Digital Process Journal Yoonkyeong Sally Hwang Fall 2014 Section C
SUMMER ASSIGNMENT INSPIRATION This summer was full of such valuable experiences and inspiration, as I got to travel around Italy. I visited so many different cities and sites, such as Rome, Firenze, Sorento, Venice and more. I saw those famous churches and ruins of a number of well-known cities, and they were absolutely beautiful and breathtaking. The big cities, however, did not tickle my inspiration enough to base a collection upon. After searching for a source of inspiration for two months, I finally found it at a small town called Ravenna. The town itself didn’t look so special. The buildings were not ancient and they looked quite modern and clean. When I stepped into the Church of San Vitale, however, I was instantly fascinated by the golden byzantine mosaic.
Swatches
Woven Jersey knit A f t e r gathering inspiration images from Ravenna, I came back to New York and began swatching. For the first round of swatching, my focus was on the color scheme and texture that I observed in the inspiration images. In addition, since the summer assignment instruction had given specific guideline for me to focus on knit and woven fabric, I mainly gathered different weights of knit and woven fabrics. Although my initial swatching was pretty successful in terms of replicating the color scheme of Ravenna, my 2D instructor lator told me to lighten up the color palette, and I did so. Woven
Knit
Jersey knit
Woven
Woven Wool
Boucle
Digital Prints
Since I know that swatching fabrics from the fabric stores are always not enough, I decided to make several digital prints based on some decorative elements I saw in Ravenna. This print is a digital version of the mosaic ceiling at the mausoleum of Galla Placidia. I started with Illustrator, drawing the basic units with pen tool. When I finished this, I realized that the plain vector line work isn’t appealing enough so I brought the pattern to Photoshop to put some effects and textures on it.
This print was done solely in Illustrator. The inspiration photo was taken from Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe. I found the fresco work that appear three-dimentional very interesting, so I decided to replicate it and use it in place of any of those common shirting surface such as plaid or stripes. To make this pattern I used pen tool as major tool, and made good use of pathfinder. After making the basic unit, I dragged it to the swatch palette to save it as a pattern swatch.
For my collection, I always try to incorporate some whimsical aspect into it, and I have accomplished it mainly by digital prints. This time I did the same. While looking for something that would be a good representation of my inspiration images, I realized how sheeps - the holy animal that appear in religious artworks - are depicted in various different and interesting ways. So I decided to interpret it in my own way. Since I am not religious, I tried to depict it in a way that it doesn’t relate too much and too directly to religion.
Drawing summer assignment
For my drawing class summer assignment, I had to make three fashion figure illustrations using three different media. Also the assignment instruction specifically asked for figures in three different knit dresses that I had to design as part of assignment for Integrated Studio. According to the instruction, I chose three of my knit dress designs from initial croquis that I did during summer. The first illustration, which is on the left side of this page was done with marker. I first made a rough pencile sketch, traced the outline with marker, and then
put color on the figure. The middle figure was illustrated digitally using my wacom tablet on Photoshop. I drew the whole figure from scratch, using my tablet, then applied colors and digital pattern that I made for this collection. The last figure, which is on the right side of this page, was done mainly with watercolor. I first sketched the figure using regular pencile, erased the pencile line to make the lines lighter, then applied watercolor on the figure. After I was finished with watercolor, I used acrylic paint to add detail on the dress in order to show embroidery.
2D Project: Capsule Collection Our first project in Integrated Studio 2D was to continue developing the summer assignment in order to come up with a capsule collection consisting of 10 looks. From several sets of my initial croquis that I did during summer, I had to pick 10 different looks. As I was picking the looks and constructing this collection, I had to modify some of the details I had in the initial design sketches, so that the items come together as looks that belong to one collection. For illustration for my final presentation, I decided to use markers, because I was growing fond of this particular medium. When I was half finished with this set of marker illustrations, my Integrated Studio 2D instructor told me that the illustrations look a little flat, and he suggested me to do mixed media. I took his advise and tried incorporating some collage work into the figures. I scanned in the figures, brought them to photoshop to scale my digital pattenrs accordingly, and then printed the patterns out to put them on my illustration.
2D Project: Capsule Collection
3D Project: Knit Dress For the first 3D project of this semester, our professor introduced dress making using creative cutting. The creatice cutting method was founded by Julien Roberts. We all started by making a pillow case with two sheets of fabric that are about 40 inches wide and 2 yards long each. After that we were to place both front and back of either torso or bodice slopers randomly on one side of the pillow case. I traced the slopers and marked about 2 inches below armhole on sideseams. Starting from the marks, I had to draw random lines to connect the mark on the front and the mark on the back. This resulted in interesting negative shape inside the front, back and the random lines connecting the front and back that were now to serve as sideseams of the dress. I cut out the negative shape and sewed the sideseam. This gave me the basic shape of my knitdress, which was very unexpected.
Knit Dress Pattern
Knit Dress Size 6 Cut 1
Knit Dress Size 6 Cut 1
Knit dress back pattern
Knit dress front pattern
Drawing Class work These are some of the classworks and homework assignments that I did for my drawing class. The three figures placed on the left of this text were based on the first 2D collection based on Ravenna, which this process journal is mainly focused on, and the two figures on the right are based on the next upcoming collection that will be introduced in the next process journal. Both sets of figures were initially drawn from a model in class. Weekly assignment for my drawing was to take two gesture drawings that I did in class, develop them with my own design, and finish them as complete illustrations. The main medium that my class was encouraged to use was markers, so these figures are all illustrated with markers. In addition to the basic instruction for weeksly assignment, I had to render different types of fabrics. For example, the two figures on the right were focused on woven fabric and cable knit.
Textile: block printing One of the elective classes I’m taking for this semester is textile class, in which I’m getting to experience many different techniques regarding fabric construction and manipulation. The very first project in textile class was block printing. For this project I had to pick specific inspiration and motif, and develop them into block print. Since I was already working with the inspiration from Ravenna for my Integrated Studio class, I decided to bring the same inspiration in for this project as well. I took one of the inspiration photos of different mosaic works I took in Ravenna, and and designed this unit of block print. After designing and carving this motif, I chose the color scheme, also referring to my inspiration from Ravenna. When I got an idea of how the outcome would be, I went to buy fabric and ink that I neede for block printing. After a long consideration, I decided to buy a yard of dusty blue cotton voile fabric. For the ink, I bought navy blue and golden yellow Aqua Bright waterbase ink. At first I only had the motif that I block printed with blue ink. After stamping this motif on the whole yard of fabric, I realized that the initial outcome still looked a bit empty. So I designed another motif, a smaller one to fit inbetween the stamped bigger motif, and used the golden yellow ink that I had bought just in case. As I was stamping the yellow one, I noticed that the color wasn’t coming out as saturated as the ink itself appeared to be, however I liked the rustic or dusty look I was getting, so I I went on with it.
Textile PROJECT 2: Felting The second project I did in my textile class that I’d like to present is felting project. I was introduced to three different types of felting techniques: dry felting, also called needle felting, wet felting and nuno felting. Dry felting or needle felting, as the name suggests, does not involve any water but only felting needle and different kinds of yarn and wool roving. I used this technique to make the one with different colored yarns felted on black piece of wool fabric on the left and the little pink sheep. Wet felting is a more time consuming and labor intense technique. I needed wool roving in different colors, olive oil soap, sponge, bamboo mat, mesh or tulle fabric, and other materials in order to try this technique in class. First I set up my working space by layering a sheet of plastic bag, a towel and bamboo mat. On the bamboo mat I placed pieces of wool roving according to the design I desire, and once this was done I put a piece of tulle to cover the layered wool roving, then I began soaking it with foam and water that I got from melting pieces of olive oil soap in hot water. In order to break the fibers of wool roving and make the pieces stick together, I had to rub on the tulle and roll them with bamboo mat many times. Afterwards I washed soap off of the wool roving, which then started looking like a piece of felt, with hot water and cold water. Then I had to throw the felted piece to further break the fibers. Nuno felting involves the same process with wet felting but it is felted on silk.