Dye Workshop Development🎨

 I was thinking about how I could move on from the dye workshop, really focusing on honing in to my project concept/idea.

I posed the question - 'What did I like most about the workshop?'

• The colours.
• The colour combinations.
• The patterns I ended up creating on the materials.

I wanted to collage and fabrics - merge them together, to then apply some sort of design. I went back to the line drawings I looked at a little while ago. My first thought was to stitch segments of the cloth together, to make a large piece - combining patterns and colours. I tried this idea with a standard needle and thread - it ended up being quite time consuming, and hard to do. I also wasn't sure on how to apply my designs onto the actual fabric. 

I moved on from that sample, and took a look at the scans, to see how I could achieve my desired outcome. I printed out lots of photos, of my scans of the fabric, and collaged. 

When you hear the word 'woman' or 'female', the first colour that comes to mind is pink. The same with 'male' or 'male' and the colour blue. Overarching colours then add to these - greens, yellows, reds, oranges, etc. With this in mind, I created 4 collage pieces. 

Using a method I had found a long time ago, I used embroidery to add my chosen designs onto these collages. I absolutely love the outcomes I ended up with:

I created two with a woman's face/figure, one using a man and the 4th with a design interlinking both genders - this has to be my least favourite, purely because the other 3 outcomes are a lot stronger in my opinion. A lot more appealing to the eye, and I feel the more complicated the stitching was, the more successful the design was.

I like everything about them - the colour palettes, the compositions, the layout. I think my favourite has to be the one of the woman's face; when looking at this piece, I really get the sense of a 'strength'. I look and aspire. The way the design is layed over the paper makes the colours pop and the embroidery stand out, focusing even more on the lines and shapes.

I think including women and men's figures is something I want to continue looking at. 

My idea is 'Where we are today?', in terms of equality, but looking deeper into women being equal to men as this issue has been prominent in society for a long time. Men were always the 'superior race' - where are we today in both genders being on the same level? 

For my work, to show this, I think incorporating both genders, instead of just women, is a good way to go forward. We celebrate the female gender a lot, especially as we were oppressed for a long time. I want to celebrate and delve into: women = men.

Some pages in my sketchbook from this:

When looking at the collages, the final outcomes, the shapes really stood out to me. I could picture them on a large scale. I did a drawing of how I imagined them:

The designs on a large scale would look so interesting - really making an impact. I feel people would look at these and question why I have done what I have done. Scaling up the patterns, the collage and design, and then putting it in a space, I think would be a nice idea to work with. Not sure on what materials I would use - possibly large pieces of cardboard - and how I would actually produce it, but worth to look into as I do love these outcomes!