Saadet's Textiles - Exploring Ideas: Assignment 5 - Personal Project

Sketchbook Work and Developing Design Ideas:

First things first, let's do some sketches and explore visual outcomes. Below are some samples I drew with charcoal, ink, and wax resist.

S Payne Sketchbook - Fish Bones wax crayons and ink

S Payne Sketchbook - Fishbones Ink

S Payne Sketchbook - Fish Bones Pencil and Wax Resist

The first thing I notice is that there are so many details in each image. Do I want to record all the marks or do I want to be selective? What colours should I use? Bold colours or pastel? Bright colours to contrast everything the image represent or colours of decay to represent its true nature?

I experimented with relief printing using polystyrene. I like the marks this process creates. Can I replicate them for a pattern on fabric? I don’t want a pattern with a whole fish image in it. I want an abstract pattern. I still want it to radiate the same feelings… feather like vulnerability vs. strong hard structure.

S Payne Sketchbook - Relief Print

S Payne Sketchbook - Relief Print and Stich

I tried a wax resist technique on a piece of fabric and failed miserably. Without investing in proper batik equipment, there is no use in pursuing this route I think. Wax resist pieces on paper, however, are lovely.

Let's introduce some stitch onto these sketches. Here are some machine and hand stitched pieces. I love the machine-embroidered samples. I think the style of machine embroidery translates the source images very well.

S Payne Sketchbook - Fish Bones

SPayne Sketchbook - Fish Bones Free Machine Embroidery

SPayne Sketchbook - Fish Bones Free Machine Embroidery on kitchen paper and voile.

SPayne Sketchbook - Fish Bones Free Machine Embroidery on cotton,

But these are very detailed sketches that will be too busy for screen printing. I need to simply them or not screen-print at all. For that, I need to study the basics of the structure more, simplify its shapes.

Developing Design Ideas:

I explored and drew the joints and feather-like bone shapes. How delicate and gentle they look.

S Payne Sketchbook - Exploring the structure of the fish skeleton

S Payne Sketchbook - Exploring and simplifying the structure of the fish skeleton

Are these too delicate? Can I make cut out templates from them? I think they are too fine for cut out templates. Paper cutouts will disintegrate during the printing process. I really dislike working with Vilene interfacing templates. They are not great for detailed designs either. To achieve a decent detailed print, I need to use either photo emulsion or thermoflax screens.

I searched online found a company that prints bespoke thermoflax screens. I can design my own thermoflax screens. This decision affected the design of the template completely. You cannot have grey areas in thermoflax screen but it allows you to achieve finer lines. I modified my sketches and designed two templates for print screens. Sometimes the simplest is the best.