Textiles Week

I have really really enjoyed the textiles week. At the start of the week I was a bit wary as we were spent quite a while doing drawing techniques that we had already done in illustration so was surprised to be being taught these again. However after a while I discovered that we were just using these techniques as a basis for the rest of the work and only did a few sketches in our sketch books that we had done previously. After this we then created several backgrounds to work on for later in the week. These were made out of envelopes and pieces of scrap coloured paper, then we applied emulsion paint in some areas of the backgrounds to break up the piece. After this we produced the same drawing techniques but in different medias such as pastels and inks, this created good colour composition. When we had created several pieces of artwork this way, we then focused on mono printing. I found this very enjoyable and created a really nice effect. First you had to roll out ink onto a metal slab with a roller, then place a piece of paper over the top of it and finally draw and make marks onto the paper, this then transfers onto the other side of the paper to create the print. Our influence of drawing came from the images, shapes, forms and colours from the previous artwork we had created earlier in the week. Finally on the last day of textiles we were assigned to create two panels of artwork influenced from our work from the beginning of the week and our mono printing work. This could have been certain shapes or colours. I decided to base my final pieces on the grey and silver mono prints I created as a base for the colours of the piece and I took the shapes and patterns from pieces within the other artworks I had done such as the pentagon shape. As I have a textiles background I wanted to use fabrics and stitching on my pieces and so included these quite a lot. My work is very subdued and does not stand out as much as everyone elses in my class however I think that is just the way that I work. I like the work a create to be neat and presented well with everything in its place. However doing this assignment I feel that it has helped me to combine both my ability to make organised work but as well create something that looks free and loose. I have really really enjoyed the textiles week and it was a shame that we did not have longer to do some of the activities due to other talks in college.