Part 1 Stage 2

Developing your source material

Wherever we travel I always gravitate to the textiles and I've got some fabulous mementos to show for it.  It was inevitable that this part of my course was going to be based around my trip to India.

Unsurprisingly I've found that some designs appeal to me more than others.  The very floral ones I find over the top but some the highly stylised shapes of the individual flowers are lovely.

Page from a book of floral designs
Northern India late 18th C
(V&A)

Page from a book of floral designs
Northern India late 18th C
(V&A)

I really like the idea of a client choosing a custom piece from designs a pattern book.

Two particular images I like are taken from the above pages and are quite similar.  I like their fantastical shapes.

I took the first of these isolated images and cut out the mains shapes.

Deconstructed flower

I played with the shapes and tried unsuccessfully to get a repeat pattern out of just a couple of pieces.

I was happier using almost all of the shapes but try as I might I couldn't seem to make anything that didn't look like a flower.

Re positioning the pieces

Drawing around the shapes

I tore strips of tissue in typical Indian colours

I cut out the shapes and contained them within a circle

It was much easier to forget flowers once the colours were changed.  However, although I love the colours I don't really think much to the design.  Maybe the organic shapes just need to be floral.

I like the effects of the multi layered tissue

This really close up image looks beautiful.

This shows the layering beautifully

It looks very different depending on its' orientation.

The red planet

A tempest

A tornado

I've decided to do another tissue collage with the shapes I'm going to have a go at reconstructing the flower.  I followed the same process as previously and I'm delighted with what I've created.

On a white background (my table)

Mounted on yellow paper

It took me awhile to get to this point but it has been so worthwhile.  I've looked at the possibilities for a repeat pattern as well.  This first one looks checked even though my background was a white table.  

The next one was constructed when I'd mounted the collage on yellow paper.  

With some tweaking this could be a design for wrapping paper or even furnishing fabric.

I want to push this a bit and try it in fabric but I'm going to work with my close up as a starting point.

I did a fabric collage using just the same technique as before.  However, I decided to go for more restrained colours. I used a variety of fabrics including some lace curtaining, organza, satin and cotton all on a base of dusky pink silk and acrylic felt for stability.  I free machine stitched in a variety of ways to blend the edges where the fabrics butted up to one another.

I cut the shapes randomly as before

I had some slippage and it left gaps.

I had great trouble getting the Bondaweb to stick because the fabric was quite thick in places. With some difficulty I managed to turn it upside down and iron it from the back.  Consequently there was some slippage that left me with gaps that I decided to fill with free machine stitching.

The very first image

My final interpretation

These colours make such a difference to the feel of the work.  It's less fun, more sophisticated.  I welcome the chance to try machine embroidery and I'm getting better at it but there's a way to go.

V&A Pattern, 2009, Indian Florals.  V&A Publishing