Evaluation of Origin task

  

My aim was to create a cohesive collection that was directly influenced by my drawings and by manipulation of these drawings. My knit and weave related to my drawings and to each other in terms of colour, yarn and texture.

I have translated my 2d drawings into weave and knit swatches by looking at  colour, media and line quality. This is different way of working than I am used to as rather than thinking about concepts I have just been looking at and interpreting colour and texture.

Overall, I feel that my project has been developed successfully and there is a consistent progression from my drawings through to my swatches. I have experimented in different media and I have selected yarns that related to my mark making and used techniques that also relate.

Throughout this process  I have reviewed and critically assessed my work in order to determine which ideas were the most successful, and which should be taken forward. For example; I found my leaf silhouette drawings to be the most successful of my chance card drawings, so I spent time developing these. I found the collage technique to be the most effective method of testing colour, proportion and texture, so I continued using this in weave and knit.

I have realised that I do not like working on a flat plane, as I did in weave. I felt restricted and prefer being able to manipulate material more easily and quickly.

I looked at weave artists for colour and yarn inspiration . Looking at other practitioners work can be inspiring and helped me make decisions that related to my own work.

 I looked at an embroidery artists as well as knit and weave artists as I wanted to look at ways of developing the linear aspect of my drawing into textiles.

Looking at embroidery helped me think more laterally and challenged me to find ways of interpreting embroidery techniques into knit. I also looked at knit practitioners and I had begun to experiment with combining different weights together: sheer, opaque, layering knits, combining textural yarns with finer sleek yarns and needle out technique.

I feel that at this early stage I have been limited by my technical ability in knit and weave and therefore my development has not been as great as I would have liked. I would have liked to have created a larger final swatch that combined all the ideas I had experimented with.

I have struggled to manage my studio/workshop time well as I have tended to work on one element intensively rather than each element simultaneously. This has resulted in an uneven amount of work in each area. I need to better regulate the time spent on each element and these will then feed each other creatively in a more productive way. I have realised the importance of these processes running alongside each other in order for the outcome to be as successful as possible.

 To help with creativity,I have tried to think laterally by using different methods to progress an idea, such as painting, drawing, collage and using a photocopier as a tool. In weave, I struggled more with the technical side, and therefore could not experiment as much had I been technically proficient. Knit was less labour intensive and allowed me to experiment with different ideas.