White on white

White on White.
This project was quite interesting as our research was also our final pieces in a way...I loved creating design boards in this project so you will see a few of them =) We had to use as many white materials as possible and experiment with them by applying actions such as twist knot burn melt and other stuff like that! It was actually quite fun because you couldn't do anything wrong, it was all experimental! 
We then had to select 3 materials we preferred working with and made another further 8 samples combining actions from the list...we had to aim to create surface textures.
The last bit was where you had to construct a piece of fabric or surface based on one of the samples from the second part...and either make the surface or make what you think you could turn the surface material into.
Things like:
Body Adornments 
Accessories
Garments 
And hats 
...could be created =)


Inspiring Artists.

Right if im gonna be completely honest if you type white artists into google it comes up with WHITE (apposed to african/american black) artists which is not what im looking for...i wanted artists that work in white, which is just impossible! So...ive decided to research a few artists i havent heard of before and alter their designs and imagine what they would be like in white and how i think it would change the meaning and what sort of impact it would have on the artwork. =)

Magdalena Abakanowicz

I pretty much typed in artists a-z and a massive list came up! I decided to choose the most unusual name...which turned out to be Magdalena's. She is a Polish artist (or was...not sure if she has pegged it yet) and studied and taught at various different art colleges where fine art and contextual studies were taught. I took one glance at her work and decided that if her work was in white...IT WOULD BE DROP DEAD GORGEOUS! Check it out:

As soon as i saw this image...i wanted to paint it white! A sculpture such as this one, is dying to be painted white to create the most amazing and symbolic structure! If it were white...it would look kinda like a dove (or some other kind of pretty bird) and the style it has been created in means it would look just absolutely gorgeous! Its really sharp wings would contrast against the graceful and innocence of the bird itself and in my opinion it would look far more elegant structural and beautiful than being in a matt metal colour.

I did research on a lot of other artists who I thought's work could be easily adapted into something more eye catching and meaningful if it were constructed in white or painted white etc. 

These are a few photos and names of other artists whose work I really loved:

CLAUDIA LOSI...                       

Make them white and then theyll look pretty...something white and 'looking elegant' when the thing that is actually the pure colour is not elegant and not at all pretty.

MARTION JONANN FISCHER               

By making the wild cat white, it will make it look more powerful and in control =) It will also make it look very pure and as it is in such an elegant pose i think this would look really pretty in white =)


White Board. 
(like a mood board!)

This is This was to go in my sketchbook to show some examples of the white things i had found...but the main page used for my research and white samples was this page...

It has all the different white things that i found round college and home. There are things such as:

Polystyrene balls, white feathers, candles. knitting, white wire, paper, string, fleece, plastic, cutlery, wax, thread, shower curtains, plastic bags and a load more! I chose to write a few little bits about the white stuff because some are not truely white...and i also wrote down a few different actions that i had tried out on them, such as flying and painting for the feather =)

By doing this experiment i have to say that my favourite samples and actions where things like shred and fray and i liked working with the shower curtain and the plastic bags! This was because they both do similar things but the shower curtain frays more but i like the lightness and delicacy of the plastic bags =)

Part 2.

Although this was supposed to be a design board styled piece of work...i found it much more interesting to write a lot of stuff next to it...this was because it meant that once i had written it down i would remember it and it was also very explanatory...for example...I painted a white rose white because when it died, it turned yellow, and the paint also strengthened and kind of preserved the petals and the leaves =) It also gave the rose a very vintage look which i thought worked perfectly because it looked SO elegant! =)

One of my most interesting pieces on this design board is where i mixed two samples from part one to create a new sample! I combined the knitting and the plastic bag and surprisingly knitted with the plastic bags. This made a more shiny and stretchy knit which i thought was very interesting because it was also recycled...and i didnt need to buy anything...except maybe knitting needles.

I decided then that this was going to be the piece of work i would use in part 3 to develop on and make into a material or surface.

Part 3.

It seems simple to use the knitting as a material or surface...but it takes ages!!!!! So i had to come up with something new...based on it...but i still wanted to knit...

Then came the dilemma of "I dont have any knitting needles." So i decided to make some...out of our dining room chairs...They ended up looking like this:

 Yes that is our chairs.

I then realised that with knitting needles this size i could make larger pieces and it wouldnt take as long! So i could at least make sections of my garment or surface material...but i didnt know what to make..?

 This is what i came up with =)

Followed by this...

Between not  knowing what to do and this...i decided that i would make some sort of skirt, because it is easy to make and very simple...sort of!

These are a few initial ideas using the knitting and various other techniques i could use with the plastic bags. Each skirt here is diferent and resembles some sort of fantasy or make believe skirt...because the plastic bags make them look very...pure and sort of swan like...LIKE SWAN LAKE!

I based the rest of my ides on swan lake and did research into what the ballet outfits looked like so i thought i would make a recycled version of the ballet skirts.

Swan lake <3

This was my final design. I thought it through very well and decided i was going to try and make it exactly like the design to avoir complication =) 

It is a wire structure...with a load of ripped up shredded pieces of plastic bag around the bottom and then the knitted bits are around he top to hide your bum =) if im honest...thats how i thought about it!!!

I listed all the possibilities of what the dress could be if i made it in that exact way...and it turned out that there was quite a lot of possibilities...which is what i like about this design: For example...it could be a wedding dress, a costume, a couture piece, and period dress (poofy!) or it could be an exhibition piece where people could decide what it is for themselves. =)

Final design board.

I decided that i didnt just want to make a skirt...i dont know why, but it seemed a good idea to create a body adornment of some sort, like a veil or a scarf or something like that. So i decided that i would do a few sketches of a veil, to match with the wedding dress style skirt...these were more initial ideas than anything else. But once i developed this idea...i realised that swan lake wasnt based on anything to do with weddings so i chose to use it as more of a body adornment or a cross  over top.

Making. 

This shows the size of the dress and how many plastic bags i had to use! As you can see the strips of plastic were tied onto the wire structure and the left to dangle down...so the other end wasnt tied to anything...this gave the dress more movement in my opinion =) more swan like =)

Final thing.

This is the body adornment that i made =) Like i said it works very well as a top or an accessory which fits in with the ballet and swan lake theme =) Its very pretty and i think that it works very well with the skirt as it is made out of the same plastic bag material =)

I love the uneven and messy...yet controlled look of the dress =) i think it looks better in this style as a swan is very elegant but NEVER perfect...and from a far this looks very elegant, but once you get closer you realise that it is made out of something very un-elegant and makes you think like you do when you think of a swan...elegant but NOT perfect.

As i thought the skirt and adornment work perfectly as a different style of ballet costume. The fact that my whole dress is recycled makes it even more unusual. =) 

(recycled wire, knitting needles and plastic bags0

LOVE IT.