Archive drawing studies

Through out visiting the archives I was coming back and doing drawings from the photos that I took while I was there. I tend to zoom in on a specific area and draw small sections of something. I have tried to create drawings using a variety of media including pencil, fine liners, goache paint and inks. 

(Previous students work, embroidery study)

(1950's men shirt study- Rochdale Archive)

(printed tile study - Barcelona tile museum) 

I have selected a few drawings that I have started off with my drawing work, I want to carry creating drawings from the archive visits and from other sources such as book's. I am also going to start developing the drawings that I already have picking out aspect that I really find interesting or like. For instance In the last image It's the pattern that really works for me and I can see my self taking this forward bring it into other drawings maybe changing the pattern round or turning into into a collage of some sort. 

Inspiration ( Karen Nicole )

  I came across the work of Karen Nicole after looking through work of textile artists on pintrest. Shes a embroidery and mixed media textile artist working within a range of fields including art, fashion and interiors. Her interior work its what first caught my eye as parts of it reminded me of William Morris's own work. I'm trying hard to work with bright colour for this assignment and all of her work is very bold and vibrant.

The top image gives me an idea of using the free hand foot to create some samples in a similar way. I also like the way she has something very representative ( the bird ) on top of something quite abstract the bird looks very 3D and the background is very 2D. 

The image below I think links in different aspects of my own work the colour and the movement within the image. Its given me ideas of how I can transform some of my drawings into samples. It reminds me of something you would see underwater or like a bark of wood. I'm really interested to know how she has created the lines going through the work, It looks to me like its been bunched up and then sewn together. The colours in this picece of work especially links in with my work as a lot of my drawings are just using blue tones with splashes of bright colour. It's given me an idea of how I can bring the different tones into my sample work with out using thick blasts of colour, it reminds me of when you make a brush stroke with paint on and you get the different tones coming through. I've put a image of one of my drawings to show the similarities between the two. 

Barcelona tile museum.

I visited Barcelona over the summer and as well as all of the obvious main attractions like the gaudi park I visited a tile museum. I didn't think I would find it all that interesting but when I looked back through my pictures I did some drawings from them. 

 After that I was hooked on the patterns from them and they really inspired a main part of my work all of my baroque swirls and patterns come from the photos that I took while out there.

Rochdale Archive

Another archive trip that we went to  Rochdale. It was a strange archive within 3 very large storage units but when you go inside it like being in a mini museum. We had a quick tour around the facility and then were left along with some of the objects to get a good look to make drawings take photos and get down some notes about individual pieces.  I wasn't particularly struck by anything with inspiration but it was interesting to see what they had in there. I did enjoy looking at the collection of garments that they had in there. There was one garment that did catch my eye though it was a mens shirt from the 50's with a very vibrant orange print. 

I think its the graphic black lines of the pattern that caught my eye I can see myself taking ideas from this and working it into my own work. I have used a similar technique within my own work from the summer brief, as you can see below. I used inks to create this image and after looking at the 50's style shirt I want to work in this way more using thick black graphic lines and loosely adding splashes of colour. 

Special Collections

We have been given the chance to visit different archives to get inspiration from old works of textile as well as general pieces of art work. The first archive that I visited was the special collections in within the university's library. I was lucky enough to look through the pieces on my own as I missed the first visit with the group. The work which I really liked was a collection of wallpaper samples by William Morris. I've heard of his work before of course but I didn't realize the variety of patterns that he created. 

Other work that caught my eye from the same archive was a collection of paintings by a former pupil from the university as part of there work. I've realized that I'm drawn to very floral looking patterns and prints. Although the work that interested me from this archive isn't actual textile work its self I'm very interested into how I can translate first into my own drawings and then potentially into my embroidery work.