Moving Forward To Cropping And Playing Around With Compositional Decision Making Next. I Am Drawn To

Mark making. Playing with inks, bleach, water, scratching, layers…..

New favourite beach. Wonderful rock formations and so many beautiful pebbles, each one so unique and inspiring. Jurassic and Triassic. Very photogenic and lots of ideas forming. Making drawing tools and using them to capture the scale and drama of the place.

Exploring composition in this textiles piece created from hand dyed indigo vintage linens and painted papers and cloth. The palette and angular composition respond to studies of a bright yellow skip, tarnished and ravaged by the weather and covered in marks created by nature. Wiggly, insect tracks, rusting and graffiti inspired colour, texture and piecing the final outcome.

Getting my colour mixing mojo on. Painting outdoors in the Spring sunshine feeling inspired by the fresh colours around me in the garden and from walks in the surrounding fields, lanes and woodland.I had forgotten how much I love this!

In the late 1980′s and early 1990′s after graduating, I worked freelance as a textiles designer and also travelled to South America after winning a travel bursary award in a design competition. I was inspired by the pre-Hispanic, ancient textiles of Peru, where the Incas and other ancient civilisations used natural dyes to create their woven cloth. I travelled through Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina and down to the very south of Chile and had the best time. I researched natural dyes, spending time of the beaten track, living with indigenous people and learning from them. We picked roots by moonlight and gathered plants on specific dates linked to the Inca calendar, there was lots of superstition surrounding the dyeing process but also much wisdom and understanding of the life cycle of each plant and when it would give the best sources of colour.

On my return, I spent most of my time mixing colours from gouache and saving the match pots in 35mm film canisters as sample colours. This was pre-digital when everything was hand painted and drawn out in detail for selling to design companies. I had forgotten my love of colour matching and mixing and remembered my workshop space had literally hundreds of these hand mixed colour swatches lining the shelves for reference when recreating new colour palettes.

Thes images show my process of stretching fabric, priming, layering colours over a series of days with time between to ponder what colours to mix and add for balance, harmony and also composition. Enjoying myself!

Amazing digital floral designs heading for the print room by talented FAD student. Perfect for summer fabrics!

Congratulations Jessie Goad!

Jessie’s fashion collection explored the theme of ‘journeys’ and focused on favourite places, memories attached and evoked by walking in the locality. Maps were of particular interest and her digital prints were applied to garment construction to great effect.

We were fortunate to invite fashion graduate, Clancy Dawson, into college to run masterclasses with the Textiles students with a particular emphasis on quality finish when making garments. Clancy studied at Glasgow School of Art and has worked on Saville Row as a trouser tailor so her skills were invaluable. Jessie worked closely with Clancy and repurposed an original 1980′s trouser pattern and made it her own, cut from her bespoke fabric these were really successful and unique.

Jessie plans to continue developing her own brand and selling her fashion online. We wish her all the very best with her business plan.

Accuracy and advaced pattern drafting at Strode with the Textiles team. Expert FAD student work plotting and creating new tailored pattern blocks to be translated into cloth.

Amazing wearable art from AS Textiles student.

These 2 pieces are part of a student’s coursework portfolio this summer. Her unit 1 Extended Project shows her love of surface texture and screen printing. She was inspired by armour and she used the individual facets to construct her costume. Each section is unique and explores fabric manipulation techniques to develop structure. She has used recycled aluminium and print to great effect.

Her unit 2 piece uses laser cutting and is based around studies of architecture and research visits to Wells Cathedral to explore stained glass and the dramatic shapes seen in the building. She has a love of theatre, stage costume and props and this is evident in her approach to Textiles.

Photo shoot developed with technical support by Dave Merritt.

#armour #wearableart #costume #architecture #sculpturalfashion 

Amazing fashion illustrations by talented AS Textiles student.

Excellent use of ‘extreme’ paper collage on Vogue fashion imagery to personalise her own designs. Love these!

#paper collage #origami #time consuming #fashion illustration

Inspiration everywhere. Look up, look down, keep your eyes open and SEE what’s around. Love the layered road markings, grates, drain covers, yellow lines and markings on our roads and pavements.