Down shot, prepare for lift off

J O    D U C K 

Today I have been experimenting again after looking at Jo Duck's jelly recipes. After a tutorial we came up with the idea of dropping things in water which relates to my project. Jo Duck creates these beautiful pieces by using recipes of items such as alcohol and drops them into jelly before it sets. 

I find these really beautiful to look at and I like the way the colours blend. I had a go at some of my own and added things which I thought would work, for example, milk, bleach, glitter etc.

However, the result after two attempts was awful. I couldn't get anything to work or look good and it was a huge failure. So in the end I decided to leave the jelly that I had unsuccessfully made, for a period of 3 days like with my previous experiment to see what the results were. 

Warp

W A R P   D Y E I N G 

I have been thinking for what seems like days now about what to do with my warp, particularly the colour of it. I have found it really difficult trying to make a decision about this as I have had no experience of how to design it in order to create what I want.  I might be thinking about it all completely wrong but the only way to find out is to produce my first ever weave, then maybe this will all begin to make much more sense. 

I have derived my colours for my warp based on both of my developed photographs from my previous post. When I went into the dye lab I still couldn't decide which photo I wanted to take my colours from. Sooo.. I ended up making 4 hanks and making up several pots of dye. I then dipped and tested them all, some with other colours over the top, some barely even dipped in, and really tested them all out. 

After a while of deciding I decided to use the colour palette from the second one of my photographs. (Purple image) . I had spent 3 hours already in the dye lab and in the end I have ended up just taking the plunge and going for it.  

In the end the colour hasn't come out too bad. Although I did make a mistake which I will be able to correct in the future. When I dyed the warp originally it was a bit more purple and a little darker, although after washing it and drying the warp I have found out that it has lightened up a lot. I don't know whether this will necessarily be a bad thing for my weave .. 

Water Water Water

E F F E C T S 

This week I feel that I've been moving my project on a little more. After looking at the the effects of sound in water, I have begun to look and think about the effects that water itself has on other things. 

So again I wanted to try a little risk and experimentation...

Also on another note before I explain my experiment, another reason for doing this was because I wanted to put more colour into my project and so this was a way of tying it in .

So for this experiment I used a few colours of gouache and left them in a glass of water for 3 days. I then poured out the water and photographed the effect that the water had on the paint over the 3 day period. I then repeated this experiment but this time I used squeezy water colour paint. (Second image)

After gathering a few initial images, I then developed them a little bit on photoshop in order to look specifically at the colours. 

Expressing Movement

W A V E S   &   R I P P L E S  

After looking at the effects that sound had on the ink, I have decided to explore the ripples in water left from vibration. I have tried to be a little more expressive than normal and I am already finding this aspect challenging so am a little worried about whats to come! 

The first image below has been created using masking tape and folding it on itself in order to create a ripple effect which I think enables me to express movement. 

In the next image I chose to use modroc and again tried to create a ripple effect. With this one I have also been thinking about the texture and the distortion of the material after using water. 

Transparency

S E E    T H R O U G H 

After having a tutorial I have begun to look at some weave artists and I have come across work from Jan Garside.  The reason I am looking at her work is because she uses lots of transparency and after using bits of acetate in my sketchbook to convey the transparency of water, I feel that this relates. 

Her work seems fine and reminds me of water. I like the interesting yarns she uses and the fact her weaving shows movement. 

I have been trying to think of other ways to display transparency in my work and one of these is through using goose fat on paper (which makes it see through). I tested a lot of this but no photographs would show how messy it was. The fat when used on a paintbrush, was extremely difficult to draw with. In fact it was almost impossible to control.

Above are my own awful attempts. 

This image above is 'Fat Drawing' by Daksha Patel. This was the inspiration for my own drawings however after attempting several times I found this process so messy and it just didn't work for me. 

Ive still been thinking about this concept of infinite sound waves travelling under water, and I have thought about the idea of mirrors to display infinity.. and also circles. I am not yet sure if I'm going to think about this more in depth yet but its some food for thought.

Colour and Texture

U N D E R   T H E   S E A

My visual research this week has moved in to thinking about the ocean, and the surroundings and habitats which encapsulate whale sounds and vibrations.

As I am so unfamiliar with weave, I decided to attempt some first ever yarn wrappings. The blue one depicts the colours and textures of the ocean, and the grey one show the colours and textures of the skin around the areas where the whales produce the sound and vibration.

In terms of colour, I like quite bright variations and so I have decided to look at coral tones found at the bottom of the ocean. 

Vibration

R I S K  T A K I N G   &   E X P E R I M E N T A T I O N  

This week I have done some more research into whale song and I have now developed an underlying theme for my Visions of Sound brief : Vibration. Whale song produces up to 230 decibels in pitch and so the vibration under the water is enormous.  I am also starting to ponder some other interesting concepts. For example are sound waves under water never ending? Do they go on forever? This also leads me to thinking about the idea of infinity. 

So to keep up to date on my thought processes ... 

Whale song and vibration - starting point 

Idea of sound waves under water - Infinite

Water ?

Movement?

Ripples.... All things to consider 

So in order to do some primary research I decided to construct a little bit of risk taking and experimentation. 

After looking into how whales produce sounds and vibration, I have conducted an experiment to see how the sound and vibration of my chosen song would affect liquid (ink). I have chosen to use ink as it is a water based substance, and so I am still visually researching into water, vibration and sound. 

To do this experiment I firstly dropped ink onto paper. Then dropped water around and on top of the ink. I then held paper firmly over the speaker and played my chosen song for one minute. 

Above is how it looked before the song was played, and below was the result after the 60 seconds were up. 

'Dancing Colours'

F A B I A N   O E F N E R 

"Dancing Colours'' 

I have begun to look at Fabian Oefner's work for inspiration for Visions Of Sound. I have chosen to look at his work as when I came across it I was immediately drawn to the beautiful colours and I particularly love the way he conveys a visual language through music and vibration. 

Oefner bridges the gap between the acoustic and the visual world; he expresses sound waves through explosions of coloured pigments, their movement as a result of music. Oefner creates these beautiful pieces by wrapping a speaker in a thin foil of plastic and places the powder on its top surface.  When the music plays it causes the powder to explode into the air. Oefner then captures these moments which only last a fraction of a second. 

Beginning Weave

 C O N S T R U C T 

This term I joined the weaving group for the first time. At first I was excited as I have always wanted to try weave due to my work being heavily influenced with cultural woven fabrics, however I found myself more than terrified as the pressure is on moving into Level 5.  

I begun to get a feel for weave by immersing myself in all things weave related and getting to know the weave room and machines. Below are some photographs of my first hank making attempts. 

I intended to dye some of these yarns as tester samples and so I made 6 different hanks out of a mixture of wools, cottons and viscose.