Collins Cambridge International AS and A Level Art and Design sample

Module 1: Textiles and fashion Textiles Learning objective: • To explore different ways to refine and present research to support the creative process.

Research is an essential part of textile designers’ creative process as it helps them to engage with their chosen topic or theme and provides key design elements such as colour, fabric, texture and surface pattern/imagery.

To broaden their research, they must also consider cultural, historical and contemporary references and market trends. Once a designer has collected and recorded this information, they will begin to select and present their images. This selection process helps a designer define their intentions. One way to do this is by creating a mood board.

USING MOOD BOARDS

1.1 Azra Iqbal, mood board, 2017

The example of a mood board in Figure 1.1 is by Azra Iqbal, a constructed textile designer specialising in knitwear. Here she presents us with a selected group of images inspired by fine web-like structures. Her board is made up of her own collaged images: she has experimented with a fine nylon fabric to produce ladder-like structures relating to a photograph she has taken, included in the mood board. At the bottom left of her board, she has made 3D multimedia structures that cross-reference to her linear images.

Skills activity A: Define the story in this mood board For the mood board in Figure 1.2, designer Ellamea Statham has created a mood board using her own photographs of decorative facades of houses. She has formatted them into an abstract collage playing with scale and colour.

Can you describe the overall mood of the images? Find some descriptive words that capture the essence of the story.

Next, create a colour palette that includes the accent colour. Can you identify the strongest colour? This colour is called the accent colour and tends to run through the whole collection of fabrics.

1.2 Ellamea Statham, mood board

28

Textiles and fashion

Skills activity B: Create an A3 mood board Create a mood board that displays your personal ideas. Include a colour palette and images from both primary and secondary sources: • The primary sources can be in the form of photographs you have taken that you think represent your ideas best. For example, you may want to present a detailed pattern by creating close-up photographic images using a macro lens on the camera.

• The secondary imagery can be magazine cuttings or taken directly from the Internet.

It is important that you are selective and show only what is relevant and clearly describes your intentions. For example, if your mood board is about a brightly coloured beadwork story, you could include images of the traditional costumes of Masai warriors featuring intricate stitched beads. Limit your selection to ten images on an A3 board.

Materials and techniques: Using found imagery Figures 1.3 and 1.4 demonstrate how a designer can also use found objects to inspire their work. The author has collected objects with interesting shapes, in this case jewellery. They have been placed on an overhead projector and projected onto a sheet of paper. Only the silhouetted shapes are outlined with a pen. The result can be developed into a surface pattern textile. Find your own objects that have unusual shapes and do the same.

Tip: Making mood boards You can make moods boards either by hand, by cutting out images and sticking them down using photo mount onto mount board or using a website storing system, such as Pinterest, where you can select images and store them onto your computer or phone app. accent colour Colour used in quite small quantities to lift or to add punch to a colour scheme. key design elements Components that make up a textile outcome. macro lens Setting used for photographing close-up detail. mood board An arrangement of images, materials, pieces of text, pinned to a board, and intended to evoke or project a particular style or concept. mount board A stiff card to mount work onto – 1.4 mm thickness is best. photo mount A spray glue that allows you to reposition your images. story In textiles and fashion, the term often used to describe the overall theme of a design.

1.3 and 1.4 Use of found objects to create a surface pattern.

29

Module 1: Observation and intention

PRINTED AND DYED TEXTILES: MANIPULATING IMAGERY Once the designer has thoroughly completed their research, the next stage is for them to make choices in terms of colour and imagery. The designer will refine their research and begin to experiment with manipulating imagery, mixing inks, and dying fabrics. The designer will know at this stage what function the outcome will have – for example, whether the printed textile will be for fashion or an interior.

For printed textiles, a designer will need to decide on what the overall effect will look like and how this will be achieved. For example, will the selected images work better as a single image on the fabric or repeated? If the image is to be repeated, it will go through a hand or digital formatting process. Will the imagery be abstract or realistic? If realistic, then a digital printing process may be more appropriate (see Figure 1.5)

Materials and techniques: Distorting imagery

1.5 Basso & Brooke, Vibrant Wilderness, from the Tropical Constructivist collection, Spring/Summer 2012, digital print on fabric. If you look closely, you can just make out the distorted images of landscape and seascapes. The design plays with blocks of colours and pastel shade for a background, allowing the foreground to burst with colour and structure.

Tip: Permissions When you are choosing secondary images from the Internet, books or magazines, you will need to seek permission to use them due to copyright issues. Ask your teacher for advice.

Try distorting your images in the following way. Place the image onto a photocopier and, just as the printing process is about to take place, drag the image across the glass plate. Experiment with the speed at which you do this. Other ways to distort images include scrunching up or folding the paper with the image on, keeping the creases in the paper and then redrawing what you see.

Skills activity C: Collect imagery from secondary sources for a digital print design idea Using the theme ‘Abstract seascape’, collect and select secondary images (from magazines, books, Internet) that depict views of the sea. You will ‘abstract’ these images by changing their original composition. This can be achieved by reducing or increasing the scale of the image, distorting it, cutting it up and placing it back together in a different direction. Carefully consider your colour palette so you present either a balance of subdued or vibrant colours. Refer to the example design by fashion label Basso & Brooke (Figure 1.5) for ideas on layout.

Tip: Seascapes For Activity C, try to explore a diverse range of seascape images. They do not have to be actual photographs, but they can be taken from a range of artistic sources. For example, you might like to use one of the brilliantly coloured seascapes by the English painter J M W Turner (1775–1851) or the iconic woodblock print The Great Wave off Kanagawa (1832) by the Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, or both!

Have fun experimenting with texture and scale.

30

Textiles and fashion

CONSTRUCTED TEXTILES: CREATING SURFACE PATTERNS For all textile designers, colour is fundamental. However, for makers of constructed textiles, it is the raw materials such as fibres and threads that are most important. Designers of constructed textiles use highly traditional skilled techniques such as knitting, weaving, felting, embroidery, tapestry, lacemaking and crocheting to make textured outcomes. It is the surface pattern that is most intriguing to the designer and they will begin researching unusual surfaces to help visualise an idea.

Often the most interesting and revealing surfaces are the ones that go unnoticed. The example in Figure 1.6 shows a wall that has been distressed by age or weather.

It is observational images like this one that inspire a designer as they have lots of interesting qualities for unique and exciting fabric surfaces. Figure 1.7 is a good example of how an outcome may have been inspired from initial research like the textured wall surface. The dress – created by British–Turkish Cypriot fashion designer Hussein Chalayan (born 1970) – is made up of stitched layers of fragmented pieces of fabric and appliquéd onto a partly transparent and opaque cloth.

1.7 Hussein Chalayan, dress made from fabric stitched onto transparent cloth, Autumn 2014 collection.

1.6 Peeling paint from a brick wall makes an interesting surface.

Skills activity D: Collect primary sources for surface pattern inspiration Use a camera to record 30 photographs of the surfaces of both natural and synthetic structures. Take your time when looking for inspiration: often the most interesting and revealing surfaces are those that would normally go unnoticed (Figure 1.8). When selecting your surfaces to photograph, don’t be too concerned at this stage about what the final outcome might be. It is important to have fun finding as many unusual surfaces you can. You will begin to see things in a very different way!

Once you are back in the classroom/studio, only then begin to think how the photographs might translate best into a textile technique.

1.8 Photograph of a road with double yellow lines and signs of wear and tear.

Tip: Keeping materials Remember to always keep the photographs you reject as you might need them for future projects. appliqué Textile technique where one piece of fabric is stitched onto another for decorative effect.

31

Module 1: Observation and intention

Designers and artists: Dionne Swift: using observational research To help us understand how a textile artist uses observational research to inspire their work, we will look at the British machine embroiderer, Dionne Swift. Swift ‘paints’ with cloth and thread to create an intuitive, emotional response to landscape. She builds up layers of texture and colour, mixing threads to create semi-abstract scenes.

She begins by recording landscapes using a camera. Once she has returned to her studio, she selects the photographs with the most appealing qualities in terms of both colour and structure and that will work with her stitching technique.

Next, she responds to the photographs by making quick drawings using oil bars and graphite.

It is important for her to work in this spontaneous way as it adds energy and freshness to her ultimate outcomes (Figure 1.9).

When these drawings have been realised, she begins translating these marks into stitch using a semi-industrial embroidery machine (Figure 1.10).

1.9 Dionne Swift, preparatory drawing, oil bars and graphite on paper.

The designer adds texture to the drawing by scratching into the oil colour and overlaying graphite to give the added depth and layers.

1.10 Dionne Swift, machine-embroidered fabric (close-up). Through her process of photographing, drawing and stitching, the artist is able to recapture the movement of foliage and water in the landscape.

You might like to try Activity E (page 33), which uses a similar process.

32

Textiles and fashion

Critical thinking: Review and refine your collection of photographs Following on from Activity D, your task is to review and refine your collection of photographs. Use the following method: • Lay the photographs out in front of you and consider which ones have the most stimulating surface qualities or ‘ingredients’.

• Now make your choice and put them into piles that would most suit a textile technique. For example, an image that depicts holes or transparency will be inspiration for a lace or laser technique, while an image of volcanic lava with rippling folds will be an inspiration for manipulating fabrics using pleating.

Tip: Using a viewfinder Make a viewfinder out of black card. This can be square or rectangular. Place it over the parts of the drawing or photograph that you find the most stimulating in terms of line, colour, surface pattern, or texture. By isolating these areas, you will discover more information and another image will emerge.

Skills activity E: Respond to observational drawing research through stitch The aim of this activity is to respond to observational drawings and translate them into stitch work, using a machine (see Designers and artists feature on page 32). You can use hand stitching if you do not have access to a sewing machine.

Start by setting up a still life with three small objects that have unusual surfaces and shapes. Draw only the outline of the objects with a pencil. Do not look at the page you are drawing on. The result of the drawing will be a lively, spontaneous one, with intersecting lines.

Select parts of your drawing that contain unusual and exciting mark making (Figure 1.11). Translate these marks onto fabric using a transfer method. Set the machine up with a free-motion embroidery attachment or embroidery foot. This will allow you to move around the fabric with ease. Stretch your fabric over an embroidery frame and thread your machine with black cotton. Use only black and grey tones so that your samples focus primarily on the textures and lines, without the distraction of colour.

Practise using the machine until you feel confident that you can control the speed and follow the transferred lines. You could explore scale by reducing or enlarging the stitches, using the stitch width and length settings on your machine.

1.12 Louise Arnould, Experimental machine embroidery stiches, threads and appliquéd fabric.

1.11 Louise Arnould, Observational drawing, pencil, charcoal and pen on paper.

embroidery foot An attachment for a sewing machine that makes free-motion stitching. embroidery frame A metal or wooden ring, designed to keep fabric stretched while an embroiderer works on it.

33