I particulary like this photographic step by step of how people in Turkmenistan create large traditional felted rugs, the process is exactly the same as normal wet felting just on a larger scale.

]]> http://departmentart.co.uk/2010/10/food-drink-fashion-show/feed/ 2 http://departmentart.co.uk/2011/04/food-and-drink-fashion-show/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=food-and-drink-fashion-show http://departmentart.co.uk/2011/04/food-and-drink-fashion-show/#comments Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:18:20 +0000 Mr. Sands http://departmentart.co.uk/?p=3010 The Food and Drink Fashion show inspired by Food and Drink was such a great success we have now expanded our curriculum to include BTEC/GCSE Level 2 and 3 Fashion courses and a bi annual showcases. Not only did it showcase the high quality designs produced by our Yr 10/11 BTEC Textiles Learners, the event also raised nearly £200 for the ‘Sniff for Life’ charity.

Fashion Show Publicity

Photo: Dominika & Model: Hannah 2011

KS5 In the City Fashion Project

Urban Catwalk Example: Dominika 2011

Passion and Obsession: Becoming Cheryl

Student Video: Joanne 2010

BTEC Level 3 Project: Surfaces

Fashion Shoot: Joanne 2010

Whilst visiting the Radical Nature exhibition at the Barbican centre, I noticed an interesting, igloo type hut, constructed out of layered wooden planks. The hut had an intriguing exterior, which links to my current project – Surfaces. This detailed structure influenced by textile response, layering cuttings of fabric into rows and stitching them onto a base material. The artist Eilean Agar uses a similar response with her ‘Hat and Gloves’, by layering wooden style chippings. My piece creates a sense of movement and uneven texture.

Eilean Agar

When visiting East London, I came across an indoor market, finding an old, worn, patterned chair. I wanted to recreate its pattern into textiles, so chose to weave the design with strips of fabric. I managed to find a similar weaving design which replicated the pattern, called Twill. I alternated the Twill weave up and down to create a similar zig-zag effect to the chair’s pattern. The contrast between the two colour strips concentrates on the intricate interlacing of the materials.

Whilst on the lookout for interesting surfaces to inspire me for my textiles project, a bamboo and wooden looking woven plant pot caught my eye.

I wanted to give my own textiles response to this surface, finding materials in different shades of brown to cut into strips and weave simply. This idea was very successful and reflected the original plant pot pattern very well. The pattern could also act as a parallel to the intertwining of plant branches.

At The Barbican, surrounding the actual building is a presentation of peaceful nature such as unusual plants and water features. As my brief is titled Surfaces, I found a spikey, long grass type plant, sprawled everywhere in an attractive way.

This influenced me to create a similar type of grass produced as a textiles response. After using a piece of green fabric as a base for my grass, I then machine stitched folded up snippets of woolen string onto this. This managed to create a randomized, spikey and realistic looking grass from textiles. The contrast between different shades of coloured woolen string helps to represent the tones and highlights of natural grass.

At my local train station, located inside was a silver public telephone point. At closer inspection I noticed the metal had an interesting patterned surface which I really liked the look of.

I was inspired by this to create a smocking piece which would hold much influence from the telephone point’s pattern. I tried to find a smocking style which most represented the surface, and I found the Honeycomb smock suited it well.

The intricate details of my smocking – the pleats and the embroidery, could even reflect the imagery of a mass of phone wires all connected in some way.

The idea of using stains as a theme for the surfaces project came accidentally when I lifted up my cup to see a ring stain left on a piece of cloth. I started to create and develop stains investigating how they reacted with different materials and surfaces e.g. paper, large wooded areas and fabric.

To extend the stains experiments further I introduced photographic chemicals and the Photogram/Raygram process inspired by Man Ray introducing a series of drips and exploring the positive and negative space.

I was very pleased with how the ring stains on the photogram turned out and decided to experiment with these pictures using ICT, scanning them onto photoshop and manipulating the colours.

From there I moved into 3D and relief casting as I wanted to explore the outcome of lifting the stains looking at the height and depth while using the same colour scheme from my ICT experiments.

Recently I have been experimenting with ‘accidental’ stains e.g where a cup of tea was thrown at a white dress, whilst maintaining the colour scheme from previous works.  I’ve  stitched around the stains to enhance them which is influenced by Nava Lubelski who stitches around stains on table cloths, canvas, paper and sheets to expose the beautiful, colourful abstract movement of the stain.

Nava Lubelski