ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR LIVE TRACE:

I scanned and printed off my two final designs for my printed panels, but I was not happy with the result and I did not think it would print correctly or well enough, so to create smoother, darker lines (as I hand drew the designs in pencil) I opened the scanned images onto Adobe Illustrator and performed live trace until I was happy with the below results.

PATCHWORK MOCK UP:

 

This is just me playing around getting the hang of sewing again, all this is by hand, however for the construction of my final pieces i will use a sewing maching to achieve a better quality outcome.

I was mainly just playing around with the materials that im going to use and the positioning of the panels.

MY PRINT DESIGNS:

These are my two final illustrations to use for screen printing as the centre panel of my patchwork quilts.

PRINTS OF INTEREST:

I want to feature prints which match with my medieval theme, featuring neutral colours of a dark palett.
 Some examples:

These and similar colours are close to what i have chosen for my mood board and for my final piece,
dark colours and some floral type images compliment the theme well.

MOOD BOARD:

Creating a mood board works for me, piecing together the images and pattern and materials that fit with my theme and inspire me to create images which compliment all of my chosen aspects relating to the brief I was given.

My mood board is mainly looking at materials and pattern, as I need to make sure that what I use mtaches and works alongside my printed images and run smoothly with my chosen theme. 'Prints of darkness' as a project title has inspired me to look for older looking materials, dark, cool, natural colours and interesting materials. I now know to look for these kind of textiles and images after my research into medieval tapestry art and combining this with what kinds of pattern and material are usually used in the creation of patchwork items.

PATCHWORK:

I decided on creating a bedroom related artifact as I have relevant experience with sewing and pattern cutting through independant study. I have chosen to create a series of small patchwork quilts, as I can encorporate my print designs on materials, and use corresponding materials with pattern and colour relating to the medieval theme that inspired my images.

I want to go about placing the right patters and colours along with the theme, and looking carefully at what will work best alongside my Printed images. I have also created a mood board to go inside my sketch book, indicating the general colour themes and examples of images i wish to use.

MEDIEVAL TAPESTRY:

To start my research, i looked at the imagery within medieval aged and styled tapestries.
A few examples:

These and other images I came across were all similar, usually featuring the same kind of colour scheme and similar characters/scenes that are often associated with the Medieval time period. However, alot of the imagery I found was not so stereotypical, but still using the same colour schemes and techniques.

PRINTS OF DARKNESS: PROJECT BRIEF PART 2

For this next part of the briefing, I was given a project based on a theme of interiors and bearing the title 'prints of darkness'.
This brief could most definately be interpreted in a number of ways, however, the most obvious solution is to look towards gothic movements in art, culture and design. This take on the briefing title, however, is not a route which i am going to chose to follow. After mind mapping the possibilities, I have decided to narrow my subject matter to two themes: one being night sky landscape scenes; the other being medieval images and styles.

From my initial research (blogs to follow) i have chosen to use the medieval theme, as I feel it will work better with the type of artifact I have planned to create.

The 'Dark ages' is a term origionally given to the majority of the Middle ages, which began to be an popular term from the early 1600's. Times of Knights, armour, fair maidens and kingdoms are the first connotations I find from the phrase the 'dark ages', however, I do want to research futher into the art movements and imagery of the era, and the fashions, pattern and materials used so as to make my work for this projects reference as well as possible to the theme I have chosen.

The artifact that have chosen to create will is a patchwork quilt/cover. I plan to use various print techniques to create patterns and imagery refelcting my chosen theme, printing onto panels of material of various colours, and using a variety of sewing skills to create a full sized patchwork quilt cover from scatch. This should prove quite time consuming as i want to use a different image for each panel of material, which means designing and printing at least 10 different images. I want to use atleast two techniques of print anyway as to create different textures and results within the artifact. After reseaching and designing my images, I want to experiment printing them in various ways to achieve the best results.

FLOCKING AND FOILING:

Flocking and foiling is almost a completely different process to the rest of the print processes in that it is by applyng glue through the print screen stencil and using flocking and foil materials in the heat press that creates the effect.

SILK SCREEN PRINTING:

Slik screen printing with a photographically exposed screen is more of a slower process. For this i required a silk screen ready and coated in photographic emulsion, access to a light exposure unit, and a large scale photocopier to produce my logo onto assatate.

The first thing to do is produce my logo on assatate by photocopying onto assatate to my desired scale. Then I place the assatate logo with the silk screen in the light exposure unit to create my 'stencil'.
After finding the right colour of ink and mixing with Binder, I go on to pull ink over the entire logo stencil onto various papers and materials.

LINO PRINTING:

Lino printiong is probably the process that i got some of the best outcomes from. The types of materials and papers you can print onto in this process is more extensive than with Dry point printing, so in that respect i could work on printing my design with much more flexibility.

The process is started with a sheet of my desired size of lino, then with a lino tool, carving out the lino, either to create a negative or positive version of my logo. The print process litterally consists of rolling a light layer of ink over the lino block, placing over paper in the lino press, and releasing the machine several amounts of times to produce my required effect. Leaving to dry again for a good half a day atleast or untill dry.

DRY POINT PRINTING:

Dry point printing is probably the process that i have found the easiest, however I never used to like it because of how messy it can get!

To begin the process, I start with scratching/marking a design onto thick assatate, tracing over a design is the best way to do this. Then i take my assatate to the print room and cover all the lines with a mixture of printing ink and extender for inks. After thouroughly covering all the lines, i wipe the excess off and try to get the rest of the assatate as clean as i can. Then, after soaking papers and materials in water for a good 5-10 minutes, I place the etched and inked design onto the pre-soaked paper in the rolling press, roll the machine untill the plate has passed through, and carefully remove the finished piece and assatate.
Then leaving to dry for half a day to a day is ideal.

PRINT PROCESSES:

For this module i was given a brief to explore and experiment with various print techniques starting with an easy logo design.

The print processes i have explored so far are:
Dry point printing;
Lino printing;
Silk screen printing with a photographically exposed screen;
Flocking;
Foiling.

I have sucessful tests and outcomes for all of these techniques. Follow the blog for my experimentation and evauluation of my work.