in my sketchbook...

Ezcema

Ezcema in the crease of the elbow - skin diseases / problems

Leopard dress

Fashion based on 'Skins' theme- current project in textiles. leopard print dress, fur, leopard skin, dress is prom style? Looks like brown satin / crushed satin for main fabricMoral issues - death of an animal to create this garment