Go to the Library and...

...find textile books?

This wasn't what I was supposed to hear.

But later in the day, I did find (in a pile of books) a lovely book about the night sky and constellations.

This for me launched my project.

I began making A1 sketches from this small book based upon the data I read and the images within it.

Ink and nib. 

Inks, using the text that spoke about the movements in the sky throughout February. 

5 minutes. Only using lines and dots. Charcoal on a stick.

Ink and oil bar. 

After reading the book and responding to it, I have come to think that I enjoyed the data I read, however translating this into drawings that i can take inspiration from for my work will prove challenging. This is someone else's drawings, and a historical example of how people and astronomers have read the nights sky. 

I need to think about this idea and do some further research before I limit myself too much.

Large Drawings

How to find your way out of a maze

10 minutes, charcoal on a stick.

Concentric circles using left hand in pencil and oil bar. 10 minutes each. 

Sampling Unit Launch

Some of my initial thoughts from launch lecture from my notebook.

DATA

• Gathering data to transform into a visual format
• Not just statistics and information
• Recording Time
• Drawing, painting, documenting.
• Phases of moon
• Night sky
• Patterns
• MOVEMENT
• 3D resources
• Connections - (document who has seen my blog)
• Cross-section of a tree
• Text

I like to be organised with my initial thoughts, here I can flick through my preliminary thoughts and then begin to filter out what I want to take forward for the duration of the project.
I like the initial title of the prroject and feel as though I have a strong starting point to work with.

Key Pieces from the Presentation

Susan Morris 

Making Art with Sensors

Untitled Motion Capture Drawings

“I’ve been trying to record the movements we make but don’t notice we’re making. All the habitual movements and gestures – I’m interested in where they come from.“ Susan Morris in an interview with Watford Observer.

http://www.watfordobserver.co.uk/leisure/localexhibitions/9525470.Making_art_with_sensors/r/?ref=rss

Geoff Mann

Attracted to Light

(Movement of a moth around a light)

Long Exposure series, Nylon, 25.4 x 29.8 x 34.9 (cm), 2005.

These two artists stuck out to me from the presentation. I love the lines created and the idea of recording a movement. 

Evaluation of Origins Unit

From the beginning of the project, my work has progressed mainly through drawing and entering the knit and weave workshops. I have tried to keep drawing throughout in order to give me a clear notion of what to reference within the workshops. I have translated my drawing work loosely into knit and weave to give my samples further depth as well as a context. My work in this unit has been based upon a journey of walking down a street as well as a translation from light to dark. I feel like this theme of architecture comes through within my samples as I found it quite simple to reflect upon the geometry of my drawings within the workshops.

By constantly having a source to work from I was able to edit my ideas by thinking through which examples would translate well into the workshops. I enjoy drawing and I feel that it helps me a lot in the development stage. This is a skill that helps me to move my work forward and in future I know the importance of having something first hand in which to work from.

By including resources from other areas of interest, I was able to develop my work further and think more laterally about what I was doing. By the end of the project I found myself recreating drawings less and thinking further about how far I could take everything so that my samples had more context and value.

At the beginning of the project I don’t feel like I was allocating my time wisely enough to generate enough ideas. As the project moved on I became increasingly interested and engrossed in my work, and in doing so I began to work more often and efficiently. I became fascinated with both the processes of knit and weave and spent a lot more of my personal time in the workshops producing samples. I was focused on making samples that related to my work. My final samples were successful in reflecting this and I am more confident with the work I was producing towards the end of the project as opposed to the beginning. I struggled when I wasn’t entirely sure of what I was achieving but as time went on my work had context and I created resources for myself for something to relate to.

Weaving Samples

After the process of preparing the loom, I started to weave last week. Today I finished my sample piece  and tomorrow I shall complete one smaller final sample. In this sample I was learning weaving techniques and processes, and playing with colours and compositional ideas for my final sample.

I really like the 'Crater' pattern shown above and below. I also like using floats in the weave as this creates a surface that can be cut. This reflects my journeys project through photographs and sketches that I have done based upon architecture. 

My Final Weaving Sample

 

I finished my final sample using the left available warp threads. I thought a lot about composition and colour when working this sample. I was especially thinking about the contrast of light and dark as well as creating shapes to reflect my drawings.

Next I want to play around with finishing the sample. I want to investigate the results of washing and steaming on the yarn.

Weave Workshop

Today has been the third day that I have been weaving for. I have selected a colour pallet for my warp and am being experimental with my weft to produce a surface upon my weave that reflects that of my journeys project. I have been doing this by playing with different weave techniques as well as a variety of yarn types. This is still an ongoing process and I hope by the end of the week to have 4yrds of woven samples to inform my project.

A Travel Without Visual Experience

From looking into light, tone and colour pallet, I began to think of examples of an artists work that could reflect this and to which I could be inspired from to move my project on.
I looked back upon the trip to the Liverpool Bienniel, now that I have more context to my project for inspiration of how I can move forward.

A Travel Without Visual Experience, Pak Sheung Chuen.
I documented this work in the Tate Liverpool. The project was a very unusual experience, the room was totally dark inside and we were encouraged to take flash photography in order to view the images on the wall.
I enjoyed how when taking a photo you saw a flash of the art, but not the whole thing. Only when I came home and reviewed the photographs did I see in detail what was on the wall. I love this idea as i think it is simplistic in its execution, yet highly thought provoking.  The artist was on a trip in Malaysia, where she covered her eyes to experience the trip 'blind' yet documented the entire journey through photographs.
This is another way of looking at how simple it can be to use light to change meanings, thoughts, and the context of an image. Light is such a powerful tool and manipulation is something that I am keen to investigate further.

Hand Knitting

After my sunset study, I began to think about how I could document the research visually. These two hand knits show some of the colours that I saw in the first image before the sun set. 

I chose to document these images by hand knitting because I had just joined the weaving group and I had enjoyed knitting so much that I wanted to develop it further within my sketchbook.

Sunset Study

I decided to look into the idea of light and colour changes in more detail.

Yesterday I documented the sun setting by taking one photo every minute for a period of 42 minutes. I did this study looking out of the 4th floor of Cavendish South building at 4.30 on 3/11/2012. 

I really enjoyed this study, because I was looking through a window, as the light got darker outside, more of the room became visible. I really liked how the image outside faded away gradually until it was almost un recognisable.

I have then created this animation using iMovie and the app for mac, Gif Animator, so that the process is more visible and its clearer to see the changes that happened.

These are the first and last images of the study. I love the light and tonal changes as it shows how much of a change happens in a short space of time. You can see elements of my colour pallet coming through in the final image, where as the colours of the first image are much more grey and blue.

Thoughts

Whilst thinking and investigating light and tone. I was standing outside the workshop where I noticed the way the light was falling on the building opposite me, I quickly snapped a photo on my phone to document this moment. I loved the shapes created by the light and how it reflected upon the architecture of its canvas.

Knitting

After developing my colour pallet, I then went on to use my selected yarns within the knitting workshop. Using a variety of techniques, I experimented with ways and means of reflecting my images in the knitted samples.

Yarn wrap and a few preliminary samples using fair isle, E-wrapping and lace holes.

Colours

After I began to develop a new colour pallet, I completed further colour stripes to help inform me of the colours that I wanted to use within my project. I did 4 stripes to help me decided which colours and the proportions of colours that I will use.

Tulip Farm

I stumbled across this image through a link on Facebook and it remind me of knitted lines and some of the samples that I have been producing during knit. The image is of a tulip farm in the Netherlands. I love the bold colours and there is even a field that contains colours similar to my project. I enjoy how this shows a different yet huge scale way of using colour and how effective and important it is.

Mood Board

I have created this mood board, to help me develop my colour pallet and thing about the images that i am looking at further. This will help me in my knitting and weaving workshops to develop strong samples as well as organising in my mind what colours I want to include in my project. 

Journeys

I began to photograph my day to day activities to generate ideas for the Journeys brief. Walking down Oxford Road on the 16th October 2012, I was photographing the architecture as the sun began to set. The change in light and colour inspired me to continue this theme further.

These photographs show as I left my flat, the sun was setting but the contrast in light and dark hadn't fully set in.

I love the contrast that is best shown in these photographs. I have a Digital SLR camera, and i tend to use the intelligent automatic setting. The camera adjusted itself to the night setting halfway through the journey. These photographs show what happened as the light levels outside darkened. I love the pallet in these photographs as although this was only taken a few minutes after the previous the change in setting is huge.