Fashion construction drawing

I found todays fashion drawing workshop with Val really helpful. Although I had to produce fashion illustrations for my projects last year, and had been given suggestions on ways I could do this, we never really had any formal workshop to help us.

I feel that I have made lots of good progress today and now feel a lot more confident in sketching out fashion designs. Last week I was worried that most of the pictures that I had taken wouldn't be suitable to aid me in designing garments. But it is amazing how collaging different architectural details onto a figure can inspire design ideas.

Photosensitive images

I have had a pack of photosensitive paper sitting in my stash of craft supplies for years now, unopened. I think my mum gave it to me when she was having a clear out at home. You can buy some here.

So I thought I could see if it might be the sort of thing that I could include in this project, as Charlie had said to me that you can get photosensitive fabric dye that works in a similar way. You can find a good How To here if you are interested. Again, as with the flower bashing, it works best with sturdy flat leaves and flowers. The image above turned out the best, I used baby salad leaves and daisies.

These are vine leaves and geranium flowers that I had in the garden. Unfortunately the geranium petals were too delicate and shrivelled up in the sun before the paper had time to expose, so they didn't give quite the results I was expecting.

I'm not sure if the paper I was using had deteriorated due to age, but the results were not as clear and crisp as I was expecting. I thought the background would be darker like the images I had seen from Anna Atkins. She was the first recognised female photographer and she produced the first photographically illustrated book called 'British Algae: Cyantope Impressions'. This is one of her images of a poppy, just a little bit better than mine I think!

image from the V&A

I don't think I will be using this process in my final garment, so I've decided not to shell out for the photosensitive fabric dye. Although I think with time and practise you could create some beautifully ethereal images, I think they look very scientific and wouldn't quite fit in with this project.

More Sketch-booking

As I have mentioned before, I have been really inspired to use my great grandmother's embroidery transfers in some way. I think it makes sense, as she would have been using these transfers herself during World War II, so they are of the same period of the Land Girls. The girls would have been spending some of their free time in the evenings to make these pretty embroideries, in a bid to brighten up their rooms in this time of austerity.

Traditionally, the lines of the transfers would have been hidden by the finished embroidery, but I think that they are rather lovely in their own right and have been visualising them as a screen print in a dark brown outline. You can see a dark outline being used in these original 1940s printed fabrics from Donna Flower below.

1930s-40s fabric from Rabbit fabrics

Design Ideas

I have come up with some garment design ideas for my final outcome. Like I outlined in my statement at the beginning of this project, I am keen to create a utility style, overall type garment made from a practical fabric (like a cotton drill or calico) which I want to screen print and embroider to with pretty florals.

I keep coming back to the idea of an apron dress and have been looking a different styles of apron dress that are already on the market. I have been particularly inspired by the British made to order company Old Town and their Bungalow dress, and this apron dress by an American company called Pip-squeak Chapeau. Anthropologie have an amazing selection of aprons too. You can also see other styles that have been inspiring me on my Pinterest board Cinderellas of the Soil.

The final drawing just above here is the design that I think I want to make. I wanted to make the front look like a traditional apron with the straps and buttons, but I think the pleating/gather in the front makes it look bit more interesting. The back is similar to the front of the Old Town Bungalow dress but I have incorporated a sweeping curved hem line like the Pip-squeak Chapeau apron dress. I think that this hem line keeps it looking more like an apron in style, but the wrap over back means that this can be worn on it's own, as well as over jeans or leggings and a top or shirt.

Starting in the sketch book

I always find it quite daunting starting a new sketch book.

At the beginning of a new project, although my head is always fizzing with ideas and inspiration, they are generally all ideas of how I can do stuff with fabric rather than paper. It's like I miss a step in the way that my ideas are supposed to progress, and then it's almost like I have to start working backwards. I do like to draw and paint, but it's not something that I am very confident in doing, so I end up taking a long time over it and then feel frustrated at the small amount of work I have produced. I suppose that as time goes on throughout my degree I will become more confident in my abilities and things will get easier.

So, using pictures that I took up at the allotments last week I have been doing some painting.

I really love this photo I took of a bumble bee on a dandelion. I used acrylics to paint this and although I am really happy with the finished painting, I can't see me using this sort of realistic style in my garment in this project as we are not at the stage of using digital printing yet mostly due to expense.

I would however like to include maybe some bee or butterfly motifs in my garment, as pollination is an integral part of plants growing, both naturally in the hedgerows and in cultivation on farms and allotments. The work of the bees and butterflies was just as important to growing Britain's produce in wartime, as was the work of the land girls.

In my photos you can see a strong theme of grids. I found them in netting, fencing and chicken wire; plastic, metal and wood. I like the juxtaposition of the rigidity of this black chain-link fence with the yellow blooms of forsythia haphazardly weaving it's way through. After painting the top half of the page with a paint brush. I used the edge of piece of cardboard dipped in black paint to recreate the grid in a printed form.

colourful details

I've been enlarging a section of a colourful nomadic image and painting them in gouache to try and get some ideas going for print designs.

I find Berber rugs particularly inspiring they can be quite geometric and use intense blocks of colour.

detail: Berber Rag Rug

detail: Berber Rag Rug

I used a pencil rubber tip to try to recreate the tiny glass beads of the Maasai's jewellery

detail: Maasai Beaded Jewellery

detail: Mongolian Woman's woven apron