Who inspired me for my holiday project..

I thoroughly enjoyed working and building on my summer project this year to start of my level 5 textiles in practice work. Here I want to share some of the artists and designers that I gained a massive amount of inspiration from to build up the foundations of my summer project.

    firstly I looked at an artist that goes by the name of Carolyn Saxby, her work was a very unique kind of style, completely textile based, her type of media as well as colour theme was a perfect way to start of inspiration to continue in my practice.

As you can see from the picture above, her colour theme and style of work is the perfect mysterious winter themed sky, that I could really see my own practice following in this way.

The second artist I looked at was called Conor Mcready, his work was the perfect match to my practice, not only because of his choice of colour theme but the free and loose mark making skills that he is attached too, follows a very similar style of mark making to myself. Conor's work reminded me of my own more than anyone else. 

The third artist that I looked at is called Carol Dearborn, she was a more fine artist that focused a lot on paintings for her practice. I did a lot of research on this artist because of her painting work, even though she isn't a textile artist or designer in the slightest, and is very much up there with fine and contemporary art, her paintings have true beauty and this is exactly what I was looking for within an artist, I felt her work really tied in well with my sky and sunset project. 

  

This picture above is my favorite piece of work by Carol, because I feel that it really highlights the best idea of the sky and how beautiful it actually is in true nature, such a natural beauty that we can all take for granted, this picture is the perfect skill to finalize and show to my audience how beautiful the sky actually is, and link the whole of my summer project together to finish it off. Her style of painting is something that I am going to continue to do for this next project as I feel its very important to show a good range of mark making and drawing/painting skills to link the whole of my ideas and final outcome textile stages. 

I also looked at three other artists that go by the name of Mark Kuhune, Bren Graham Thebeau and Ken Goldman, these three artists also helped me to build up a good amount of work for my summer project, but didn't quiet inspire me as much as the three artists above, the other three were just average fine artists and didn't quiet have the wow factor but were still a good learning curve for my project, as they helped be a part of a wide range of research of practitioners.

I would love to combine these kind of marks from all three artists above with Deryn Relph's kind of textile Interior, made all from both hand and machine weaving practice, would be an amazing kind of challenge for me to aim to do.  

Feedback from my Holiday Project..

Tuesday 23rd September 2014
I really enjoyed doing my summer holiday project, because I found not only a topic and style of work that I really enjoyed and became inspired by, I found myself never short of ideas and things that I could do within the project my ideas can really be expanded.
After my group tutorial, I was very happy with my feedback from my fellow uni friends.
Being told that I had made some of the best work was very encouraging for me, they were all picking out my great eye for colour and use of lots of different mixed media that work really well together.
Things that I can work on and improve are to experiment more with scale, to try and work both bigger and smaller scale to create lots of different pieces of work, experiment more with texture and yarn within my work, both 2D and 3D sampling.
From this it then should give me a better idea of what kind of weaving world that I want to go into, this could be fashion or interior, as these two textile worlds interest me the most.

The above pictures are three images from my sketch book that had the best interest from my feedback session. These are the three pieces of work that my friends felt worked best for me. 

Practitioners

The second part of my influence task, I have been starting to identify practitioners who are working in a very similar way to how I would like my own practice to go. To follow in the same footsteps as some of the designers I have found would be a dream come true.
The path that is interesting me the most, that I think I would like to go down, is Interior design, one designer that I found that particular stood out for me is a lady called Deryn Relph, she is a textile designer, with a love of colour, pattern and texture, who likes to think creatively about the use of textiles she designs and constructs. 

A quote from Deryn herself has really inspired me for my own practice, “Although I specialized in knitted textiles for Interior use during my BA(Hons) Textile Design at Winchester School of Art, I merge this with previous upholstery and furnishing skills to create unique and contemporary solutions to an idea." 

She basis her work on the Issues affecting the Environment, and Sustainable design underpin my design ethos, and consideration to ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ is made throughout my process, with use of colour and technical ability aiding the solutions, along with a range of products that help reuse any waste. This something I like the idea of myself, and that I do already in some cases, to use and recycle materials and emerge them into the work that I create, even though she still is based as a knitter, a lot of her work is weave too, which come under the same title as construct, this is very helpful for myself, as weaving is what I want to specialize in. 

 

This here is a range of her work, this batch of interior came under the title of 'Retro Rainbow' I really like her geometric use of shapes and choice of colour. Even though her work is mainly knitted based just her designs and colour theme are a great inspiration to the practice that I might possibly like to follow. 




Margo Selby is still up there in my favorite designer list too, I love her unique style of work so very much, her distinctive style is known by so many people, and this would be such a dream of mine if one day I could be like her. To combine both her work with Deryn Relph's quirkiness is going to be the aim that I try and reach out for during my time studying the Textile and Practice course. 

Influences

"Everything I experience influences everything I do" Mandy Patinkin
Over my summer break, I have continued to build up a strong awareness of contemporary creative practice in Art&Design.
I have visited lots of different places this summer, so that I was able to try and engage more within the textile world, I can know see beauty and gain inspiration of some kind from almost everything.
I find myself appreciating things that I never thought I would, especially nature, and even though I did already no it, the world that we live in. Everything has the potential to be something amazing, everything can be seen as beautiful.
A holiday to Northern Spain with my mum, gave me the chance to learn about the Spanish culture and how they live there life's on a daily basis, the textile and costume side of this inspired me the most as I got to see a live salsa dance, the colours of these beautiful dresses were a great starting point for my project, A trip to London also gave me lots of other brilliant ideas as I visited some of the most famous museums and galleries in the country, including my all time most favorite one The Victoria&Albert museum, two of the best festivals known in the UK, museums, galleries, trips to the library, and many walks in my beautiful home town of Llandudno, have been a major part of my summer.
Each giving me an eye sight to beauty in lots of different ways, my summer has really made me focus on colour and texture, this a big influence for my first project in level 5.

These four images above are some of my favorite pieces of work my my summer project sketch book, all inspired by the things I saw over my summer and the places that I had been too, and of course my main theme of sunsets and the sky.