Designs for Fashion

The progression of my major is moving swiftly onwards, and I've spent the majority of my time painting. Painting on paper, on wallpaper rolls and on fabric, experimenting with my constantly developing expressive style. I have also been exploring the depths of my current favourite tool; a palette knife! Using both water and acrylic paints I have created a vast and exciting collection of paintings which i am now developing further into my final designs. These will consist of 5 lengths, that will be hand painted using procion and pigment dyes, and them embellished intricately and intensively on top. These lengths have the potential to be used for a wide range of outcomes, but I have been researching the possibilities for both interior furnishings and fashion.

So here is a brief example of my paintings, and the product outcomes for fashion:

Please note these template images have been sourced from WGSN.com, all designs are ©LaurenThomas

North East Hills

A Whole Lotta Painting

Over the past few weeks i have been translating all my lovely British imagery into paint, and have had a ruddy good time too! Here is a teensy preview of what ive been doing... From water colour to palette knives we have this little sneaky selection...

Welcome, Sunshine!

What lovely weather we have been having lately! And how very inspiring it is too!

Over the past week i have been enjoying the sunshine immensely, and have been soaking up all the sun and all its glory around the lovely Sussex! 

All this beauty around me has given me the urge to paint again, and to snap up lots of pictures everywhere i go!

Here are a few moments that i couldnt pass by:

I hope you too, are enjoying the summer!

John Thompson

I thought it was time that i introduced you to one of my favourite artists.
For well over a year now i have been completely in love with the paintings produced by John Thompson, an artist currently based in West Sussex. I first discovered his work at Wakehurst Place on display, and was lucky to meet him and watch him paint! He has a lovely spot in the old manor house at Wakehurst, where you can watch him paint, have a little chat and if you have children he encourages them to paint straight on to canvas', which are often used for their own exhibitions and for calendars sold at wakehurst!

He is a genuine and kind man with an enormous talent and i encourage you to have a look at his work!

He paints mostly landscapes and British countryside, with a very free and expressive style, bursting with colour and life!

Here are a few of my favourites of his paintings:

You can see more of his work on his website: http://johnthompson.theartistsweb.co.uk/

My latest project: Embellishment for Fashion!

My latest project for fashion was based on a trend of my choice. I chose to work to a cultural trend based on escalating fashion on travel!

Here are a few cheeky snaps of some work from this project!

So lets start with some drawing! I started by looking through photos galore, a great excuse to look through some of my own travel photos!

All background paper has been created by either screen pull through's (pulling through pure pigments, acids and procions, playing with colour and mark making! very messy and brilliant fun) and also mark making using different brush sizes and also paper towels and smearing it over the page! i also used some artificial flowers to make marks as well as the occasional hand print! 

 A Peruvian Woman, drawn in charcoal, with water colour.

 A Mehndi pattern, inspired by a selection of Indian images of mehndi henna tattoos.

 Possibly my favourite, an Indian man surrounded by some Aboriginal and Asian pattern! Such beautiful colours! Too exciting!

An African woman, i assure you she looks happy in the real image, not quite as scary as this!!!

 Various culture inspired patterns, colour, a cheeky man who i like to think is from Nepal (I don't know why...) and some stitching on to the paper and in with the pattern! And i didn't break my machine! phew...

 Beautiful little Asian girl! With some European inspired embroidery and some lovely bromeliads!

And now for the final embellished garment shapes! 

 This one is based on African jewellery! I wanted to do this with a modern twist, so used colours that perhaps meet a more western culture. I used bead work, stem stitch, straight stitch, back stitch, and satin stitch! This piece took me up to four days. The top itself has been dyed yellow, then dyed again with a pull through of pigments!

This piece took the longest and is probably my favourite of the four. It took about two weeks and is entirely hand stitched! The only thing that a machine was used for was to make the gold circles which have been done using water soluble paper and therefore are made entirely of gold thread! The elephants are each sewn with a different technique; The first on the left is simply a stem stitch, the middle was couching and the one on the right was a raised stem stitch, but very finely done.
The main detail of the hands were done using beading, a very delicate chain stitch, stem stitch, back stitch and satin stitch! The outside detail is stem, satin and back stitch, each layer being a different stitch!
The back ground again has been done using a pull through with a mixture of pigment and procions.

 This piece is possibly my least favourite. I wanted to bring in more to the colour scheme i had and thought i could do this through another culture. The main body of the top is based on Peru, and i wish i had stitched in to it further neatening up the painted background. This was done through a pull through, painted on to the screen, then painted on to the fabric itself to brighten the colours using all pigment. Exciting though it was, I'm not sure how successful this piece is.
The beading is quite simple but i thought it would be good to use more ethnic looking beads.
I also used some ribbon work and simply sewed squared using a red ribbon, which took quite a lot of stress and pricking of fingers! 

I pleated the top of the dyed fabric and sewed it on to give it a bit more to it but again, I'm not so sure of how well this has worked.

 And for the last garment! This was unfortunately mostly done by machine which i do not like to do. I think embroidery looks best when done by hand as it is more personal, and more beautiful. I also don't like the lack of control i feel when i use a machine, but that's just me!
So here we have another pull through dyed fabric and a tunic dress shape with a collar that has been sewn using machine stitches (zig zag and straight stitch using different lengths) and also some tambour beading and tambour stitches (as its quite beautiful just using the stitch without sequins or bead work)
There is some hand embroidery within the machine just to give it that extra lift.

 I used free hand machine embroidery, and a combination of zig zag and straight stitch playing with the length and widths of the stitches to make lines and shapes of different thicknesses. And of course some Hand embroidery, i wonder if you can pick out which is hand and which is machine?

So there we have my last project, a fun one and rich in fabulous content but how successful do you think it was, i wonder!?

A little birdie told me...

More Visual Language work... Techniques (carbon paper copies, screen wash techniques and monoprints!)