Textiles 1 - Assignment 5 tutor feedback

After each assignment we receive feedback from our tutor. The OCA asks that we publish this on our blog, so here it is. I have had mixed feelings about the course overall and how distance learning works in the creative arts. Text in blue is my commentary, text in black is my tutor's words:

Overall Comments

Congratulations in completing this final part of Textiles 1: A Creative Approach.   It is clear from the work you have sent me you have worked hard to use the design process to develop ideas and final textile pieces.  You have used research material to inspire drawing work in a range of mediums.  However there is a lack of evidence that you have worked through a number of textile samples in order to come to conclusions about the direction of your final design.  Having said that your final weave piece is a clear development of your blurred tree photographs. 

Feedback on assignment

Demonstration of technical and Visual Skills, Quality of Outcome, Demonstration of Creativity

During this assignment you have created a theme book based on trees, exploring their forms, colours and design potential through drawing and collage.   Though your drawing skill still needs developing you have used it regularly to explore your theme with some success.  There is a pleasing use of mark making to explore the structure of trees, for example the page where you use lightly painted some what watery lines accompanied by splashes of colour in blue and pink.  I suggest you develop this loose style further, using mark-making exercises to develop your style.  Mark making video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LrZGoW6-iw

Comment: yes, I agree, I am still a novice at drawing and have not done as much as I had intended. This last module fell at a time when I was also doing professional studies and an exam for my work, and I have to say that splitting your mind into work and art is not easy when there is pressure on.

I try to work loosely when I draw. I find that as a new person to drawing I get quite tight and worried about drawing which takes the enjoyment away from it. So I try to be more playful, although it is difficult. So, useful feedback.

Throughout your theme book you have used collage to develop and play with ideas.  I particularly like the collage you have built up using different green papers in a linear arrangement that reflects the image opposite of a pine forest.  There also appears to be a conscious effort to investigate texture through collage that works well in this project. 

It would have been good to see a group of textile samples that came from this work, placing the samples alongside the work to illustrate how your ideas developed.  It’s possible you conducted your sampling earlier in the course, if this is the case I suggest you organise your work in way that explains how drawing influenced you sample making. 

Comment: I didn’t have time to do much sample making. I was nearing the absolute final date for submission and decided to work straight on the loom as I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to make. It is worth repeating here that I primarily work through process, i.e. I work with the material and experiement as I go along. The course material suggsted we could work through process and I chose to work in this way, which is my preferred approach. I knew what colours I wanted to use, and the technique (in the case of the green sample) I wanted to try out. There was little point sampling when the final thing was itself a sample and the process of working through it was the main concern of this method. It would have been different if I was planning something that needed careful thought and working out for example in terms of size, blends, representation or interpretation, but that was not necessary in the case of either samples as they were worked through on the loom. Tapestry weaving is a slow process and there is quite a bit of time to think during the work.

You have sent three larger textile samples (including the book cover) with the rippled weave being your final piece I think.  This is quite an exciting piece of textile work with its free use of colour and energetic texture.  It clearly is a development of your photographic experiments.  It has been crafted with care but also feels like an inquiring piece of work that captures the blurry movement in your photograph.  

Comment: Originally I had intended to make four pieces for the final work, to reflect trees through the seasons. This was a bit ambitious in the end and the two woven pieces I have included represent an exploratory work that resonates with the ‘summer’ theme that is based on the abstracted photographs my tutor mentions, and the ‘spring’ theme, based on the photo-manipulated images of magnolia stellate from our garden. The feedback is useful and clear, I am encouraged that the work is seen as careful craft work, that is my intention with creating samples, and final work.

What are your thoughts on this body of work; blurred photo, drawings, colour palettes, collage and textile sample conclusion?  What did you learn about the design process? How did the drawing work affect your thinking?  Where did your ideas come from and how did you respond to them?  Was the final outcome what you expected, not just in regard to techniques but also in its aesthetic?  This reflective thinking and recording that thinking is an essential part of the course, making up 20% of your mark.  I suggest you include a reflective piece of writing of about 500 words on your learning log to conclude this journey.

Comment: I am a bit confused about some of these questions. I put a lot of effort into describing my process for the ‘stellata’ piece, looking at the image and choosing wools, selecting colours, working in sections etc and referencing Fiona Hutchison’s work for the green sample etc. I will add some more words into the blog in a separate post, and will consider the aesthetic dimension. Some supporting wording is also included in the final reflections section. Maybe my blog isn’t clearly set out?

Research

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

For this assignment you have conducted an in depth study into trees, using this as your theme to inspire design.  This spread nicely into architecture in particular church interiors.  You have collected the information in the form of photographs and cuttings.  It is nice to see you have mixed paints to create colour palettes from these images.  You have also used drawing and collage to explore the potential of the images too.  These are all really good ways to explore your research material so I suggest you continue to do this in your future studies.

Comment: yes, I like collaging, using texture and working out colours, good to hear she likes this technique. I went on a Cas Holmes course on creative journal making which was a good introduction to how to work with papers, samples, sketches etc. I think the box I made for the sketchbook course earlier in the year was useful in that respect as well. I believe that I pick up impressions from many different sources, including from an in-visible source such as music, and they all leave traces in the subconscious that get worked through when I am developing my ideas in some way.

You have also gathered imagery and information about other practitioners, for example Fiona Hutchinson whom you explain you met taking part in one of her summer schools.  You include some lovely imagery of her work, including sample pieces on her studio wall.  To get the most from this experience and from other workshops and talks you have attended it is vital to explain what you have learnt.  Not just in terms of techniques but also ways of working - how an artist develops their ideas, their design process, how they use drawing, sampling and times of reflection.  From this you ought to spend some time considering how what you have learnt will affect the way you approach your own creative process.  This critical reflection is essential when studying towards a degree but it will also assist you creating more meaningful and considered textiles. 

Learning Logs or Blogs/Critical essays

Context, reflective thinking, critical thinking, analysis  

Further to what is written above your learning log is well organised with imagery of your work and details of techniques and methods used.  I suggest you develop you critical thinking skills by writing about how your ideas come about, how you respond to these ideas through drawing and making and then write an evaluation of drawings and the things you make.  This will assist you in gaining a good mark at assessment and it will also encourage a deeper understanding of your own personal design process.

Comment: OK, this is a similar comment to the one above about writing about process and ideas generation. I mentioned that I felt I had done this already, but will do a bit more. There is something personal about idea generation and process development that I feel should not always be revealed and disclosed to the world, and I am still not sure what it is that is being asked here. 'Telling all' is almost turning oneself inside-out in public, and although there is a movement for people to open all to the world on the web I do not necessarily want that. There has to a space for one's own self and quiet making. For example, one of the course tutors whose course I attended was quite sensitive about her process and did not want this shared with the world on another person’s blog.

My first tutor on this course thought I should spend more time making and less on writing - I have since been asked to write more. I have spent several years in university undertaking critical writing on art and design, and reviewing design thinking (design history to MA level), and I continue to have to think hard and write in my daily work. 

I believe that practice is itself a mode of expression, and yes, there should be words attached, but in the design and art disciplines surely making, as praxis, should be the primary mode of expression. The work is the embodiment of the learning and the thought process. Perhaps this is a limitation of distance learning that there is no immediate discussion of the work. In classes with tutor feedback and real presence we discuss the work using language to describe and reflect, but it is an immediate and responsive environment to support the work and we find essences in the spoken rather than writing long realms of text. Writing so much on a blog feels artificial and can become a chore, it ditracts from the work to some extent. Add to that the expectation of participation in on-line environments (sometimes with more self-revelation) and there is little time left for making.

For me it is the process that is the important thing above everything else.

Pointers for further study

• To work within the time scale provided by the OCA (you work arrived 2 days after you course finished) – yes, I submitted late, but that was due to work pressures and over-reaching my project
• Develop your drawing skill – agree – I am going on a couple of drawing courses at West Dean college soon, and will take life drawing classes locally to where I live
• Include your reflective thinking and analysis of the work you make – Hmm, see my comments above
• Write about what you have learnt during workshops, talks and when looking at your research material.  – again, I thought I had done this. I am keeping the writing slim-lined and will try to write just enough, as I still think the making takes precedent over writing.

 Pointers for assessment

• Reflect on this feedback in your learning log
• Make suitable adjustments to your work in line with tutor feedback.
• Reread your feedback forms to check you have used all the tutor suggestions.
• Look at the learning outcomes and the assessment criteria to judge whether your work has met the requirements.
• Refer to the assessment guidelines on the oca website, Research ▷ By Course Area ▷ Textiles ▷ scroll down to page 2 ▷ Assessment Guidelines: Textiles
• Aim to organize your work so that it tells the story of how you went about achieving the outcomes.  You did this by conducting research, doing drawing and making samples.

A craft programme on TV

As last year the Danish TV channel, Danmarks Radio, is showing a programme on craft. It is set up as a competition, a bit like the craft progamme headed by Monty Don, but in this Danish series a group of crafts people, who each have a specific specialist discipline, take it in turns to host the group at their workshop or studio, and the group then has to work on a material and use tools they will not have tried before.

The first episode showed the group in a workshop manufacturing horn products. The crafts or materials represented in the group are wood, concrete, clay, silk, brass and prescious metals. The horn-maker, as host in the first episode, ran through the basic skills and techniques to manipulate and work the material, after which the group then had to first make a set project (a spoon) and then after this were to design an object each for assessment by an expert judge. The exercises are timed.

I really enjoy this programme series. We get a good idea of the design thinking behind each object, and there is a clear challenge for each maker in working a material they do not necessarily know; and in the case of the horn, certain characteristics presented their own problems which might not have been foreseen by the makers. 

In short snippets there are quick chats with each maker. They talk about the design, their aim in their choice of expression in the material or the way they may have had prejudices about the material before they started working on it. There is a clear leaning towards function. All the makers are clearly masters of their own craft; they look as if they have been working on their respective fields for many years. Some of them try to apply what they have learnt from their own discipline to the new material, which may sometimes work, others try to work with the material without a similar background, and so I guess look at the wider design-craft universe for inspiration in their made object for the programme.

Although the programme does not show any one craft in depth, it still manages to convey the way a designer-maker thinks, their meetings with the material and the energy they apply to their work. The programme is edited in a way that suggests that they are mostly open and positive to the material, even if in one case the ceramicist had reservations about horn being somehow oldfashioned and gave him a sense of 'the 70s'. 

The makers just have a go at the new craft presented in the weekly challenge, and they all seem to make beautiful objects. I am guessing that with a title such as 'Made in Denmark', there may be a brief on the design philosophy underpinning the programme. But it has the feel of giving the makers freedom to design in whatever language they prefer, and in the first programme they certainly looked as if they grasped the qualities of the material very quickly. I am looking forward to next week's instalment, it is definitely a one-to-watch, if you know the Danish language and have an interest in the culture of making by hand.

Tex 1 - Assignment 5 - Theme book continued

I have tried to keep the theme book going while I was working on the tapestries. It now has sections on rugs in interiors, examples of trees and landscape painting, and a bit of art work I have been working, including colour matching and mixing exercises. 

Here are some examples of the contents:

 

 On the theme of gothic architexture as vertical 'tree'-like structures

 

Photographs and colour mixing tests

 Preparation for the spring-inspired tapestry piece, photographs and colour mixing

 A couple of scribbled flowers

Another page of the book looking at trees growing in a churchyard

I have quite liked working in the book, and will probably continue having a theme book running alongside my other workbooks. The tree theme has not yet been exhausted and there is plenty more to do on it. However I am running out of time on this project so will be submitting a book that has not yet been fully filled.

The 3rd and final piece I am developing as part of assignment 5 is the book cover for the theme book. This is not really the final piece, but more an addition to the theme book. I have used some phorographs from a beech wood, and a sketch I drew up based on one of these:

And here is the project in progress; I have been laying out strips of opaque fabric over some transparent, shiny organza, laid onto a dyed blue base fabric:

I sewed some suggestions of leaves onto the base and have placed the brown 'trunks' over them. I am planning more of these leaf suggestions, however first I need to do something about the trunks, which have only just been attached using automatic stitching from my machine:

So, this is clearly work in progress, and needs a lot more work to it, I am just hoping that I get it done in time - my course is coming to and end in February! You can see some cotton base fabrics, a bit of furnishing fabric (tree trunks) and organza to reflect light. Hopefully this enables some subtle contrasts in matt and shiny to lie close together to add interest to the surface.

I am reasonably satisfied with the final book cover. It fits well, the embroidery is not too thick and its looks good enough:

In sewing the 'tree' elements and 'leaf' details the fabric pulled together in places. I had ironed on some vilene on the back, but did not use a frame and so there was a bit of unintentional 'pleating'. However in the end these creases along the width of the piece have worked well, as they add to the texture, add some shadow effects and three-dimensionality to the surface. As the thing scrunched up I had to attach a 'frame to add to the size of it, and used some dyed cotton in a colour I hadn't really liked. The brown fits in with the tree theme, so that also has worked reasonably.

I used a lot of different green coloured threads (8 or more) and a slightly lower number of browns and green for the tree trunks (6 or a few more), a couple of areas had loose silk and other threads scattered and attached with stitchery to suggest more dense foliage. I like the idea of using the stitching both as line and as mass colouring and I used this across the applied fabrics. The pictures don't show the work off properly, it looks pale in the bright light, but is actually quite rich and glowing from the colours and organzas. 

I have submitted the work now, two days before the deadline for final submission of the whole course, and thin the book cover probably took a bit longer to make than I expected.

The cover folded over the book is held together by two strands of machine stitched cord. Closed together like this the tree theme is obscurred a bit by the framing fabric. I still think the verticality of the trunk theme continues though.

Assignment 5, Project 10: second tapestry (Spring)

Over the Christmas holiday I moved into a studio and I have found it a really useful place to devote good time to create.

This means that I was able to concentrate on the second tapestry, again using a photograph as a reference point and selecting yarn colours that would evoke the image. At this point I would like to say that I have always worked with process as well as design when required or the work needed it. The pieces for the fina project are process driven in the main.

The photograph is of a magnolia stellata in our garden. The magnolia is a strange and wonderful tree. There are no leaves on the tree when it blooms. It sprouts these bright white, soft petals for a very short time (3 weeks or so) and then it turn into a dull tree that disappears into the garden greenery until the next spring. I re-worked the image to be more blue, modifying it from the orginal:

Here is the original picture:

This is a detail of the blue photograph blown up to show the colours that were useful suggestions for the tapestry. I placed the image above on a table in daylight in order to ensure when I matched the yarns they would be as close as possible. You will see that there are various greens, browns, purples, blues and in the white are certain soft rosy pinks and blues in the image, and I had a go at mixing various blends of yarns to suit some of this.

 

I stuck these pictures into the theme book to look at the colours in different ways:

The background is quite abstract, an assortment of organic shapes, layers of foliage and branches - colour masses that can be stylised in tapestry. The question then arose how to create the petals of the magnolia. From the outset I thought it might be interesting to apply fabric strips that would suggest these bright and luminous white flowers.

So here is the work in progress. This is a bit late in the development of the tapestry. I was playing with colour masses, choices and the placement of these across the tapestry surface. During the making I had to continuously check how the colour balances worked aganist each other when colours lay next to each other, but also to weigh the balance across the piece, looking at where greens, blues and brown were set and echoed each other from left to centre to right, from the bottom to the upper areas of the piece.

In this picture (above) some areas of brown and blue are shown, which I knew when I went home for the night were not right. This had happened in other areas of the tapestry, where somehow the colour areas did not really work, being either too big, or not intermingled properly. These areas I un-did and reworked and this mostly ended up as something much better. Working with materials and process in this way, measuring, balancing tones, hues, masses and blends, thinking about how they relate, this is a way I really like working with. It means you make decisions throughout the work and there is still a clear link to the original design at the end. It worked in this piece because it is small (26 x 31cm), but I am not sure whether in larger pieces it would work as well, I think that large tapestries need design and carefull working out.

Here are the yarns I used to create the blends. The yarns varied greatly, from silk, wool, linen and nettle to cotton and rayon. Some were handspun although most was commercial. A few vintage wool embroidery yarns were amongst them and some I had dyed, including the linen weft.

Below an image of the back of the work, I have included it to show how many times colour blends were changed.

The front is taking shape here. I was unhappy with the flower on the left, it just didn't seem to work as a flower and there were a fair few trials with different petal widths, lengths and angles.

And in the end the final piece looks quite interesting with the white petals shining on the surface. I used white silk with some Inktense stains in pink and blue to ensure they related to the background colours, to give them more body I ironed on some very light interfacing to make sure they had some definition. You will see that there areborders at the top and the bottom of the piece. When the work started I had planned these to be folded back, but they work well in the way they create a frame against the coloured central motif.

A detail to show a flower and some of the surface detail - I included some wrapped areas across single warps and some across three warps in some areas.