Rehnah Touseef

Rehnah Touseef Exploring colour

Embroidery Designer, Maker

Materials Exploration/Collection (Utilising the outside environment to integrate, capture and collect colour)

Contents Project Statement Archived materials (collecting colour) Personal Statement

Materials Exploration/Collection (Being resourceful, experimenting with heat and moisture from used tea bags to collate patternation.

Exploring Colour I began by collecting materials from different places; collating these materials in particular because of there blended colour or hues which were difficult for me to recognise (because of my Colour blindness). I have blended and mixed colours to match what I can see, besides the page of the actual item – allowing the viewer to identify my colour blindness and pick up on the colours I am possibly missing; this has been an uncomfortable process for me, knowing that someone who isn’t colour blind will quickly recognise this, but having said that it can also be exciting for a non colour blind person to be able to see what I am seeing through my red/green colour vision deficiency.

Developing on from this archival collection I started to re interpret/re recognise colours into thread, which for me as a colour-blind person is something completely different from picking out colours in paints for example.

Utilising this process in hand embroidery as well as digital, whereby I am (though my colourblindness) attempting to match thread to digital colours.

Pushing this idea of collecting colour; I stepped outside to gather what is directly available in the natural environment; utilising rubbing, scraping, squashing, and smudging as a tool to generate some marks, colours and textures on pieces of material. Other ways in which I have experimented with producing swatches is bleaching, staining, dyeing with dye that has bled, cooking pieces in curry, leaving pieces of food or spices on material (allowing moisture and heat from inside the home to affect and stain the piece) – these simple processes required no electric or gas or even any special equipment, just some time and doing. The results are exciting and quite unusual at the same time, but allow one to see what can be achieved from what is already available.

Materials Collection, exploration (Archival diary) Utilsing spices, food and cooking to integrate colours into fabrics. Allowing heat and moisture from inside the home to affect and naturally stain pieces of fabric.

Interpreting digital colour into thread (Embroidery Sample - Amaya/Digital Embroidery) Exploring my interpretation of digital colour (seen on the computer screen) into actual embroidery thread - colours have been misinterpreted and altered to the level that even I can recognise where I have chosen the wrong colour.

(Scanned in collected items book - Images are of collected items and colour I have blended beside the item)

Personal Statement An Embroidery Designer Maker with an Art/Textile Design and Graphic/ Product design background. Through specialising in Embroidery have developed professionalism, craftsmanship and technical & creative expertise. Mainly experimenting, taking reflective risks and inventing. Key skills and interests lie in multidisciplinary approaches, exploration of materials, processes and techniques and integration of technologies and sensorality within materials.

Contact

07462718518 Â

rehnah_touseef@hotmail.co.uk

 uk.linkedin.com/pub/rehnah-touseef/82/823/17/