Botanical Shrub Post Three

5^th Dec-16th Dec

These passed two weeks, I have focused on finishing off my first self-initiated project ‘Botanical Shrub’ as I need to move on in order to complete two more briefs. Although I want to perfect this brief, I had a slow start and a few setbacks which has cost me time towards the end. Therefore, I have spent time refining prints, adding other colour and techniques to create a print collection for beach wear.

Researching into the context of beach wear has enabled me to choose the right fabrics on which to print onto. Looking into brands and companies such as 'Accessorize' and other high street beach wear brands, I decided to use linen and polyester fabrics rather than the more up market silk, cotton and chiffon fabrics. The types of beach wear products I have in mind are beach shorts/pants, kaftans, sarongs and wraps which I have communicated through visualisations in fig.7 to help me understand how certain prints would sit as a product.

Fig. 7 

Beach Wear Visualisations

In order to allow for more variation within the collection, more line drawing was done and therefore more motif based designs were created. However, due to lack of A3 sized screens in the print workshop, all my screen designs were put onto one large A2 screen which was difficult to navigate and print motifs with. The screen was too large and as each motif sat on its own it meant I had to wash and wait for the screen to dry each time I used it which became quite insufficient. With time to finish this collection decreasing, I have decided to abandon the motifs and carry on with layering the textured screens and introducing the technique of devore to add another subtle yet effective quality to the samples. The see through burnt out areas within the prints, achieved with the devore technique, has proved to be a more appropriate way of producing another texture within my samples than puff binder or flock as it has a delicate value, suitable for a beach wear context. Expanding the colour palette with tropical yellows and oranges has also worked well in communicating tropical themes as well as a summer beach wear context and over all a sophisticated collection.

Fig. 8

Final Collection

Yet I do believe changes could have been made through out this project in order to create some variation within my prints. Whether this could have been motifs or different textures coming through or a bit of embellishment.