Artist Research

One of the artists I looked at was Donna Wilson, she is a knitting artist and I have decided to try and replicate one of her cushions by knitting a square and stitching into it. I did Swiss Darning on this as I  didn't now how to switch between wool to do this pattern. I quite liked this artist and I think I did quite well. I did have a few problems at first as when I started my swiss darning I went into the wrong stitches and I realised part way through the white in the middle that I should have been working upwards rather than working down. This cause a few problems as I couldn't see where I was supposed to be going with the wool and I split the wool. For the next section I worked from the bottom and this worked better and I found it easier.

Weaving

On Friday I did weaving, it is quite a long process and I think this piece took me around an hour and a half. I have linked a video at the bottom of the page to explain the process. I tried to use quite light colours for this but there weren't many to choose from. If I do this again I might try using different materials to make it more interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YJZ6Q2ZMFU

Needle felting

This week we did needle felting and at first we did a sample on some felt and were told to make a sunset and then we made some scenery that would link into our project, this was done using the felt we made on Friday. I think my sample could have been better but seen as though it was my first my i think it went okay, My second go i think went rather well and i think i got the hang of it eventually. 

Needle felting is done by using wool and a barbed needle to push the fibers through your base material. There are some obvious health and safety issues to be aware of and these are to make sure you don't stab yourself or others with the needle and always look at what you are doing 

Wet felting

This week we did wet felting, i have done this process before and even used it in my final piece. We were told to make two A5 sized pieces that would link into Le tour de France project so i decided to try and do two backgrounds that were the country side or where the tour went through. Once i had done two i had a go at doing a felt ball, this is done be getting some wool and soapy water and working it into a ball, it is best to use washing up gloves as they have some grip on them that will help felt it. Mine didn't go too well but i want to try again as i think it would be good to use in other projects.

Knitting

This week in class we did knitting, i have previously done a small amount of knitting but i couldn't really remember much of it. To cast on i used a slip knot and then the thumb cast on as this is the one i'm most comfortable with, once i had cast on 20 stitches i was supposed to do 20 rows of garter stitch but unfortunately i didn't have time to finish it, on row three i managed to pick up an extra stitch so my tutor showed me how to get rid of it.

Later i did a purl stitch for 5 rows and then did a stocking stitch which is done by doing alternate rows of knit and purl stitches, i struggled quite a bit with this one and managed to pick up three extra stitches along the way which my tutor again helped remove. 

today i did three pieces my self one in purple that is just a garter stitch and a pink which goes from stocking to garter and back to stocking and then a final pink that i tried to do three knit rows followed by 3 purl rows and this continues for a while. 
I quite enjoyed doing these in my own time but still got a little confused at times. 
I used a 7.5 mm needle for the ones i did at home and a 1cm needle for the one i did in college.

Le Tour De France Artist Research

 These are the three artists I looked at for my project, I was told to find at least three artists that based their work around bikes or movement, at first I struggled to find any artists so I went on pinterest and looked up anything to do with tour de france and found quite a few artists on there that would fit into my project.

http://uk.pinterest.com/mollieprentice9/tour-de-france/

Le Tour De France

These are a few of the pages from my sketch book about Le tour de France We were given 9 weeks to get as much information and research as we could and were told to try and fill either an A3 or A4 sketch book. I think I struggled a little with this project as I didn't really like the subject matter so I didn't do as well as I could have if I would have done it on a project that I found interesting, this was a major problem as I couldn't really get past the fact that I wouldn't enjoy the time I spent on it and I couldn't get many ideas for the pages and this shows quite a bit where some pages seem to repeat previous pages.

 I think some pages need a lot more work on them and others are okay in parts I am going to keep adding to them to try and get them to a good standard.
I think I could have spent more time on some pages to make them more appealing  and maybe some of my research could have been better but I think I did the best I could with the limited time I had due to work commitments and family matters.