Portfolio Pages...

A few pages from my portfoilo to illustrate my designs...

 

 These are my hand painted illustrations of my dress fronts...

Final Samples for Indigo..

Here are my finished textile samples that will be on sale at the Indigo section of Premier Vision in Paris.  I am really pleased with them and very proud of what I have achieved, considering at one point I thought I had attempted to do too much! I have created twelve textile fronts, six are in the form of a little girls dress front and the other six are just plain fabric fronts.  I chose to present this way so that my designs can be seen for fashion as well as giftware, furnishing fabric, and interior wallpaper etc...



Cinderella designs:

 

Hand printed bodice with a digitally printed skirt and added ruffle...

 Digitally printed fabric front with a hand printed border at the top.

Stitched together to show the contrast of hand printing and digital printing.

Sleeping Beauty:

Hand printed bodice with digitally printed gathered skirt.

Three different patterns make up the skirt design..

Snow White:

 

Hansel and Gretel:

 Princess and the pea:

 

 

Red Riding Hood:

 

 They are finally finished!! Yay!

Lets have a bit of hand printing!!

I absolutley LOVE hand printing...I could spend hours in the studio experimenting with screens, colours and techniques.  Unfortunatley I don't have hours to do this so I just have to work for as long as I can as many days a week as I can.  I feel that it is important for me to combine my digital prints with my hand printed techniques.  Digital printing is convinient and effective and I enjoy creating prints on the computer, but it is so nice to get back into the practical studio and experiment with metallic foils, glitter and anything else sparkly that I can find!

Here are some of my final samples for my dress fronts...these hand printed bits of fabric will make up the bodices.

This sample is for one of the Cinderella inspired designs.  The print is made up from - dyed orange habotai silk, pink pearl binder background print and blue foil heart print.

This sample is inspired by Princess and the pea.  Dyed mint green habotai silk, pink pearl binder polka dot, green pearl binder floral and over printed with pink foil flower.

This is my favourite sample!  Created from purple dyed silk, dark purple binder print background, pink pearl binder polka dot over print and finally silver foil castle print.  I love the combination of the layers and colours.

 

For the snow white designs, dyed blue silk, with a discharge print subtle lace background, blue binder print splodge background and finally over printed with red foil hearts.

 

For the red riding hood dress front, the bodice is created from dyed red silk, discharge print splodge background, red binder lace print and the final layer is a red floral print using metallic foil.

 

Hansel and Gretel inspired print- dyed pink silk, discharge print stripe and over printed with foil polka dots in three different colours.

Here are some more hand printed strips that will make up the fabric fronts with a contrasting digital print...

 

All these final samples were created using the same techniques as above...the pictures are not a great quality due to the amount of foil used on each design, and as I have just found out: metallic foil does not photograph well!

I think the most exciting part of hand printing is the un expected...although it can be a pain and not every result is pleasing to the eye..I think that it the beauty of it.  Unlike digital printing where you can practise and change anything that doesn't quite work.  Digital printing can look too perfect, so combined with the hand printed pieces, it keeps the designs looking fresh and unique.  That's my idea anyway!

 

 

 

Digital Printing

This was a very exciting day! I had finished all my final digital print designs, and sent the file off to the digital printers.  After waiting for about a week, I received my fabric in the post and I have never been so excited to get a parcel!!

I printed my designs onto silk twill which I have used in the past.  The fabric makes the colours look so vibrant and amazing as well as having a good drape and touch.  My plan is to create six dress fronts and six fabric fronts for the Indigo trade show in Paris.  All twelve designs will have a combination of digital and hand printed textile techniques..

Here are the pictures of the finished designs still all together and not yet cut up...it took a lot of nerve to cut the prints into their final strips ready to be ruffled and created into dress fronts and fabric fronts.

The fabric was too large to photograph it all at once so I had to do it in sections!  I am so proud of my digital prints, they are like a baby to me!!  Unless they are in my sight at all times I feel un easy where they are...haha bit sad I know..I can't wait to create my fronts out of them!!

Cinderella development..

Examples of artwork developed for the Cinderella designs...

Inspired by the mice in the Disney film, they are cute and child friendly.  This is something I wanted to create within my mouse character..

I started by creating my own character, wanted to give it a friendly face..

 

Developed in photoshop, experimenting with scale and different pattern options such as border prints and all over repeat..

 Stars are very magical, so by creating a star print I feel I meet my brief of fairytale!  Also it is a very simple but effective pattern that makes a change to my layered prints!!

Sketching of a passion flower, love the textures and colours within the flower itself.  I tried to create a deconstructed version, looking at stripes and tiny polka dots..

Once again, developing in Photoshop....

 

The magical pumpkin carriage is one of the most memorable features in the film and story, therefore I felt like I needed to create a print surrounded by this idea of pumpkins and fairytale carriages.

 

 

 

 

Once again, I am also going to experiment with hand printed samples that go with the digtial prints...

Fundraising at Tesco

In order to raise money for our two graduate shows in London (Graduate Fashion Week and New Designers), we decided to hold a stand for a weekend at a local Tesco store in Colchester.  Everything sold on the stand was hand made by us students! There was a selection of velvet devore scarves, jersey scarves, printed cushions and slate hearts.  

Our stand!

A selection of scarves...

The velvet devore scarves...

As I am concentrating on children's wear at the moment, I decided to make some cushions for little girls.  I hand printed the cushion fronts using the screen printing method.  I used some of my own designs that are from my current fairytale project.  Crowns, castles, hearts and polka dots were printed onto pink linen and then made into patchwork style cushions with cotton gingham and floral fabric.  They were then embellished with purple rick rack and appliqued hearts. 

It was really interesting to put my own work on show, for sale to the public and see what the feedback was. How people reacted to it and what their opinions were.  Fortunately, most of the cushions were sold over the weekend, with the crown and heart prints being the most successful!  I was so happy to see this as it meant that people liked my designs, and it assured me that I was producing work that people would buy.

Overall it was a successful weekend! We raised a good amount of money and gained feedback on our work.

Sleeping Beauty

I love this fairytale! The colours of the Disney film are beautiful and this is what inspired my colour palate of pinks and purples. It is one of the ultimate girly fairy tales therefore I need to make sure that I create beautiful designs that are attractive to my target audience.

Inspired by crowns, jewels, hearts and fairies. I have created designs that include all these features and I am pleased with the results..

Experimenting with linear fairy drawings and developing them in Photoshop...

Another floral print!!

Birds are also included in my designs as little characters...

Heart prints both digital and screen printed are also included.  I think the heart print is very effective yet simple.

Screen printed heart design with overlay of metallic foil hearts to add sparkle.

Inspired by an image of a brooch I created this hand painted design which featured different contrasting shades of pinks and purples.

Developed through Photoshop, it adds a less graphic and bold feel to the design and more of a soft, subtle one.

Once again contrasting digital castle print with hand printed one...

...I think both are successful.

Finally the crown print which is one of my favourites!

I intend to do more hand printed sampling to see the contrast between graphic prints and hand printed ones...