AS Exam; Carol Law Conklin Artist Research

For my AS Exam project, my theme was Earth and one artists I focused on was Carol Law Conklin, a batik artist who works with trees and nature. I experimented with batik, inspired by her pieces and also photos that I took myself in the forest, and used these for inspiration. 

I tried other media to get the same earthy effects, making a molar work tree branch inspired by my photos, and a felt copy of a post with mushrooms growing off it. The earthy brown colours and free flow of experimentation inspired my final design ideas.

AS Exam; Artist Copy and Earth Experiements

Carrying on from my Earth theme and work inspired by Carol Law Conklin, I decided to experiment looking at different types of media to create tree patterns and pieces. Firstly, I used felt to create an actual tree shape, stuffing it to make it 3D, and then couching different wool and thread onto it, as well as embellishment. 

I used ink to create a mono-print piece of tree outlines, an also dye fabric and ink draw over the top of the dyed pieces. I printed a tree pattern onto more coloured ink pieces, and then couched over the top of these.

AS Exam; Carolyn Saxby Artist Research

Another artist I looked at was Carolyn Saxby, as she looks at beaches and the water side of Earth and Nature. She works very freely and with a lot of blue colours, so I created a molar work with layers of batik, felt and other fabrics to represent the rock pools and pebbles I had photographed. 

I then embellished this with couching, beads and wax bubbles, and this inspired my pebbles that I incorporated on my final piece. 

AS Exam; Pebble Observational Drawings

After my research on Carolyn Saxby, I went out and photographed rock pools, streams, and other water forms and rocks. From these I did some experimental observational drawings, using pencil crayons, sketching, ink and water colours. 

I looked at the colours of the blues, browns, and greens, and the shapes that the body of pebbles created. These were then inspiration for my textile inspirations where I could translate my colour and shape observations.

AS Exam; Further Earth Experiments

Other textile experiments I completed when thinking about refining my previous pieces into design ideas included a lot of couching onto batik and tie dye pieces, looking at the textures and lines I captured in my photographs of the undergrowth and vines on tree branches. I looked at using plaster of Paris to coat little experiments I created looking at layers and textures, and then peeled it away to embellish with beads. 

I also looked at making felt pebbles and embellishing these, and creating batik drawing of the pebble textures, all of which inspired my final piece.

AS Exam; Earth Design Ideas

My ideas focused around dresses that followed the same form as Alexander McQueen’s work, and I then used other things such as my drawings, photographs and textile experiments to build on these. 

I used a mannequin to create my form out of paper, and then created six design ideas before refining these ideas together 4 times, before I finally reached my final design idea. This contained elements of felting, batik, couching, plaster of Paris, embellishing and a lot more. I used the colour I’d experimented with, and incorporated lot of previous ideas from throughout the project.

AS Exam; Earth Final Piece

For my final piece, I created a dress which contained many different media, based on experiments. The top part of the dress has a batik pattern, with and ink and couching stretching up the side of the mannequin’s neck. 

The main skirt is a brown silk, that has been ruffled to add volume, and then a huge over skirt train with layers of silk, tie dye and also Plaster of Paris on thread has been added, with rips to reveal the layers. Finally, I added some felt pebbles of different colours, shapes and patterns, all embellished and scattered around the entire dress.