FSB (Front, Side, Back) Illustrations

     Throughout all my previous projects, I never really intended to pursue creating FSB illustrations as I always went straight to drawing up the final capsule collection(s). Nonetheless, I think this really enhances me as a designer to look upon more perspectives of my illustrations more as garments than drawings. Below are only a couple examples of this, but I am very please by how these managed to turn out. I used my letraset to colour these illustrations in and I think they made the illustrations look much more professional, despite this I have been thinking that it would be interesting to see if I can change my drawing style a bit more to get a more original feel to what they look like and how they might be positioned with my garment concepts and ideas. 

    Now being at the end of the project, I feel that this project has made me take my illustrations and quick sketches much more serious with this project, whether that being experimental or final ideas. Not only this, but the theme of cowboys which I chose from the early 1800's also connects back to me through my American Citizen dual heritage with Great Britain, hence I felt really inspired to go back to my original roots through my fathers generation as one of my great(s) grandfathers' was actually a sheriff himself in the States. I would have liked to have perhaps done more research on job roles or perhaps key individuals within this time era, however it is very hard to find any sort of American history within the UK, as I would have happily done this. Nonetheless, I tried to carry out as much research as possible with the few resources I had, yet I didn't want to revolve myself around all the stereotypical cowboy films where they had battles with the Native American's. 

    Furthermore, the whole initial point of this project was to make the heroic/masculine attire for womenswear and I think this worked rather well. There are cowgirl's out there who have similar flairs to their style, although there is something about their wear which makes them still look rather feminine and I wanted to enhance the strength and power of women within this era, which I felt inspired by from my previous project of 'Politics', however that was taking place within the United Kingdom. Overall, I will take all the research and inspiration I have used for this project to further enhance my general knowledge and skill for my next project, which will be 'Pick 'n' Mix' and I am looking very forward to starting that next week. Hopefully I can also enhance my illustrative skills for the next project and continue with the quick sketches to show the details for the next project whatever that may be… 

Final Concept Illustrations

    I am so happy that I have finally reached this stage of the project to show my final concept ideas for a capsule collection. I really liked the outcome of these as I felt that they represented not only the theme but the detail quality very well. As a whole, I am really proud of all the work I have produced up to this point in regards to all the research and experimentation I have carried out. Admittedly, this project is probably one of my favourites I have carried out throughout the whole of this course. Moreover, each of the illustrations that I have created above each have their individual details and flair, giving each model character. I would like to have made a capsule collection for this project if it was a real full-length project, despite this I am happy to at least show the ideas I want within my book. If I could have done anything differently, it would have been to have perhaps created some more illustrations and finalise them even further, but I am very time restraint with this project and I feel that I have already challenged myself with the amount of work I have put into this project. Although, I have spent the most time on these illustrations in contrast to the other illustrations I have produced for this project. Hence, I have put more time and effort into these concept ideas. 

     These illustrations above are slightly different as I have added a layer of tracing paper over the illustrations I have previously drawn. Moreover, I have drawn even more details on the tracing paper to enhance the look of the overall illustration. Not only this, but I have also added colour to some of the illustrations to get an overall perspective of what they would look like in full colour, which turned out very successfully. Obviously, I would have liked to have done this for more illustrations but as a basic example and experiment, I think my message came across well as to how I would want it to look from another perspective other than my own. Ultimately this is not the most work I could have done for this project as I would have liked to at least create one final garment, but due to time this would have been near impossible and I would rather focus on something such as a development to show my processes and experiments as oppose to rushing and not giving a clear story of my journey through this project. I would now like to do some FSB (Front, side, back) illustrations to get more of a realistic look to my creations, yet use some of these illustrations to finalise a capsule collection. 

Observing Detail/ Samples

    I really needed to focus on pushing this project further, hence I decided to do some observational drawings of garments which I brought in from home. I then decided to push this forward by layering these drawings then exhausting them on the photocopier to get different variations of this primary process. I then decided to cut out certain parts of the layered drawing to recreate structural garments with my illustrations. I think this worked well as it really did highlight the details from my drawings as I tried to resemble Prada's latest collection. Although, this doesn't scream cowboy, thus I needed to use these collaged drawings and push it towards a cowboy theme. If I could have done these drawings differently, I would have liked to of focused on more of a variety of garments as oppose to just denim, however I had different ranges of denim jackets and jackets which all had their individual seams and pattern cut pieces. Below these two images below, I tried to experiment using watercolours as I thought that the colours would nicely blend and highlight the details from my drawings, which they did. I tried to use colours that I thought I would use, similar to the ones I used when I pursued the marbling process of different materials. Thus, the only next natural step for me was to create illustrations using the water coloured drawings I created.

    These illustrations below are the ones which followed my observational drawing process for this project. I really liked the outcome of these illustrations as I felt that they finally added a good amount of colour to this project as oppose to the general cliche faded blue denim. Not to mention, this is one of the first projects where I have ever worked with such a bright vibrance of colour as I definitely didn't want to play safe with this project; I wanted to push my skill and potential to make a strong outcome. I also created a couple samples alongside these illustrations and I did this by layering 2 fabrics and using a shredding process post using the sowing machine to create rows. This not only gives the fabric shape but also texture from the frayed material which would look great on a garment. Plus, I have needed to create samples for this project for a while now, so it is nice that I have got this out of the way and potentially create more to use further experimentation for a final outcome/collection. 

   I decided to use one singular colour for the illustrations below to make it look more like a capsule collection. Plus, I have stuck more to the them of cowboys, thus it is more obvious. Not only this, I decided to layer tracing paper over these illustrations to basically repeat the process which started itself and I did this by adding more detail on top of the drawings I already created. I would have liked to have done more of these, however it is good experimentation to get inspiration from. I finally feel now at this point that I can begin to start making concept final designs for the end of this project… (Exciting!!!) Regardless, I definitely need to use these as key examples to help me develop my final designs. 

Marbling Fabric

     In regards to processes and experimentation for this project, I wanted to try marbling fabric using oil paints. I haven't used this process since A-Level, however I really enjoyed carrying out this process when I first tried it. Overall, the aftermath turned out very well as I used the colours of pinks/reds and blues to resemble my colour pallet. I tried this process on both paper and fabric to see if there was any difference between textures, but it is clear that fabric absorbs the paint much easier. Moreover, I used different techniques with the paper on the sowing machine to enhance the textures and structure of the experimentation. This led to creating illustrations alongside my marbling technique, but still following my theme of rural cowboy cattle ranchers. I think this feminises my project by a substantial amount considering typical cowboys were seen as strong, muscular, heroic figures who were adored by all the women, hence the marbling highlights on my illustrations tone this down to represent the female approach to cowboys as modern cowgirls. 

     For the next stage, I will like to focus more on collaging and perhaps do some more drawings from garments to enhance my insight for detail further with specific clothing such as denim, leather boots e.t.c. Hopefully from completing this, I will have developed my flat drawing skills and observational drawing skills much further to come closer to the end of this project. I am really happy in regards to how far I have come with this project as I have really enjoyed spending time on it and it is a real shame that we don't have longer to complete it! Moreover, I will definitely consider to include this in my portfolio as I feel that this is a really strong project of mine from this academic year within the course.

Magazine Collage

    Above is a quick collage I managed to create using several different magazines which I felt had a lot of images of garments that had detail highlights and one of the main designers was, Prada who heavily highlighted the seam line details. Not only this, but I also added seam lines as another layer for the collage alongside with some flat drawing details that I will be pursing very soon. This has helped me develop not only my drawing skill but my visual interpretation on what details I want to focus on predominately and I think this has worked very well.

    Once I push further, I hope to use this as inspiration for new illustrations and flat designs to strengthen my end result for this project. Moreover, the next stages would be to start creating samples for this project as I think this will help me develop more ideas for this project. Overall, it is all going smoothly so far, however I don't want to expand too much to the point to where I won't have time to finish anything and rush, hence I will try to narrow my experimentation to a point to where I can control my time management. If I could do anything differently with this collage is that I would have liked to have created more of them, but again due to the short time we have been given, I would rather develop one strong piece as oppose to a variety that aren't as strong. 

Flat Drawings

    As a designer, I really needed to start developing and producing some illustrations. Despite this, instead of trying to draw neat models with the garments on, I decided to create flats which is a much faster process to get my ideas across. Hence, this enabled me to create well over 70-80 designs in the morning. I actually find doing flats quite fun as it is quick and there isn't really a wrong way, plus it makes it look as if you have spent a lot of time and thought on what I have completed, but I have been using inspiration from the other designs and also the research I carried out to try make this process successful. I managed to create sketches for shirts, hats, boots, seams, jeans and much more. 

    From this process, the shirts were definitely my favourite to sketch as the possibilities seemed to be much more endless and there was much more challenge in the sense of trying to make it look different, yet use the inspiration from the cattle ranchers. Moreover, considering my era was around the 1810's-40's, I did a but more in-depth research to that also with different class associations, but the cowboys were very conservative with what they wore, especially if they were going to church on a Sunday as they were very rural, religious people.

    Overall, if I could have done anything differently, it would have been to of drawn some more of these, which I will and perhaps go do some more research whether that being from articles, films or photographs. The next stage of this project is to use these flat drawings to inspire myself for full illustrations and perhaps samples depending on how much time I have to do it in. Furthermore, that will help me to come closer to designing my final capsule collection for this project, which I hope I won't have to rush if I am not satisfied by the time is over, hence I will have to continue this in my spare time till I am happy with the outcome and make it presentable for my portfolio.

Sketches/Drawings

    Above are two sketches I created using different mediums such as charcoal, ink, pencil, fine liner and more. I created these using inspiration from typical cowboy films from the 1950's and 60's. Hence, the first drawing on the left is a cowboy shootout outside of a saloon and the drawing on the right is a scene of a desert land with sand, setting sun and cacti. From these, I also photocopied them to negative to see who they would turn out and I surprisingly really liked the outcome of these, however I don't really see how I could take these further as this process doesn't really represent a garment or styles details. Nonetheless, it was good to work out of my sketchbook and experiment with different processes so that I could get more of an idea as to what I wanted to develop on further.

    The next stage for me would be to start making some illustrations and samples to push this project further as I am already almost a week into the project (half way!!) and I really want to finish this off in time. Not only this, but I will also begin to develop work on a stand to represent the details on a cowboy's attire. Nonetheless, I have enjoyed creating the drawings above and I would have liked to have carried out more, although I am not focusing too much on print for this project so they would be irrelevant for that, but also as I said, it doesn't really represent any sort of detail. Although, it was good to dig deeper with my research with what cowboys did and where their natural habitat was in rural, desert lands which is a huge factor in the styling of their clothes e.g. spurs were to protect their legs if they were going through bushes and bandanas were used to keep dust out of their face. 

   Overall, it was good to have this in my book to show development but as a designer, I really need to push myself to start producing quick sketches and designs to make a final collection to present on a design board. 

Designer Research/ Illustration Collages

   To develop my research further, I wanted to research designers who have carried out a similar theme to mine and I was rather surprised by how recent some of the catwalks were. For example, Chanel A/W 2014/15 did a particular catwalk which was focused upon cowboys within their era. I also researched other designers such as Hermes who took a keen interest within this theme too. Not to mention, Prada's S/S 2015/16 really resembled a work-wear look which I also feel relates well to what I am doing. This inspired me to make some quick illustrations using magazine cut outs focusing on colour and texture to make an abstract construction resembling a garment piece. 

    I was really happy with the outcome of these garments with their unique abstract approach. I also like the contrast between colours as I think they work very well together. On top of this, some of the pieces are tight fitting, whilst others are rather large creating a balance and also resembling both genders in terms of body shape and style. If I could have improved this, I would have liked to have completed more quick illustrations, however I need to invest more time into flat drawings and sketches to develop my project further, however this process has really inspired me for my next few steps to push this project further. I am very excited to reach the end of this project and see how well the outcome will be.

Mannequin Flat Illustrations/ Berwick St Samples/ Fancy Dress

    On our day trip out, I didn't have much to help me with research so I decided to go to Berwick Street to get samples for my book. I didn't want to go too cliche with my selection, however I think I needed those to make my project clear from the beginning. I really enjoy going to Berwick St as it enables me to explore all the different fabric shops and get inspirations for materials and much more. From this, I managed to create some quick illustrations as to what I think a collection could look like. It was a shame that none of the museums around me had much American Heritage art as I would have been able to get deeper research and perhaps even had produced some sketches, but most of the American Art I researched was in storage. I would have loved to have produced a garment for this project,  but I will just have to do what I did for the last project and create a design board. 

    Further along the project, I plan to make some samples in development to my project to strengthen and expand on my project mediums. Moreover, I really want to start making work on the stands to get out of my book and work on a large 3-D scale, which should help me understand and develop more on the shape of the construction to produce more designs. If I could have done anything differently, it would have been to produce more designs but as this was only quick sketches, I felt that not many were needed at this point of time. Despite this, I will need to produce much more sketches and illustrations for this project as it is focusing on detail and I will need to try and create as many as I possibly can to create a capsule collection revolving around my theme of "Cowboy's" during the 1810-30's era. 

      Despite not being able to see much art work from the day trip, I did manage to go to a fancy dress shop along my way and managed to take some pictures of Cowboy outfits and accessories. It turned out that I wasn't actually allowed to take photos within the shop, which is ridiculous! But I managed to anyway. I thought that this was a really fun trip to go on as I finally found a niche that works well with my project. The shop itself had various amounts of costumes and the Cowboy attire was very cliche as you could imagine with the spurs, cowboy hats, bandannas, boots, utility belts, guns and much more. I will now need to carry out further research into the more traditional wear and then focus on the details on the garment then use them to create something new and original.

Detail

   I have been very excited to start this project since Christmas and now the time has come! We began with a quick presentation to brief us on the project. The general message was for us to focus and identify specific details on clothing within a 300 year period till the 1940's. Considering I did some basic research on previous catwalks, one that stood out was the Prada S/S 2015 collection which had dark denim and very visible seams to show how the garment was constructed. From their collection, it seemed to give off a theme of manual workwear and from this, I liked the idea of Cattle Ranchers', otherwise known as "Cowboy's". From being half-American, I thought that I had a real connection with my heritage for this project, thus I wanted to make it personal. Not to mention, the endless country western films I used to watch repeatedly with my dad, whilst recognising the traditional attire that they wore whilst having shoot outs and fighting Native Americans.

    I began this project by looking at various sources e.g. magazines, online articles, photo shoots and more. I think I have really challenged myself with this as it is not a very common thing to have within the UK as it strongly represents American History after the Civil War, which is from when the Cowboy's first evolved as they were illiterate and had been raised on farms all their lives. Moreover, we have a trip coming up to visit multiple galleries, but there are no specific art works of cowboys or American art, so I will have to try my best to dig deeper. I always find that creating a spider diagram at the beginning of each project really helps me to be open minded, yet narrow certain aspects down to focus upon. Considering this project is only 2 weeks long, I will really need to narrow my selection down on aspects to what I want to focus on. Overall, I am very excited to finally start working on this project and I plan to create more samples and out of sketchbook sketches/drawings so that I can enrich my portfolio and push my potential for this project. Another thing I am looking forward to is to create flat drawings of garments in more detail as I have never really taken much focus to that in oppose to my usual model illustrations. Hence, this will give me a more technical and industrial approach to this project, enhancing my knowledge and increasing my skills for future projects.

Closer to Final Designs

    These half illustrations above were some last-minute quick collages using inspiration from my stand work and also from the flat 2-D stand work designs. Moreover, I also wanted to try it using different colours, also in response to the photoshop prints I created as I used multiple colours in my designs. I have learnt through this project that quick collages and flat mannequin sketches really enhance my ideas and I will definitely take them more into consideration in regards to future projects for developments and process. Below are collaged designs yet again, but they are of the whole body and use the final print within the garment. I like how these look as flats so I will now try to enhance them and make them look more finalised for my design board. It is a shame I wasn't able to get some digitally printed samples in time, however I can always try do it at a later point in time to create some samples. 

    In addition, I used watercolour yet again to colour in the same designs and these really contrasted well my prints colour pallet. The project as a whole has been a massive learning difference with trying to develop my time management better, but to also try and use much more processes within my work to make me a better and more creative designer. Furthermore, with everyone else's final outcomes, I do feel that mine is very original and juxtaposes basically everyone else's concepts for the project, which is why I like to work very independently and try not to go with the flow and follow what everyone else is doing. Not to mention, I am very excited to start the next project called, "Detail" which again is another 2 week project, so I will try to take what I have learnt from this project and use it in the next. I feel that this project has been more of a struggle because I am in the midst of creating my online portfolio for University applications, but I have tried to not let it get the best of me and keep pushing with this project till I get it to a high enough standard I can be satisfied with. 

Print Designs

     These are some development prints I created using photoshop from the watercolour painting I produced. I was actually surprised how something so simple could look so much more complex using repeats and shifting the prints geometrically. I have always like creating prints as having previously done Textiles as an A-Level, but there is no way that I could have completed these prints to this standard without the research and the trip to the V&A to see up and close 3-D fabrications. I started off making these prints with different colours, scales and assortments but the prints below are closer to what I had in mind for a final design. One thing I could have done differently could have been to exhaust this even further but again, my time frame is extremely limited and I would rather work on something that I feel strongly about and go from there instead of creating so many that it all gets too complicated.

    Overall, I am extremely happy with the outcome of these prints. I think these do truly represent the women on the 17th-18th Century but I will do this by juxtaposing the print with the traditional menswear within parliament to represent female power and courage to express gender equality and feminist views. The next stage will be to create even more illustrations and hopefully get further to my final collection for this project. I will try range between 5-8 designs as a final collection so that I can have a range of styles and shapes within the design board.

Watercolour "Embroided" Print

    Above is a watercolour floral section I have produced, which was inspired by my trip to the V&A last week. I am rather happy with the outcome of this as I feel that once I have worked on it via Photoshop, it will begin to look more like an official embroided print. I am really disappointed that the technicians failed to fix the embroidery machine in time for me to create samples with. I thought that using watercolours would also be a nice medium as I noticed in the V&A, the samples they had were rather light and very opaque, hence I wanted to use something more subtle in the sense of concentration of colour as oppose to a sharpie or fine liner. I would like to say that I would have produced more of these watercolour paintings, however I feel very strongly about what I produced and I think that it will combine with my initial ideas also. 

    This is an example of some illustrations I produced in response to the print I produced. I also tried to make it relate to the first ever illustrations I made at the beginning of this project, to keep it original. However, on these illustrations, I have highlighted with dots where I would want the prints to highlight the garment and I have mostly put these on where the Ermine fur would be because that is probably the most expensive and delicate part of the traditional Lord Chancellor robe. The illustrations above were also done by watercolour and fine liner as I was still trying to make the garments more toned down in colour to represent the grace and elegance of a women in the 17th-18th Century and with the highlights of the prints, it will make it as feminine as I would want it. 

    These illustrations above were in response to the illustrations above. I have done a similar thing with collage by repeating the watercolour print on photoshop and tried to create garments by using this process. Again, because it was a whole print collage, it looked too feminine so I used tracing paper to give the collage shape and structure as if it was an official illustration. I feel that this process works well as I get to challenge myself by using 2 processes at the same time. Overall, I feel that I am very close to the end of this project in regards to final design concepts and ideas. I wish I had more time to push and exhaust this project further, but I feel happy with where I am in this project and I will begin to start constructing my design board. 

2-D Stand Work

    Post 3-D stand work, I decided to take a picture of a bare mannequin and draw on top of it to get quick sketches for potential shapes and folds. I think this worked really effectively as I used inspiration from the stand work and this enabled me to rapidly create multiple designs in development to this project. There are definitely a few examples in which I feel are really strong and work well to what I want as an outcome, so I will use these further to enhance my technical drawing capability.

    If I could have done anything differently, it would have been to of done more of these designs which in theory I could have done, but I really want to push on from this and begin to create my computerised floral embroidery print to use for my final collection and once I have that completed, I can begin to start making strong final designs for my final collection for this project. In addition to this, I really liked this process as I felt that it independently enabled me to quickly produce sketches and I can see this being a very useful method to use in future projects so that I can have more ideas and designs to work from. 

   Overall, I really feel that this project is moving very rapidly (more so than i'ld like!!) but the last thing I want to do is to rush it and make the outcome less presentable than how it could have been if I had more time to work on it. Nonetheless, this project will most likely be presented in my portfolio, so I want to make it fully up to date and finished fully. As a final outcome, I have decided to make a design board and this will make my work much neater and I will have less stress in regards to making a final garment of various amounts of samples. 

Stand Work/ Drawings

   I feel that I have not completed enough stand work so far, so I have taken the time to work on the 3-D stand work, but also to develop my drawing skills further to encourage potential designs for the end of this project. With the drawings, I have tried to use different mediums to diversify them and show different perspectives. I really enjoy stand work as I feel that it enables me to be independent and in control of what I want to do, which could also reflect the politics in design and how you represent yourself and work whether that would be a final outcome or development. As I am already on the last week, I feel that doing these processes will make me much more confident on my designs and I will hopefully have a finished design board by the end of the week.

    I feel that stand work is very crucial for any project, as it enhances the minds creativity because from different perspectives, you can see so many potentials for shapes and details for the garments and illustrations. I kept my stand work more traditional to womenswear within the 17th-18th Century and then I wanted to contrast this with the previous research I've done on Lord Chancellor attire. My next plan is to take a picture of a plain mannequin and use this inspiration to create 2-D flat designs for more development. Overall, if I could have done anything better, it would have been to have done a more diverse range on shapes on the mannequin, but with my short time frame for this project, I think I have done fairly well in the time given. 

Illustration Response to V&A visit

   I was really happy with the outcome of these illustrations. I began by collaging the tapestry images mixed with other sources I found from photographs in the library books. Despite this, the collages made this look overly feminine with the excessive floral prints, hence I used tracing paper and drew a fuller design over the collage to make it looked more shaped and more focused on what I want as a political message through garments. On top of this, I really liked the colours used within these illustrations, yet I still want to make it seem more traditional as it makes it seem more realistic as to the original concept. From these illustrations, I can now take my ideas further and use something from my own original ideas, getting closer towards the final collection for this project. If I could have done anything different, I would have liked to of completed more illustrations. However, because I am only still at the beginning of the project, I didn't want to waste to much time on a development which I know won't go further, but it was still good to experiment and exhaust to see whether it  had any potential.

       

        

  

         Completing these illustrations has really made me want to make my own tapestry design for the

    garments so that I can keep all of my work hand-made and primary. Despite this, the embroidery  

    machine has still not been  fixed, so this is a real shame in terms of sampling for this project, but I 

    will try to make something on Photoshop over the weekend and play around with different patterns   

    and drawings. Overall, the project is going well so  far, but there have been a few complications with  

    time management and machinery for samples. Furthermore, stand work is crucial for this point of 

    time in the project to develop 3-D structures and try to work away from my book on a larger scale. 

    This will also help me with even more illustrations for a final concept/collection.

  

V&A

   I have gone out of my own personal time to visit the V&A to enhance my primary research for this political project. I really enjoyed going alone as I was able to really concentrate and focus on what I wanted as a potential outcome for the end of this project and I was able to appreciate all the beautiful, hand-made fabrics from the 17th-18th Century.

   As you can see above, this is a page from my sketchbook of primary research I gathered from the V&A. The one thing that clearly stood out was their fascination in embroidering floral details. Moreover, the colourings of these fabrics were rather pastely and neutral, however I think this would have made the constructed garments much more elegant and clean in a sense that you can see all of the hand-crafted details. Going to the museum really helped me develop ideas for designs and final outcomes. I will use my primary imagery and construct collages and illustrations using them to make it look as if I designed the fabric. Nonetheless, I would still like to design my own tapestry embroidery however the embroidery machine has been temporarily unavailable, hence it could be trouble for me if I can't make any samples, but I will have to adapt to other mediums and materials. 

   I wish I could have more time to visit other galleries, however this project is only 2 weeks, so I really have to focus and try not to expand my ideas too far as I will not have enough time to develop something focused and strong. In regards to other people's ideas for this project, I feel that mine is much more original in the sense of themes and I wanted to keep away from the cliche themes of racism, human rights etc. Thus, I feel very strongly towards my project and I am excited to see what my final outcome will look like.