Cultures Project Continued ...

I've not really posted much of my sketchbook content so far, so I thought I would give you a peek at how my 'Cultures' project is going. I visited Holy Trinity Church in St Andrews and took some photos of its beautiful stained glass windows. I completed a few sketches whilst I was there too, which were mainly based around shape and colour. I have developed these drawings further and I'm currently incorporating my ideas into fabric samples. I will post a few pages of my sketchbook later in the week.
I have already spent a week printing, which I found slighlty frustrating as I didn't feel I acomplished what I set out to do as the colours in my samples aren't as I would have liked and my prints in general not controlled enough. Although, I definately found the week helpful as I have learnt the different overall effects each type of printing can have.
I've just finished a weeks block of mixed media which I really enjoyed. I have tried to incorporate as much of my sketchbook into my design samples as possible. Here are some of my samples I have created over the past few days:

'Cultures' Project Brief...

Well, I think i’ve put off writing on this for long enough now, so I suppose I better get started. I’m going to start off by writing a bit about the first Textiles brief of the year. Our first brief is called ‘Cultures’ , and although I struggled to decide how exactly I was going to approach the topic, I think I’m finally getting somewhere.
I am interested in why people have certain beliefs whether it be religious or personal. With this idea in mind I began by researching into religion and the way being part of a religion or a set of beliefs can provide a sense of belonging. This idea quickly led on to me thinking about people’s belief in a god and their perceptions of a “heaven”. I really struggled to find imagery for my first idea, so i have decided to focus on Roman Catholic religious art and more specifically shrines and the embellishment, iconography and rich textures found within churches. Here is some of my visual research so far from my sketchbook :