For this I am going to write about my time
whilst on my FMP (Final Major Project), the theme I have been looking at Dreams
and Nightmares. I took my inspiration from my recent trip to Paris, whilst in
Paris I visited a museum called Les Art Decoratifs in the time I was in the
museum there was section about nightmares which really captured my eye.
Everything I was looking at really intrigued me and I became really interested
with the idea of using dreams and nightmares for my FMP so whilst there I took
photos for my primary research. When I came home I started to research more
into dreams and nightmares but I also widened my range to things like fantasy
art all the way to Tibetan art. I chose to look at these types of things as the
artwork and designs were very dreamy but also quite disturbing and dark.
When finally starting my FMP
I undertook more research into my development from just the topic dreams
and nightmares. Already I had decided on elements that I would like to have
taken forward into my sheet work. The main design element that I took through
all my sheet work is my Tibetan clouds as they were very dreamy and light, also
another feature I took through was my sun and moon design as they very angelic
designs and I thought they would look very pretty on my garment.
From the start of my project I have also
been quite unsure what I was hoping to create/design for my final piece, I went
through quite a few ideas of things like I would have liked to have made like:
pyjama’s, a wall hanging, pillows and my final design that I settled with a
dressing gown. Whilst planning to make my dressing gown a lot of constraints
popped up along the way, money was one huge constraint for me, I was hoping to
have made my dressing gown out of silk but with the cost of £5 per metre and me
need 5 and a half metres of fabric I simply could not afford it, so I settled
for a cheaper fabric which cost me less than half the price it would have cost
me for silk.
For experimentation during my project I
tried doing patchwork, wading, weaving, needle felting and screen printing, but
whilst doing my screen printing I had forgotten to tape the edge of screens up
so when it came to printing pigment would spill through the edges and go onto
my prints. Another thing I had to problem solve with was that when I started
printing onto silk it would move and slip around a lot even though I would tape
the whole piece of fabric down to the table, this was another reason that I
changed my fabric for my final piece from silk to cotton, the result won’t be
as nice but the quality of print will be a lot better.
Time constraint is a huge thing whilst I
was doing my project which means there is certain things that I didn’t do or I
have missed out on doing, for example if I was to have a little more time I
probably would have embellished into some of my prints/samples and even though
I have produced up to 20 samples I think I could have produced more to show
different techniques and styles. For my artists I chose to look at Su Blackwell
(paper artist) and Mister Finch (textile artist), Mister Finch looked at
fantasy/fairy tale like creatures and creations same for Su Blackwell she also
looked at fantasy but made all of her pieces completely out of paper and old
books cutting and carving into the pages to create beautiful master pieces.
Whilst midway through my FMP me and my
class had a little meeting to discuss and show our work to each other with our
teacher in training Joanne. I showed my work that I had produced so far and
went through the basics of what I was hoping to produce and what my classmates thought
might be best to improve my work and what I could possibly make for my final
piece and this is another place where I got my idea to create a dressing gown
as a lot of my peers suggested that I create sleepwear. There are many things
that I would change about my FMP and time management is one of them, at the
start of my project I was very confident and had a lot of ideas but as my
project went further and further in I found myself focusing on more things than
others. For example my sketchbook was very neglected during my time as I was
trying to concentrate more on my sheets because in previous projects I felt
that my sheet work was quite poor.
Overall on my FMP I have used my blog very
effectively and putting more stuff on my blog than usual in previous projects,
my satisfaction with myself during my time has been half and half, there are strengths
that I have produced like; samples, sheet work and my business cards and
improvements are defiantly Unit 10 and sketchbook. If had another chance at
doing my project again I would probably try and keep my motivation levels up
like I did at the beginning of the project and my motivation just started to
lack, if I would have kept it up I recon I could have produced better work in
my sketchbook, finish my Unit 10 and produce my 3 missing sheets.
