Reflection on feedback from Assignment 2

Feedback from tutor:

Overall Comments

Jennie, you have created an interesting body of work that has explored the creative process through interpretation and translation of the drawn line into the stitch. The main suggestion and advice I can give is to strive to be more explorative, experimental, try to push your ideas further by using mind maps, sketches, thumbnail drawings, worked into photocopies etc. in your sketchbook, all these will help with idea development. Also its important to leave yourself enough time for each exercise. Well done.

Reflection: I find I work best under pressure of a deadline but of course that does mean some parts getting rushed. I am quite set in my ways in how I work and create so need to explore the alternative ways of sketchbook explorations and mindmaps and reworking photocopies of my own work in future to break into a new more experimental way of working.

Assessment potential

I understand your aim is to go for the Textiles Degree and that you plan to submit your work for assessment at the end of this course. From the work you have shown in this assignment, providing you commit yourself to the course, I believe you have the potential to pass at assessment. In order to meet all the assessment criteria, there are certain areas you will need to focus on, which I will outline in my feedback.

Feedback on assignment

In this assignment you are asked to consider the process of translation. The focus is on making and exploration processes as an extension of your drawing development.

Exercise 2.1 Selecting

· Good selection of drawings with interesting visual qualities and lots of potential.

Exercise 2.2 Paper manipulation library; to develop your skills in the translation of surfaces and textures and to develop your awareness of the stages of creative development.

Architecture and artists have inspired you and this shines through and has been incorporated into your visual translations and manipulation of materials.

Create 10–15 samples in paper.

Some suggestions:

· You could have added some more types of substrate; envelops, printed text paper, maps, wrappers etc. to increase, expand on and push your ideas further.

· You could have increased the number of samples giving yourself more opportunity to develop ideas.

· Re-read the list of manipulation techniques in your handbook for more ideas.

· You are developing an awareness of the different stages of the creative process. You reflect in your blog that this was a good exercise to practice problem solving within limitations but you could have extended your ideas using different substrates for different experimental effects.

Reflection: I deliberatly limited myself to just a handful of papers and manipulations but I must have read the instructions wrong as I thought that was the idea. In fact having just checked the instructions it clearly states to use only a small range of papers and to explore just two or three paper manipulation techniques to begin with, if it states elsewhere later on to now expand the range I must have missed this. The instructions are often overly wordy and not always very clear or precise, I do feel often important bits get lost in too much irrelevant text.

Project 2 Exercise 2.3 Drawing with stitch onto paper;to help build your exploratory approach to design development by using stitch as a means of drawing

This part of the assignment is the strongest and most experimental, you show a more relaxed playful approach, explorations into translating and interpreting drawn marks into drawing with stitch are interesting have resulted in some good outcomes.

Reflection: thanks, I really enjoyed this

Your three samples that reference the grid drawing with mesh and paint are the most exciting in terms of visual translation. But you could have translated the unevenness of the paint by creating denser areas perhaps using various alternatives to the black sewing thread, on all of these pieces. This would have allowed for a more interesting line with subtle differences that would translate the qualities of the drawing. I would have loved to see you develop the holes idea too perhaps cutting irregular shapes as well as using a hole punch. Also expanding on the way the threads cover the holes could have been an exciting development too. Burning the tracing paper has worked well, I feel you could have expanded this quality also, so keep pushing and following your lines of enquiry just that bit further to reach more innovative outcomes.

Reflection: I need to learn to give myself more time to rework things and not just have a “this will do” attitude or a “I’ve run out of time” attitude

Suggestions:

· You could have used a viewfinder to discover sections from your original drawings that could have inspired you further.

· Think about combining different threads together, as well as using yarn, wire, plastics, sewing threads as well as embroidery threads.

· By using the suggested 10cm x 10cm samples you can cover an area faster and it would have allowed for more experimenting as you could have got several squares from the paper sample sheets. Don’t forget to read your exercises carefully several times before you start, as it’s easy to forget a crucial point.

Reflection: As I said before the instructions could easily be more clear and succint. If there’s three pages of text with two actual lines of instructions it’s easy to not see these. I do go through and highlight everything but I do sometimes miss things obviously.

· You haven’t labeled any of your work, you really need to start doing this systematically or it will be very confusing for everyone later in the course. Importantly it makes it easier for me to give clear effective feedback as I can refer to the sample correctly.

Reflection: I named everything on my blog, will make sure from now on the physical pieces are labeled too

· Think about combining different threads together, as well as using yarn, wire, plastics, sewing threads as well as embroidery threads.

· By using the suggested 10cm x 10cm samples you can cover an area faster and it would have allowed for more experimenting as you could have got several squares from the paper sample sheets. Don’t forget to read your exercises several times before you start, as it’s easy to forget a crucial point.

Exercise 2.4 Developed and composed samples; explore the role of evaluation, selection and refinement.

You chose to work in A2, which is a confident step, and to be encouraged, so well done. I find the machine sewing interesting but cant help wondering what would have happened if you continued with this and mixed up the hand and machine sewing much more intensely as a translation of the marks on the drawing? The thread is again all the same, as I have mentioned on your previous samples, when you could have created much more interest from varied thicknesses and textures linking the folds.

The larger piece with folded sections starts to be interesting, and I agree with you it works well when held up to the light. But on reflection could you have achieved this darker line made by the string against light, by using dark lengths of threads in various thicknesses? You could have played with the composition of this piece much more and varied the thicknesses of the creases of folds. Again more development and reflection would have gone a long way and would have created a more interesting outcome.

Reflection: I liked the idea of limitation but see now this backfired

Assignment 2 Stitching: Placed and spaced;consolidate your explorations by creating stitched textiles.

You are asked to develop three pieces for this final task showing;

· A sense of repetition

· Variety of scale

· A placement design

The textiles samples need much more exploration and development of ideas to reach the same quality of outcome as your samples in exercise 2:3. As in these earlier samples, you have a confident more experimental approach. The three samples you have created seem to have much less thought invested in them? This is a shame as this is the final culmination of this assignment and there are 13 pages within the handbook to help guide and inform you. Did you feel you had run out of time, I feel you hint at this in your blog? My advice would be to allow an equal amount of time for the last tasks within your assignment as the earlier tasks, these later tasks are often a culmination of all that you’ve leant over the assignment and so these pieces deserve enough time to be developed and explored to really use all your knowledge effectively. There are some interesting elements within the large textile pieces but you just haven’t demonstrated a development in creatively from your paper samples in your translations into textiles.

For example the size of samples has been dictated by the size of the vintage textile but it hasn’t been considered decision. You have used wire for one sample, which is a great start but it hasn’t been employed creatively or with thought to size, scale, length, and direction of stitch.

I feel your strongest work within this assignment has been the stitched paper samples from exercise 2.3 as you are much more spontaneous with your interpretation from drawn line to drawn stitched line. You have demonstrated progress with these samples, developing your use of the creative process effectively to create fluid and more confident paper samples. The final three textiles samples need more exploration and development of ideas to reach the same quality of outcome. This skill will develop as you gain confidence but you must allow yourself enough time. I suggest you revisit these last three samples again and draw from all the knowledge and experience you have gained from your paper samples. You need to expand the range of marks with stitch and manipulation to evoke the various qualities of the drawings, be more explorative in your approach.

Reflection: yes I did absolutely run out of time. I couldn’t even extend the deadline because I had so much work on that I couldn’t see any time to finish this and felt I would be best off submitting it as was. I didn’t really enjoy the textile wor as much as is obvious, I didn’t feel inspired and was too stressed about all the work I had waiting for me once I submitted this assignment (I run my own business and have been extremely busy!). I will re-work them

Sketchbooks

You have commented in your reflection that you don’t enjoy using sketchbooks. This maybe because you aren’t used to this way of working and it is unfamiliar. I will send you an article about sketchbooks that a tutor has written that may help. Your sketchbooks are an important tool to help you to work through ideas, play and experiment to progress through the creative process effectively.

Reflection: I love using my sketchbook for drawing, mostly life drawing, and making collages with photos etc. but find it impossible to design in my sketchbook, we have discussed this a little by email, I haven’t been able to get into using my sketchbook as a design tool yet and have’t needed it for assignment 3 but can see for assignment 4 I will have to! So I am looking forward to trying to change the way I work.

Learning Log

Your techniques and working process is beginning to be articulated in your blog with written reflections and visual examples. You have made a start on your critical reflections and evaluations but you could expand on this and pause to think why you chose an approach, could you change it and what would develop and progress the work.

Suggested reading/viewing

I recommend ‘Drawn to stitch’ by Gwen Hedley as an inspirational book to support your course work translating drawings to stitch.

Pointers for the next assignment

• To reflect on this feedback in your learning log.
• To spend more time expanding and developing samples much more.
• To consider time management so the time you do have is spent as effectively as possible.(Ask for an extension if you need more time.)

· To ensure you label all of your sample work.

· To make sure you read through the assignment a few times before you start working, to allow for planning your time and clarifying everything required.

Well done Jennie! You’ve worked well through your assignment, just ensure you put as much time and effort into all your exercises as you have with drawing stitch into paper as this was the most successful.