Self Initiated Project

For my self initiated project I am going to look at designing for interiors. I plan on learning more about digital print, photoshop and working in a new illustrative way. I also want to explore a new material I havent yet ever properly worked with.

I am going to base my project on Fauna, mainly insects.

I plan on spending 3 weeks on this project.

Research

London Natural History Museum 

Exotic tropical insects have become my favourite insects to look at due there amazing colours.

Kari Herer Photography

Kari Here is a photographer who uses flowers and insects together t create a unique way of working. 

I personally love the way she uses flowers to make the images more eye catching and pleasing to the eye. 

For my self initiated brief I really wanted to design for an interior context, however I personally believe that insects in the home on either wallpaper, or fabric is very limited and can be very unpopular. I think this way of working and introducing flowers is a very clever and simple idea.

Alex Konahin

Alex Konahin is an illustrator who creates these amazingly detailed images using influences from the Renaissance period using simple tools such as fineliners and pencils. I love this way of working and how he blends the two completely separate styles together, it gives a unique way of working.

Inspiring Insect Interiors

Cole & Son 

Talia Greene wallpapers

Grey damask Bee animal insect wallpaper

              Buggie in Flashy Cadet - Abnormals Anonymous

Cheery Wallpapers

Christopher Marley

Barbara Medo

Finding my own style.

In previous projects I havent excelled myself with drawing, I plan on expanding on this and creating a new way of working. I love working in an illustrative way, I looked through lots of previous work and found one of my favorite projects from a few years ago was one I did titled 'doodles'. This for me was my best way of working, Illustrating what ever came into my head. Im going to spend a week of so trying my best to create a new style of drawing for these insects using limited tools like Alex Konahins work.

Using fineliners and pencil i have created images of bugs and then worked into them with small detail using any ideas that came to my head. I wanted to try and expand on the idea of introducing flowers to my work to make them more suitable for interiors.

Using collage i created these 2D illustrated insects. I really like how these have turned out due to how unique they look. However I believe that they are still very flat and boring.

#MoodBoard

3D Tropical flowers

To make the images seem more life like and unique I bought a range of fake tropical flowers, also this helped me with creating a colour palet.

I then expanded on this idea by using real flowers from my own garden.

I love how pretty these bugs now become with the use of flowers.

Prints & Photoshop

Thinking of an interior context

I edited this image using photoshop lightening it and repeating the pattern I really like how this turned out and can imagine it in a wallpaper context. 

Using my colour pallet I created these bright designs to be repeated 

I then tried to create other more neutral toned prints

Lazer Cutting

During making and designing these prints I have been inducted onto the lazer cutting machine. This technique is something I am going to work with during my 3rd year on my course. Due to my limited 3 weeks on this project as much as I wanted a few samples of how it could work within interiors for my work I dont think it is fees-able with the time restraints, however it is something im definitely going to look into 

Ethos

Whilst creating and drawing my digital prints I was inducted onto the Ethos Multihead machine. This machine has slowly become my favourite way of working but due to how long each design takes and my limit of 3 weeks per project I was limited to how many samples I could do. I firstly started with basic shapes and designs then I moved onto embroidering my favourite illustration of the project.

I then tried something I hadnt yet done this project of really looked at, butterfly wings, I interlocked them and layered them to create an easily repetative pattern. I used colours I had been using throughout my project, (tropical colours) and also used white on white to create a more textures design. This machine is something I 100% want to develop with and continue to work with in third year. 

Ethos Designs that I didnt have the chance to embroider

With these designs I was thinking of using them in an interior context for example heavily embellished cushions.

After producing these samples I also could a fashion element to them. For this whole project I decided I wanted to work with a fabric I hadnt really used or worked with before so I used silk. This reminded me of SS14 fashion and I think these designs would fit well for a commercial fashion audience. 

Few outcomes of digital print onto fabric.

I chose to print a detailed design onto two seperate fabrics to see how the digital printer initially worked. I wanted to see if the detail in the drawing was captured and printed well onto the fabrics, I chose two fabrics, Heavy Silk Habotai, and a cotton blend fabric. The cotton blend printed best and had sharper lines however the silk habotai didnt have the clearest lines but i thought it gave a nice effect to the fabric. The silk habotai sample would have been perfect for a fashion context aswel due to the light way and the nice drape the fabric had, however the cotton blend was very stiff and didnt really have its own drape. This was a good process as I learnt alot more about how things would print in the future if I did want to develop this way of working in third year.

Over all my 3 week project worked out well I think. I achieved what I set out to achieve and learnt alot about other areas of textiles. I really enjoyed working with the ethos machine and i plan on expanding this next year 100%! I also really like the world of digital print I think the market of digital print is growing very popular at the minute and its something I would like to look into more. Doing work with an interior concept in mind I found was very challenging, trying to produce work that would be subtle for a home I found hard but exciting I also got to broaden my knowledge on many more designers. Before this project I had no Photoshop knowledge at all, and over the 3 weeks have pushed myself into learning more by tutorials and reading up on different things the program can do. I really enjoyed working on this project as I got to have an aspect of illustration which I always enjoy, however, I personally think I would have much prefered to have had more allocated time on the ethos machine. I would have like to have produced alot more samples with digital print to give a new way of working. This is something I am going to explore in 3rd year bringing both textiles worlds together.