Mon 23^rd – Fri 27^th Oct, 2017

                Last week I was still unsure about my warp, while I was making it, and was worried that I would hate it as it would be too dominant against my weft. However, now that it is on the loom and I have started weaving, I could not be happier with it – It has fulfilled everything I wanted it to be: quirky, autumnal, slightly traditional and much more versatile than I was expecting. 

                My issue now is that I am struggling a little with how to sample. This is a problem I had last year and am still learning. I keep wanting to jump straight into making samples without putting much thought into them – But with a limited warp that isn’t the best way to work. With help from Lesley and Rebecca I am learning how to be more selective with what I produce and how to get to that point to begin with. I have been trying new ways of drawing/ collaging to try and create possible ideas for samples. I am still in the early stages of this but will hopefully get some nice samples out of it. 

Mon 16^th – Fri 20^th Oct, 2017

                This week has been very busy due to preparing to get onto the looms next week. Since my EPI for my warp is very high I wanted to get as much done as possible so that my allocated time on the looms can be use to its best potential. Therefore this week I began by getting all of my yarns dyed. My initial plan was to try and get two tones of 3 of the colours so that I could wrap them round end on end. However due to the technique that I used, unfortunately this didn’t work so I ended up with just the 3 initial colours. I also ended up with my brown/grey yarn colour coming out a pale Khaki Green. Thankfully this colour is in my colour scheme and still works with my plan so is still useable – I almost think it looks better and more complimentary.

                After the dyeing process I wound my yarn onto cones so that I could begin my warp. However it took 2 days to wind all the yarn on so I have started making my warp a little later than planned. Once I finally began my warp on Friday, it all looked really nice together and worked really well. But after I added the orange I started to question if I still liked the colour combination I had chosen. I felt as though it looked a bit more spooky, almost like Halloween, rather than the warm autumnal colour palette I was looking for. At this point it is too late to change anything so I will have to hope that once it’s on the loom I will really like it and will have lots of ideas to play around with.

                So far I have tried out a few possible peg plans on Scotweave. I am hoping to create a fairly simple one to use for my first go since I will be focusing on how the loom works and getting used to that, rather than necessarily focusing on creating a nice sample.

Mid Project Review

                For my mid project review, I was able to get some positive and also constructive feedback from my group which I found very helpful. To deconstruct these points and see how I can take and use them to my advantage, I’m going to pick them apart and apply to areas that the group have stated I need to work on, but also what I know myself still needs to be done.

1.       I have made clear connections with my visual research but was told to try and narrow down my ideas. I agree with this to an extent since my sketchbook seems a little more disorganised than usual. I think this is due to needing some more connecting images to previous work to make my progress clearer. This can be done by spending some time looking back through all of my work and seeing where the influences came from ie. Drawings, artist research etc.

2.       I was told there is evidence of material sampling with lots of variety; especially with yarns. I have looked at a lot of possible warps to make a clear and thorough decision. To extend this, once my yarns have been dyed, I will need to create another yarn wrap of my warp plan and show what the yarns are – I will also document the yarns in my technical file.

3.       This question was not answered in the group critique but I would still like to self asses it. I think my colour palette has been established well but almost has two halves to it of autumnal colours and bright colours. Finding the right balance of these colours to fit with what I wanted took a bit of time but I now feel as though it has been defined well. I have also tried lots of colour combinations that I can work with later on within my weft.

4.       I have shown clear evidence of experimentation in Photoshop that I should continue with. Perhaps it would be worth starting to think about weft ideas from older drawings or photographs. It was also suggested that I maybe work outside of my sketchbook to continue drawing. I absolutely agree with this since I would like to try to continue drawing away from digital and go back to pen to paper.

5.       I have shown clear evidence of contextual research through my mood board. I would like to expand on this and start to think more about the options that are available on it eg. mens suits, interiors, scarves. I need to find some artists that are making the same sort of things that I imagine my work fitting into.

6.       For positive recommendations, it was suggested that I make more links to my digital drawings within my sketchbook. Again I completely agree since the connections in my sketchbook are lacking and I need to clearly show where everything is coming from. 

Mon 9^th – Fri 13^th Oct, 2017

                Following on from last week, I was trying to decide which tartan I wanted to work with so that I could make decisions about my warp in both pattern/design and colour. I decided on Clan Gordon due to the amount of colours that were available with the design.

                While sampling various colours and slight design variations with this tartan, I was beginning to make decisions about my warp and accidentally made it harder for myself by making more pleasing colour combinations.

                Through several peer reviews and my weekly group crit I managed to decide on an orange/turquoise warp which I was initially unsure about. This is because these colours are quite dominant due to their contrasting nature which I thought might have too much of an effect on my samples and I would grow to hate it. However I chose to take the plunge and try something out of my comfort zone. To test out this warp I tried it with various wefts.

                 Creating my warp plan was a bit of a challenge since I have always struggled with the numbers before. This time it was even more of a challenge since I had to get the numbers to fit but was also trying to keep my design proportional. Although it took a while to do I was very happy to have managed to complete the warping order on my own.  The yarn I decided to use, 2/40’s Mercerised Cotton, was not readily available so I have had to plan dyeing the yarn which I will continue with next week. 

Mon 2^nd – Sun 8^th Oct, 2017

                Throughout this week I have been trying to push my drawings forward to link more to weaving and to see how they can develop into elements of weave eg warp. To do this I went onto Scotweave to try and see what my current warp ideas would look like in reality with a weft also in place. Since I have been wanting to do checks/tartans I kept the warp and weft pretty much identical and ended up with some really nice results. I also tried some peg plans that I had been wanting to work with such as houndstooth and twills. 

                Since Scotweave I have been looking more into tartans/checks to see what exactly I want to do with them and how I can use my colour scheme effectively to enhance my tartan designs. In addition to this I have looked at specific tartan designs and recreated them with my colour scheme.

                After my group crit I have been looking at using an extra warp to create shapes within my weaving. This is also something I have been considering as I have been continuing with my drawings. So far I have used my motifs to create these shapes. Whether these will need to be simplified before I start weaving, I’m not sure; but for now they are working well and bringing in more vivid colours in subtle ways. 

                While I am still in the process of understanding my colour scheme and the proportions I need of each colour, I have stuck with fairly traditional autumnal colours for these drawings. The darker tartan pattern is my favourite because the colours are much more interesting and less traditional, which is the kind of aesthetic I want to go for. The other two are too traditional in appearance and look almost folky. It might be that their only needs to be a slight colour change but this is what I will be working on through to next week.