Evaluation for Winter themed bag

For our second project it was based on knitting, weaving & felting, but for our particular theme we had to chose a season. So for my season I chose winter because I think knitting, weaving & felting relates a lot to winter because in winter the fashion is all based on wool, Fur, knitted scarves, hats & gloves, thick layers of knitting, so I felt winter would relate a lot of fashion in this way, so with the bag been an outcome of the project I chose to do Winter. 

When I began my research I took a lot of photographs based around nature and organic aspects, I went to Locke park, Ward Green reservoir, Cannon Hall, Wig-field farm & the fields nature surrounding my area. With these photographs I concentrated on getting a variety because I felt this is important when coming to working onto/into them, I chose bright & vibrant flowers to photograph, I chose cold looking photographs like a branch against a stone cold wall to also give the idea that its for Winter. For my photographs I also gathered some I had took last year when it snowed as last year I took a variety of different weather changing photographs so they were an advantage to work into. It was a shame that it didn't snow during my project but I felt it was important that id gathered some photographs that i'd took myself to go towards Primary research. Furthermore for my primary research there was a observational drawing set up in the classroom as to where we could do different media based sketches and observe the different aspects of the set up, but on the day my class did this I wasn't well so I when I came back I took photographs of the still life as Primary research but I also made my own observational drawing set up. I made a set up with a Banana, kiwi, some bright vibrant flowers, some leaves on a stick, an egg and an rose. The different reasons for all this combination was firstly the Banana & Kiwi was there because fruit represents Nature in a big way by it been grown and I think Banana and especially Kiwi are very interesting things to draw in terms of media, it added color and a meaning to my piece. The flowers and the leaves on a stick were placed on my observational drawing set up because plants & weeds are also a major part of nature along with insects but I couldn't find any insects to place in my set up, but the flowers also really opened up to reveal beauty and detail inside which was interesting to draw, and the vibrant pink flower became a part of my project as I took lots of photographs of it when doing my Primary research. Then I placed the egg in my set up because thats nature within itself and it added a nice background piece and was interesting to draw. But I also took photographs of my set up as evidence and as to work from. So with my set up I did 30 second, 2 minutes, 5 minutes & 15 minutes sketches to see the effect a time limit would have on them and if enjoyed this process or not. I also painted my set up in a detailed lay out which I enjoyed doing because it gave me the opportunity to add color and not quickly sketch like my other media pieces. I enjoyed doing my own set up because I felt I could really work from it and evaluate what objects were important to place in it and what not.

For my secondary research I did a cuts out of mainly newspaper of anything I saw based on nature or Winter or both. I found an interesting cut out of the Mirror, where it showed Polar bears & deers along with lots of action shots of Winter animals which I found interesting.

I also looked into a snowflake book that showed all different variety of snowflakes to include in my research and my visual sheets because some even looked like faces or created images. I researched a lot into Winter Fashion and what it represented, and i found a lot based on big woolly fur coats & big wrap round scarves, so it was all about clothing giving the over-sized look with techniques of knitting within it. I also found that a lot of animals faces are interpreted into winter fashion especially with hats, scarves & gloves which gave me a inspiration to interpretate my own faces into my own work. 

F0r my artists research I first of all Sanhi because her work was based on Weaving and because I found her work so inspiring. Her work was based on weaving with anything that she recieved through her letterbox (menus, advertisements, postcards) to make weaves out of so she was considered towards helping the environment was she also made her work look so inspiring, and then she’d work over the top of them to make faces or create art. She mostly concentrated on celebrities faces as this was a popuar aspect at the time so became something people could relate themselves to. So in my sketchbook I did my own version of her weave in a recycled crisp packet and some material then drew a deer over the top to relate back to my theme and I appreciated the outcome because it showed both my artists influences and my theme.

I also researched Renata who did felting and her work was so extradionary. She created mainly animals with felt and they were created up to such a high standard that they looked like thick photographs, she added such small minor details that it brought her pieces to life and if I had been more time managing I would of done a felting of a peuguin in influence of Renata because I wanted to have another experience at felting and this time do more small details like she showed on her work.

Furthermore, I also researched Wendy who showed knitting through her work, but I chose Wendy because she added components to her knitting which made it even more inspirational, she made animals out of her knitting. One of her favourite pieces of mine is her butterfly knit, when there’s so much detail gone into it, and different thickness of thread to create different patterns.  But I appreciated the fact that she worked back into her knitting so that it wasn’t plain, it was made into art, so I was really inspired by her knit and thats what influenced me to add beads into the front panel of my bag.

Finally I researched Tali Furman who was my favourite artist to research. I included her because I needed an artists who did geometric and symmetry style in there work, and she did this with animals & nature included. I found it interesting to blend my designs into one another and to repeat them because I felt it made the piece more interesting and visually busy. So Tali Furman did exactly this with her work and made is so fascinating and made you really concentrate on her work and look into it and thats the impression I wanted to make with my work. She inspired me to do the repitition on my back panel because she did this on a lot of her own work and added splashes of bright colour within it so I added the bright blue print down the middle to make it more vibrant.

I decided on doing a Toke bag because I wanted each panel to be different as where I couldn’t do this with a slouch bag, I wanted to show different techniques and skill through each panel to show everything I had learned and been influenced by. I wanted to include as many knitting & weaving samples as I could to the best of my ability. If my bag was to be manufactured I think the back panel with the repetition of screen prints would be easy to do because it would be cheap and a quick process to produce but the front panel with the beads may be more time cosuming and more expensive to reproduce so if the manufactures didn’t include the beads and the hand sewing onto the front panel and just using a sewing machine to appliqué on the silk it may be a quicker process. But the recycled jeans on the side panel would be an advantage because there recycled jeans so would be of advantage to the environment.

I think the front and back panel on my bag went very well, the only thing that ruined the back panel was that the pigment paint got through the mesh on the screen print board so it got onto my piece so for next time I will ensure to mask it up accordingly. I also think I showed all my artist influences through my bag because I found artists I really enjoyed researching and took there work into my own hands to represent my own version. I think the side panels were a massive disadvantage to my bag as I didn’t leave myself enough time to do the peg loom so I didn’t get chance to finish my bag which was a shame because to achieve the end product would of been satisfying, but for next time I will make sure to leave myself enough time to do weaving & knitting because it can become really time consuming on your work. If I could change anything it would be to of spent more time on the end product because I didn’t give myself enough time to finish the bag and felt at the end it was a massive rush which made my bag of a lesser standard that I wanted to achieve, so I will ensure for my next project to give myself enough time to ensure an outstanding end product to be proud of, and set myself a task so I know on which days I know what i’m set out to achieve as I think this is important, I just think for this project my time management has really let me down, but I will ensure for this to not happen again. Overall I enjoyed this project and learning the new skills, and felt ive achieved a lot on how to work onto a knit, weave or felt.