Evaluation.

I based this work off the intention to raise awareness of endangered British wildlife through my knowledge gained from the collections of wildlife illustration books of my father. At the beginning I decided I wouldn’t be able to look at all the animals so I decided to select just four. Then at a later stage I wanted to stream line them even more so it came down to just three the natter jack toad, turtle dove and the bearded false darkling beetle. I developed my work from initial drawings and then developed those drawings into test samples. I used many different processes when developing my samples including appliqué, hand embroidery, machine embroidery, ethos, screen printing, heat press printing etc. By  sampling a variety of different techniques it allows me asses which techniques are suitable for my project. I came to conclusion that using the ethos and heat press printing was the appropriate method giving a professional finish and allowing me to get the correct tone of colours I needed. The problem using heat press printing which I encountered was the fact you can only use synthetic materials. I tend to use heavy natural materials including wool and I couldn’t find a synthetic substitute so I sample various other materials including a sheer fabric a stretched jersey and a mixed poly suede. The suede gave the best finish I feel the colour were more vibrant and its heavy material which I am use to using and I feel it will give the best finish for the intended use of the samples (children’s interiors).

            I started off with developing just colour palette but after conferring with my tutor about my approach, we came to the conclusion that it would benefit me to come up with another one complementing the other and allowing other options and choice.  I took inspiration for my colour scheme from the animals themselves. My over aim was to involve my illustrations of the animals within my patterns so they would disappear into them in the same way in which they are disappearing from our countryside’s. My best samples I feel which reflect this are the ones in which I used a loose stitch on the ethos so they were as visible. Over all I am really happy with my collection of final samples and I feel my visualisations show different ways in which they could be used. If had more time there are a few samples in which I would have liked to have developed further repeating them more to create large scale pieces to show a full fabric sample.