Drawing Qualification

Museum Project

So.. here I am, my first week of college. It's not exactly how I had thought it to be. I'm finding it kind of hard to settle in, and as if that wasn't enough, we have to go to the museum today and I dont even know where it is!
We had to go there and have a look at the art work and 'feel inspired'. I had never been to it before. The gallery was set up by mill owners of the local area quite a while ago, as they felt that they should give something back to the community. We were told to look at 2-3 paintings and work in our sketchbooks. I'm not really the kind of person to feel inspired by a painting because I'm not interested in paintings and the underlying meaning that they may be trying to convey, so I'm feeling that this trip may just be slightly meaningless to me but I'm not giving up just yet!
As soon as we were told that we had to go to the museum, we set off to go, only to find as we got there that it was closed! So we went back a little later, and to our relief it was open this time.. we were left to go explore.
I wasn't really interested in the paintings so I wandered off to The Hart Gallery.. in this there were beautiful books and texts that I just fell in love with.. they had Qurans that were written with liquid metals such as gold, silver and platinum. I had never seen anything like it before and my gaze just drew towards them. There were also images taken from these books that were stuck behind them.. this is islamic calligraphy and I think it is just breathtaking.. I really love it and want to delve further into it and research it - its origin, its meaning.. everything. I feel so passionately about this because it is a part of who I am. Because I am a muslim and we read from the Quran, it just seems so beautiful and I would love to do something relating to this. I feel I would do better with the project as it is so close to me.

The Quran with liquid metals

A progression from this could be that it leads me on to actually do some islamic calligraphy myself, draw some intricate patterns that come with it. I have noticed that the trend these days in interior design , so on wallpapers, furnishings and furniture seems to be of similar stye to the patterns and designs in these books. I know this because last year, for my A levels, I kind of, sort of thought at one point that I want to do interior design and I researched all the latest trends and visited a few interior design shops and thats the kind of thing that I found and instantly liked.

The Quran with intricate patterns

Drawing with liquid metals

So after I got out of the Hart Gallery, I went downstairs and stumbled upon an asian part of the museum. I felt as though I was just meant to visit this place. It just goes to show that even though you might not be too keen on doing something, you should still give it a go, because you never know where it will take you, and what you might discover.

Asian Textiles

I am really interested in doing textiles as my pathway, so when I saw all these pieces of cloth with these repeated patterns all over them, I took a lot of photos, and even did a little sketch from one of them that I really liked. the printing blocks that had been used to print fabrics similar to these were also displayed. I didn't know that that's how these fabrics woiuld have been printed. I had always assumed that the method of getting such patterns was much more intricate, time consuming and just hard. I would like to give it a try for myself and see how it all turns out. The printing blocks were from Pakistan and Lancashire so it kind of brought the 2 places together. I just had an idea whilst i was typing this!

Printing Block

I quite like the idea of doing something that would bring the 2 cultures together.. east and west..
I don't quite know how I would do this.. it requires some deep thought and consideration, 2 things which I cannot do right now so I will have to get back to it.

So, anyway, I saw that repeated patterns were used a lot on these fabrics and they clearly weren't items from a recent time. This goes to show that at one time a style may be fashionable for a while and then lose its touch only to reappear and become fashionable again at a later date. That is what has happened with this particular design and the whole idea of repeated patterns. I sat there and did a drawing of the pattern from the fabric shown.

Drawing of the pattern from the fabric

I also liked these japanese prints and kimonos that I saw. These were in the Hart gallery. There was only one kimono there, inside a glass case kind of thing, which made it look really special. To be honest, in my opinion, I didn't think it was all that special. It looked kind of plain to me, but I still liked it. Sometimes, simplicity is nice and I think perhaps this was one of those times.

I got talking to Jo about the japanese prints and kimono and she told me about this designer called Issey Miyake who makes/designs these kind of clothes. When I researched him and his style, I found that what he makes/desings are baggy sort of shapeless clothes/ kimonos and I'm not a fan of them. At first, I was interested.. they were different and I haven't really seen many people wearing them as they are traditional chinese wear.

Issey Miyake designs

Chinese Kimono

An idea emerged from this kimono research. I thought that maybe I could link the japanese culture with my own and perhaps make a kimono but not a traditional one - this one would be personal to me. Instead of having a chinese plainish print on it, I could print some patterns such as the ones from the indian textiles I saw and loved. That would really make it different and it would mean that I was adding my own twist to it.
These are just possible ideas and nothing is certain yet. They need to be discussed and thought about further in detail.

Thursday 13th September - Discussing Ideas
Today, I had a chat with Jo. We had a discussion about my work, my ideas and where I have got up to. She told me to photograph everything which I thought was a good idea as I hadn't really been doing much of that. I hadn't known that it was important. A good idea would be to on Tuesday especially, seeing as we were experiencing all the different workshops, take a picture of the setup of what we were going to do, a couple of my work in progress and then one at the end to show the end result. This would help my blog and help me to describe what I have been doing and how useful it has been.
Also, the trip that we made to the museum seemed to be kind of forgotten about, and we had to do a project on it. The first time we went to the museum, it was kind of sprung upon us on the day and I didn't have my camera with me, but I had still taken pictures on my phone. I took another look at the pictures and thought about what I could do with them - research the things that I liked.
In the Hart gallery, I was drawn to the islamic calligraphy and the old Quran's that were on display. A possible idea that I have thought of from the calligraphy is that I could perhaps enlarge it, draw certain bits of it, add a background maybe, draw some of the patterns with it. These are all ideas that I am going to look into further and maybe I could develop some of them into final pieces - on a canvas and have 3 that all link to each other.

Also, I could look into the colours and fabrics of ancient tribal india and old indian drawings. One thing I need to find out is if any contemporary artists have done anything like this so I can look at them for inspiration. Another idea could be that if I went down the fashion route, perhaps I could make a western item of clothing with an eastern/indian print - this is one idea I am really looking forward to reserching and taking further.

I want all my work to link together, so when we went to the museum, I was really into the patterns and textiles which I saw in the Asia/India section, and from there I have been looking at pattern. The next workshop that I have is 3D and I think it would be a good idea if I did a wire drawing of the pattern that I drew from the museum. It's an almost paisley with a flower on the side. From this perhaps I could look into paisley further. This trip turned out to be more useful than I thought in the end - I actually got something out of it - an idea, inspiration to research these patterns and texts further.

Thursday 20th September - Pathways
The first thing that I did was print off photos from the museum in Blackburn. I had to pay a second visit as when we went the first time, I didnt have my camera and the camera on my phone isn't very good.
I did some artists research after this. I started by looking at an artist called Sonya Suhariyan.

To be precise, she is an illustrator. Her illustrations initially start as hand drawings, and then are finished up in Photoshop for a few final details.
I wasn't really interested in this field, but when I saw her work, I wanted to give it a go. I stumbled upon her whilst I was flicking through one of Jo's books. In her illustrations, she includes lots of floral designs and patterns, and this links in perfectly with my theme for the museum project, but I don't want it to just stop there. I want this theme to flow through into other units, because I think that this way, I can explore different ideas and techniques. I can have one starting point e.g. an image and then I can take it into different areas such as printmaking, visual communications, textiles etc.
Whilst I was looking at Suhariyan's work, I happened to stumble upon the work of Catalina Estrada, who is also an illustrator. Catalina brings all the colors and power of Latin-American folklore and refines it with a subtle touch of European sophistication. Her ability for creating fascinating illusive worlds, full of colors, nature, and enchanting characters, bursts in all of her works.

When I first started researching artists, I didn't think I would be researching illustrators or be looking into design, but I just happened to stumble upon these artists, and I'm glad I did!
So, after and still looking at Catalina's work, I have noticed that she uses a lot of repeated and geometric patterns in her work. Perhaps the next thing that I need to research is this. Whilst I'm on the topic of geometric patterns, I saw some at the Blackburn museum and also at the Walker gallery. At the Blackburn museum/gallery, I saw the patterns in the Hart Gallery, which consists of books, and the books that I saw them in were the Quran, which were written and illustrated in liquid gold, so they are really precious. I want to tie all these things together, and by looking at these artist's work, it will help me to achieve this.
I feel that perhaps I may be moving away from the original idea that I started off from which was repeated patterns and sacred texts from holy books. When I was looking through some illustration books, and I saw this artist's work, I felt drawn towards it and the urge to do something about it was empowering. I think I probably will do some illustration. This will also help with my drawing skills as I would like to develop these as I think that they are limited as I haven't really done drawing where I felt that I have enjoyed it or the end result was pleasing.

UNIT 18 - DRAWING AND REPRODUCTION
Tuesday 18th September - Workshops

Activity 4 - Visual Communication - Drawing and Reproduction (Afternoon)

Ideally for this workshop, it would have been better if I had taken my own image to use but as I didnt have one, I started off by looking through a Vogue magazine for an image to trace as that is the first thing that we had to do. I found an image of a model from MIU MIU dated 23-26th May 2012 - it was an image of a model who is wearing a suit with a repeated pattern all over it.

This really appealed to me as I like patterns and it kind of follows on from the museum work that I started because that was about pattern.

I traced it onto tracing paper, including lots of detail of the clothes, and all of the small patterns on the clothes that the model was wearing. Then I traced my drawing onto a page in my book using something called CARBON PAPER. This was used for typewriters originally, but these days not many people have them anymore and it is now difficult to get hold of.

The tracing I did in my book using carbon paper looked like I had done it with pen - it is really dark and bold. At first, I didn't really like it as I felt it was too dark, but then the more I looked at it, the more I began to see how it stood out againt the white page.

Then, Jo photocopied my tracing and the original picture onto acetate and paper, changing the scale on some of the photocopies so I could experiment further with the images. I used one of the photocopied images to apply PVA glue to and stuck it onto some thick canvas fabric. This process is called IMAGE MAKER. The glue transfers the image onto the fabric. I didn't think this technique would work because Jo had said that there was something actually called image maker that could be used but was too expensive and PVA did just as good a job. I had to wait until it was fully to see the results, after I peel the paper away.

When I did finally peel the paper away after waiting a couple of days for the glue to dry, I was less than pleased with the end result. I was hoping that it would have been a clearer image, but I realised it would have been but in some places, I had rubbed it too hard and the actual image had started to fade. I think the technique can be very effective, but you have to be careful when rubbing the paper away as too much can be taken away. I most likely will use this technique again, but I might try using a colour image and see how that turns out.
Also, due to the fact that I didn't have my own image for this, I had been leafing through some magazines and I had practically ripped a whole magazine apart by the end of the session - I had a huge pile of magazine pages ripped out when I had only really needed a couple of images. I decided to keep these as they may be of use in the future and that is exactly what happened whilst developing another technique.
(add picture of first drawing)

To take my work further, I tried experimenting with some clay. The last time that I had used clay was in high school, so I was a bit worried thinking it wouldn't turn out how I wanted it to. but the end result was better than expected.

Activity 3 - 3D (Morning)

First, Kim showed us the different kinds of wires that we could use to 'spot weld'. This is where you join 2 or more pieces of wire together in one place - it melts the wires together. The different kinds of wires were copper, silver and florist's wire (which is mainly used to display artificial flowers) and is really easy to shape. Copper wire is best for straight lines, silver wire is good for bold outlines and is moderately easy to shape.

I kind of lost interest when Kim was talking about the different kinds of wires and what they're most suited for.. I knew this was not a pathway that I would be delving into.

I chose to use the florist's wire at first to use to draw the pattern from the museum, so this way my work and ideas are continuous. It was really tricky and fiddly, and required a lot of patience. Lucky for me, thats one thing I have a lot of!

This is the process of which I made the wire drawing of the paisley flower one from the museum

The drawing was really detailed and curvy, as I like things to be small and detailed but this did not help the cause. It was difficult to draw with the florists wire. I only did most of the outlines of the bigger shapes, as to make a shape, I had to cut the wire, bend it/twist it to the shape that I wanted, and then twist it around another piece of wire I had already shaped so it stays in place. So, as I was doing this, the wire was bending out of shape, so I had to keep reshaping my drawing.

After I made the pattern, I thought I had finished but Kim wanted me to stop being a wimp and have a go at using the spot welder and the copper wire so I used the welder to make a frame for the pattern. It was sparky and made me jump, but other than that, I didnt mind it. I then attached the pattern to the frame with some florists wire so the pattern was in the middle of the frame.

I enjoyed this workshop, and would like to use florists wire again for other, less detailed drawings. I didn't think I would because i havent really done 3D before, and other than using the florists wire I have no interest in this area. Also with this workshop, I had a theme - I was going to use the drawing I did at the museum of the pattern from the fabric. I don't think it resembles the original drawing as much as I would like it to, but then again, it wouldn't as I am an amateur at this. It was a good workshop to experience.

There were some 3D artists that I found to be interesting, one of those being Jean Tiguely.

Tinguely's fantasy machines with pre-programmed elements of chance, the so-called "Métamatics", are quite spectacular. They are machines producing drawings, or self-destructive machines. His welded iron constructions represent ironic attacks on the purpose of the era of technology.

Another of the 3D artists whose work I admired is Antony Gormley.

Gormley describes his work as "an attempt to materialise the place at the other side of appearance where we all live." Many of his works are based on moulds taken from his own body, or "the closest experience of matter that I will ever have and the only part of the material world that I live inside." His work attempts to treat the body not as an object but a place and in making works that enclose the space of a particular body to identify a condition common to all human beings. The work is not symbolic but indexical — a trace of a real event of a real body in time.

This is one of those artists whose work is looked at and started at in awe. It is left to the viewer to interpret it's meaning.

 Thursday 11th October - Clay
Today, I made a a clay tile. When I sat down with a block of clay in front of me, frankly, I didn't know what to do with it!
Jo showed us how to roll out the clay, and how to make a tile. The clay needed to be bashed and then rolled out using 2 guides to keep the thickness even.

I wanted to make 2 tiles. On the first one, I made a 3D flower on top of the tile. It was pretty tiring as I made each petal individually, and couldn't wait to get it finished!

Just as I finished doing the 3D flower, Jo came to see me and see what I had done. She thought it would be a good idea if I were to make another one, but this time, using the patterns that I have already used in my work, from an image that I used to draw from in Textiles. I cut the tile up into 4 squares after I had drawn the pattern. This gave it more of a mosaic effect - I wasn't too keen about this when I started, but I was pleased with the end result.

The pattern on this tile is from the drawing I did in textiles as I wanted all my work to link together.I thought it turned out pretty well, and I would try and take this into other aspects of my work e.g. put other patters from other drawings onto clay and try different colour themes with the glaze.

UNIT 18 DRAWING AND REPRODUCTION
Tuesday 16th October - Screen Printing

This was the one workshop that I had been looking forward to the most. I had done screen printing previously, and I had really enjoyed it.

I had given Kim the drawing that I had done in textiles with the lines and patterns. The drawing had turned out really well. Kim gave us a quick demo, but when I started doing it for myself, I was disappointed at first - the image wasn't coming out clearly, and I didn't know why! Kim said it was because my drawing was very detailed and I had drawin it using very fine lines, they were easily blocked, and it needed cleaning continuously. When I started doing this, the prints came out a lot cleaner and crisper.

Printed onto wood

Also, I had dyed some background last night for the prints, using lots of different colours. I did one background where I used salt on the protein dye technique as it looks very effective.
I also printed onto a piece of wood - it gave a withered, old kind of effect.

Backgrounds I dyed

I feel out of all the workshops I have sampled so far, this is my most favourite. Its one where you can get a lot out of it. From one screen, you can get a lot of prints, and the best thing is that these can later be worked into. I really enjoyed it and know for definite that I will be using this technique again. It's used a lot in textiles as well.

In the afternoon, we were using the ancient sewing machines. They are very different to the one I have at home, and I barely know how to thread the needle with these machines!

We used something called vanishing fabric - I had never heard of it before - it's amazing. It looks and feels like a sheet of plastic, almost like a plastic wallet but slightly textured. When it gets wet, it disappears, and all you're left with is the thread that has been sewn into the fabric. You have to make sure to go over the design you want a few times to make sure that there are no loose ends, and all the thread is linked.
I drew my design out, and me being me, it was detailed and complicated. Danielle said it would take too long to do, and we were only doing this to see what it was like, as a technique. I wanted to do it all but I knew that I didn't have the time, so I just chose to do a section in the middle. I used blue thread on top and purple underneath. Because the fabric was so thin, when the needle was piercing through it, it was making holes, and the more I was trying to stop it, the more it was happening. I then tried to sew over the holes to fill them, and this worked to an extent, but then more holes kept on appearing, so I washed the fabric and watched it disappear. It became sticky. It's amazing how it just disappears like it was never there. This is something I probably won't be using again. It's really fiddly to do, especially when the holes start to appear and you try covering them and more appear.

Thursday 8th November - Pathways
In the morning, I did another drawing like the one I did for screen printing. I really love this technique, and the way the end drawing turns out, even though it is really tiring, and I sat there for 2 hours doing it!
After I had done this, I felt like everything had just come to a standstill. I had done a couple of these drawings, and I didnt't know what to do with them, or how to take them further.
I spoke to Jo and she gave me soooo many ideas! One of them was to try marbelling. I had never done this before, and was quite excited at the thought. First, we filled a rectangular tray with water, and dropped some marbelling ink into it. The drawing that I done in the morning was photocopied onto cartridge paper as normal copy paper is too thin in thickness and would go all soggy if it was wet. I then put the photocopied drawing on top of the water, and the ink just attached itself to the paper, and the wierd thing was, it didn't even get wet much as the inks were oil based. They were just floating around in the tray. I loved the effect it had over the drawing - the colours were almost all running into each other and clashing like a colour bomb had exploded.

However, I feel that with this effect, other than using it for a quick and easy way to make a colourful background, there isn't much else you can do with it. So, to ensure that I used up all the ink, I used it for doing lots of different colourful backgrounds, which can later be worked into.

Thursday 29th November - Pathways
The last time that I spoke to Jo, she looked at my work and saw the drawings that I had done of the models from magazines. She said there was no real link between me and them, and I needed to make it more personal to myself. One of the ideas that she suggested to me was that instead of me drawing models, I either draw myself or someone close to me. I instantly thought of my sister. That way, the drawings and whatever else I would decide to take them into would be personal to me.
Also, it would relate to me and my culture if my sister wore asian clothes as they are filled with pattern and colour, and for the background, I use patterns from wallpaper as what I have been doing is pattern on pattern, which normally would look to clash, but in this case, it works.
So, I had taken some photographs of her in the clothes and all that was left to do was draw her. I did 2 drawings of her and by mid afternoon, I was done. The next step is to get these drawings onto a screen and print them which will be next week.

I prefer this idea to the one where I was drawing models from a magazine. They were meaningless and that is not what art is about. I think that when a personal connection is made to art, the work is taken to another level/stage. I was actually excited about taking these photos and dressing my sister up. Also, due to the fact that I am from an asian background, it's all about  bright colours and bling, both of which I adore as I have grown up with them. Also, it's the fact that traditional asian clothes are filled with these and lots of intricate flowery motifs and patterns, so it would be better if I took inspiration from these and transformed them into a combination of eastern and western design.

Thursday 6th December - Screen Printing
My screen had been ready for a couple of days, but due to the fact that UCAS had to be sent off pretty soon. I hadn't got round to doing it.
Last night, I made some backgrounds - I dyed them using brusho dyes. On one of them, I used salt and bleach to get a different effect. I had 2 drawings put onto the screen, so I had a lot of work to do. I had everything prepared so I started on my marathon printathon!
It was so tiring. I printed onto different surfaces such as fabric and paper etc using different coloured inks. By the time I finished, it was a while after lunch.

I hadn't stopped all morning - I felt like a machine just churning out these prints. I wanted to make the most out of the screens as it takes about a week to get an image onto them!

These turned out really well. I hadn't thought at the start that most of my work would be screen prints - it's just the way that things have turned out. However, what I would say is that now I have a very large pile of work which consists mainly of screen prints. Now, what I need to do is take these further and develop the ones I have rather than make some more. I think what I now need to do is add some textile techniques e.g. sew into some of them, add beads and sequins, add fabric to them etc.

UNIT 13 - DRAWING WITH LIGHT
Activity 2 - Photograph (Afternoon)

Before this workshop, I used to think that there isnt much you could do with a camera other than take straightforward images/photos, but after this workshop, that all changed.
We were only briefly told about what we were going to - we were using torches, cameras and gels - these looked like coloured transparent pieces of acetate. We used a digital SLR Canon camera with an open shutter of at first 30 seconds.

What we were doing was called Light Painting. Working in groups of two, we could use glow sticks, torches and lasers. All we were doing was practically waving the torches and glow sticks around whilst we had a 30 second slot in front of the camera. It was just like an experiment, and as with the textiles workshop, we didnt really have a set theme but I soon figured that you couldn't really have one, as I couldn't see where the last place I had waved the torch, because it had to be done in the dark othewise I dont think that the pictures would have come out very clear.
As we were doing this, an image was being created in front of the camera. I didn't really get the point of this at first and wasnt too fond of it, but the more we did it, the more I enjoyed it, and the more creative I got.

Me and my partner Georgina decided to stay back after everyone else and we thought of drawing around each other with the torches. We discovered that the red laser wasn't really that powerful, and we wanted different coloured lines and shapes so we cut the gel into small squares and taped them to the end of the torch to give the different colours. We also tried to paint a house and a pretty lanscape with a sky, the sun and some grass but this was more difficult than we had first imagined, as we couldnt see where the last line was that we had drawn, but it didnt turn out too bad in the end!
I really enjoyed this workshop, and I would like to experiment with photography a bit more.. I can see how it could be linked to my pathway - maybe I could draw patterns with the torches - using the gels as different colours, but I reckon I need a lot more practise with light painting first!



There is a website called www.lightpaintingphotography.com, which has some examples of artist's work. Below is a link to a video from the website that I think is just amazing! These guys are really good.
http://lightpaintingphotography.com/light-painting-photography/light-emitting-dudes-led-freerunning/

UNIT 13 - DRAWING AND LIGHT

Task/Activity 5 - Media

Jamie started the workshop by telling us a bit about the history of media and film, which I had no interest in, but still had to listen to.

Before World War 2, everybody lived in a world of black and white (TV), so when colour was introduced, the shocking thing was people accepted it. Nobody questioned it or thought it was shocking. However, what people did start to do was experiment with it - see what it could do and how far it could be pushed.

KALEIDOSCOPE 1935

Released in 1935 (and sponsored by Churchman’s cigarettes), Kaleidoscope is one of Len Lye’s animated creations. The combination of painted backgrounds and geometric shapes seems somewhat ‘quaint’ by today’s standards, but they exhibit superb synchronicity with the lively soundtrack.

After this little brief (ish) boring history lesson on film and media, Jamie told us what we would be doing. We were working directly onto clear film. This film is broken down into 25 frames a second. So, on this film, roughly about a cm apart, was a little hole to seperate each frame. If you wanted a picture to show, you had to draw the picture on 25 frames in the same place, and that would show for 1 second! I was so not looking forward to doing this. The most daunting prospect of this was that we were going to be given 6ft of the film. When I thought about it though, we weren't going to be getting a lot of moving image (this was later to be developed into a moving film), due to the amount of frames needed for an image to appear for just a second.

There were inks, dyes and markers for us to use to make marks on the film. After watching the short Kaleidoscope film, everyone started to make random marks on their piece of film because thats what had been done in the film. Brian showed us a previous example, one that he had done. It all looked like squiggles and lines to me.

I decided to draw leaves on the whole strip of film I was given. At first, I left the background clear and just drew leaves. I did this on 50 frames so that it would last 2 seconds. I then used a blue permanent marker and coloured the film for 25 frames completely to make the background blue.

I drew the leaves on, but I only drew the veins on half the leaf to make it slightly different. This would last 1 second. I then did a purple one just like the blue one on 25 frames to last 1 second, but this time I drew the veins on the opposite side. For the rest of the film, I left the background clear and drew the full leaves, because when I coloured the background in, it became difficult to draw over the marker - the leaves and veins were not as clearly visible as the ones without a background, and I didn't like that - plus, it became tedious and my hand started to hurt.
I found this workshop to be really boring - it does not interest me at all. I am not bothered about how flashing colour was first used in adverts! Media is just not my thing.



UNIT 19 - DRAWING, SURFACES AND TEXTURES
Tuesday 11th September - Pathway Roundabouts

Today, we were told that we would be seperated into small groups and we would be going on these 'roundabouts' as Jamie called them, experiencing all the different pathways on the course, such as media, fine art, printmaking, 3D, textiles etc. The group I was in was 'tasting' textiles today. I like the sound of this because I was interested in textiles.

We had a brief introduction to textiles in which we were told that we would be experimenting with different kinds of textures, surfaces and grids.
We were told that these little pathways that we were experiencing was something that we would kind of eventually get marked on. The title of this little project was Grids, Layers and Reflections. so whatever work we did had to fall within this and we were told that it could be our own interpretation of that.. we didn't literally have to draw buildings and grids because that would just be boring and straightforward and thats not the point of art. With art, you have to stand out from the crowd and be an individual and independant otherwise I feel that you wont get far. If your scared, you wont be successful.
Using an overhead projector, we projected images such as photos and drawings onto different surfaces of our choice e.g. paper, newspaper, fabric etc. As this was the first workshop that we had done, we didn't really have any other work or a set theme to follow which I thought to be difficult because I dont like working freely. I was stuck for what to do. Danielle said just try different things but I was out of my comfort zone. when I don't have a title or theme, I get confused and I dont know where to start and finish.
First, on the overhead projector was an image of a skull. I used charcoal and drew the image onto newspaper. it was pretty straightforward.

I hadn't ever thought that textiles was about drawing and texture like this, but I learnt that this was a journey, and it had to start and end somewhere.

I then used really wet, runny protein dye and kind of painted it onto some plain white paper, and sprinkled some salt onto it. By doing this, the salt absorbs the dye and once dry, if you rub the salt off, it leaves a textured looking distressed look to the dye that it has been on. I wasn't too impressed with the outcome. We were told to think about layering textures/pictures/drawings - I didn't really like this idea because I like everything to be neat and tidyily presented.

Protein dye and salt

Following this, I did some screen printing. This was the technique that I liked the most as I was familiar with it and felt more confident doing it.
I went to have a look at the screens and saw one that had just text on it. I thought that it would look good if I put it over a picture. I used some black inky dye or whatever it's called and dragged it across the screen with a piece of paper underneath to print onto using a squigie. The outcome I was really pleased with.

As the piece of paper that I had used was smaller than the screen, it had printed onto the card underneath and as I had done a numerous amounts of prints, it had been overlapping and I didn't realise. When I saw it, I like the way it looked so I kept it.
At the start of the session, we were given a brief that gave us information about pathway and if we were to take it up, what would be expected of us to produce at the end.
By the end of the session, I had been put off textiles in a way. I know that a whole subject area cannot be explored within one morning or afternoon, but the part that we had been introduced to was not something that I particularly liked. I think the session should have involved some work on the sewing machines, some prep work and something which involved manipulation of fabric.
There were also some artists references on it. I looked some up and found that I quite liked a couple of the artist's work. One of these was Yinka Shonibare. I was a bit reluctant after having looked at the other artist's work as they didn't interest me but this one I was attracted to.

This is Shonibare's work that appeals to me. It has a weird and wonderfeel to it. Shonibare’s work explores issues of colonialism alongside those of race and class, through a range of media which include painting, sculpture, photography, installation art, and, more recently, film and performance. He examines, in particular, the construction of identity and tangled interrelationship between Africa and Europe and their respective economic and political histories. Mining Western art history and literature, he asks what constitutes our collective contemporary identity today. Having described himself as a ‘post-colonial’ hybrid, Shonibare questions the meaning of cultural and national definitions.

Another artist's work that I liked was Jeanette Appleton.

The principle element of the work is felt, a material with direct connection with the nomad and land. Exploring the spatial effects of colour with dyed wool and the distortion of printed or stitched marks on various fabrics. Evoking visual systems of knowledge and memory in the untouchable perspective of land areas and layers of eroded history.