Unit X- Lines of Enquiry

To develop upon my research so far and to take it further, I walked around Manchester taking photographs of the surfaces and textures I could find. My photographs varied from capturing natural weather decay as well as manmade patterns and surfaces. This established the kind of surfaces I wanted to take further in the theme of texture. I was quite disappointed in my photographs in some ways due to the fact that what I found around Manchester was not as vibrant and interesting as the images of weather decay I found throughout my research. However, this also shown me a new direction in which I could take, in terms of not shapes, colour and textures I could depict from them.

Original Photographs of Surface Texture in Manchester

From my photographs, I started to draw from them using mark making techniques where I used every day, household, found objects to form shapes and texture. I portrayed the shape seen within the photographs and using some of the found objects I built up textures inspired by my photographs. For example I painted on bubble wrap and printed with it on paper to create a peeling paint texture. I did these drawings on a small square of paper using my colour inspiration from the photographs.

Mark Making Drawings from Photographs

The drawings linked in with my theme of surface texture really well and therefore I decided to develop them further with the use of Photoshop. I made each mark making into a brush and started layering up the different brush strokes to get an idea of what kind of textures could be made.

Photoshop Brush stroke Developments (Green)

 In an independent crit with friends I was advised to add another energetic colour to the green tones that I was using for my colour palette. I chose the colour orange as it was a constant colour within photographs of weather decay that I had seen and captured. I believe this small adjustment makes a big difference within the samples, improving the quality and professionalism.  

Photoshop Brush Development (Orange)

Although using Photoshop is a digital technique, the layering side to it made me think about screen printing and gave me ideas for each screen and a direction in which to layer them. As I had not yet thought up of a solid idea for screens I decided to digitally print some samples to understand the quality I could get if I decided to go down this route. The samples were not as responsive and didn’t communicate much texture throughout. This stabilised my decision to go down the route of screen printing as this pathway would also link in closely when thinking about my context research.

Digital Samples

Due to the surface textured theme to my work, I believe the best contextual outcome would be either a scarf or head scarf as it would look more interesting when folded, bunched up or tied up. The different textures could be placed in anyway the wearer would like as they will have the control to fold/tie the scarf as they please. Therefore I will most likely use a light weight fabric such as silk so it can hang on the neck or head comfortably.  

Contextual References