Hand-made felt sample pieces

These hand-made felted samples were created during a 2nd year work shop session with my tutor Joyce Paterson. I greatly enjoyed creating these sample pieces. Having a strong passion for screen printing I created a random silk screen and used my independent study time to spend extra time in the university print room with our technician Suzanne to screen print onto the samples with suzanne's assistance.

There are a mixture of screen print techniques used upon these samples, used both independently and in combination.

Sample 1 has two tones of foil added. This was achieved by applying the adhesive via the silk screen and then attaching the foils which were then heat transferred.

Sample 2 was created in the same way but has the addition of fabric netting for added texture.

Sample 3 was again created with the foil heat transfer technique. As an embellishment I hand beaded into sections of the foiled areas. Feedback from my tutors made me realise that I should have used beads with a more contrasting colour. Always a perfectionist, I removed these beads and hand stitched new beads. Picture 4 shows the original bead work in more detail.

Samples 5 and 7 are a combination of heat transferred foils and screen printed inks.

Sample 6 has the addition of puff binder (also known as Aqua Span.) This process is added via the silk screen as a glue and is again heat sealed which creates a raised textured surface. Coloured pigments can be added for extra effect. For this sample I used a completely different silk screen to create the puff binder areas than I used for the foiled area.

As I was not creating these samples in response to as specific brief, there is little continuity between them. However the two brown samples work wonderfully together I feel and are my personal favourites. I also like the blue samples as a cohesive collection. Only the final sample is individual, but I feel that adds to its charm.

I hope you like these samples. Feedback comments would, as ever, be greatly appreciated. I hope to post more work soon. Keep a look out for future posts and thanks for your continued viewings. Cheers Then ;-)

Suffragette Posters

I have always had great respect for the Suffragettes but have also been drawn to their propaganda posters and other merchandise that were produced, such as banners and broaches. I feel they had a very identifiable style that captured the graphic style of the time and loved the use of colours purple, white and green, which were the colours of their logo. I have included a selection of some of the best and most famous propaganda posters, eg. 'The Cat & Mouse Act' and 'Torturing Women In Prison.' I also wanted to included as a final photograph a portrait of one of my biggest heroines, the Suffragette 'martyr' Emily Wilding Davison, who became most famous for throwing herself before the King's horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby, an act which was to tragically take her life.

More congratulations!!

Huge congratulations go to Emma McVan, a friend and fellow student at the University of Bolton, for successfully beating a large number of other students to have her surface design chosen to grace the walls of Bolton One, a new leisure centre complex being built in Bolton.

Check out her blogsite at http://emmamcvan.blogspot.com/ to see the winning Bolton One design as well as other examples of her design work.

Congratulations also to Christina Pelle, a 3rd year University of Bolton student has also had one of her designs commissioned for the Bolton One complex. Check out her blogspot at http://christinagabriellapelle.blogspot.com/

Scarf design photographs

I took these photographs of my sister wearing this scarf to show the printed outcome of my final design idea for my 1st year Digital Manipulation module. This bespoke scarf is digitally printed onto 100% silk and has a tag with hand embroidered washing instructions and company logo. I tried to photograph the scarf wrapped in as many styles as possible to exemplify its versatility. My sister is now the proud owner of this scarf.

Bolton Progressive Threads

I've just found a website for Bolton Progressive Threads. They are a group of 20 textile artists who frequently exhibit their work as a collective.

They will exhibiting at Gawthorpe Hall, Lancashire from March to October. Strangely enough I've just discovered that an ancestor of mine used to own Gawthorpe Hall. How's that for a coincidence!

Contact details are as follows;

Website: http://www.boltonprogressivethreads.co.uk/

To be added to their mailing list: boltonpthreads@btinternet.com

For any other information: joyce-read@msn.com

Hope you enjoy the webite. I certainly did!

Congratulations

A big congratulations go to 3rd year University of Bolton students Rachel Dawson (patcheduptextiles.blogspot.com) Melanie Brown (melanie-kaytextiles.blogspot.com) and Danielle Burke (danielleburketextiles.blogspot.com) for doing so brilliantly at the Bradford Textile Society competition.

Samples for company letter heads

These are my initial design ideas for company letter heads. I obviously wanted to keep the same artwork that is contained on my business card samples but wanted to separate the contact information from my company logo. I could have just placed the contact information at the bottom of the page as text only but felt it was more interesting to have a cropped representation of my artwork design alongside the text.

Another idea I have had is to use a separate image as a watermark style feature in the middle of a letter head and simply have my company name and contact details as text only in the same positions as seen on these two lay out ideas.