Sandra Backlund

A name who works with fabric to produce knitted garments is Sandra Backlund. In knitwear, Backlund has discovered herself niche turning the garment into surreal art. Her designs are a great inspiration to me with a wide combination of traditional techniques that emerge together. I love the originality to her work which is very extraordinary.

Fashion Illustration

Twisted

To begin the workshop we were concentrating on scales of twisted objects and i focused on more natural forms such as tree's and the way in which the shape can appear very abstract when up scaled.



For this particular image i used ink along with masking tape to create texture. I feel the overall effect is interesting.




Progressing on from shape and scale here we are developing an understanding of creating garments for our concept. From using visual images along with colour photocopies of my sketchbook work i was able to incorporate and create wonderful ideas.



From all these initial ideas, we had to choose one particular idea and develop upon it. Here I have developed a collection that best encapsulates my word 'twisted'. I used my 3 templates, repeated them and created different designs for each, In addition to this I added annotation of the fabric, manipulation techniques and colour to illustrate my ideas more clearly.

From adding colour to my work i realised this was not the colours i wanted to incorporate within my final 6 design, so i decided to photocopy my designs which are shown below.

To get an idea as to how i wanted to present my final illustration I looked into a couple of Illustrators for inspiration and experimented with their techniques, below is my developing work in the style of Howard Tangye.

Airiero Marti

Lovisa Burfitt

Here I found the effect of the ink I was working with quite interesting so captured a picture.

Here I have demonstrated my final 6 designs which incorporate ideas from my 30 designs. I have incorporated colour using oil pastels and ink.

Below is my final illustration! I decided to create it using Lovisa Burfitt's style and my way of working. I feel I have clearly shown development throughout the whole process.

Fabric Samples

For this exercise we were asked to produce  a selection of samples to reflect our work of twisted. We were asked to make our samples exciting and to use any materials we wanted. With the image above I produced a sample using Image maker which is a paste used to transfer an image onto fabric. For this particular sample, i produced the image and captured a picture of it which I printed out in colour! I was very impressed withthe outcome.

With the word twisted in mind I thought i could interpret it within a fabric pleate. I kept the fabric neutral to ensure that the pattern of the fabric was visible. I sketched the sample also as this is a good way of improving my sample drawings.



I used the gathering technique here to produce an interesting sample which reflects our word twisted. The way in which you can see the lights and dark of the fabric along with the fabric being transparent makes this sample very fascinating.

  

Referring back to my mood board full of images of objects that reflect twisted made me want to interpret a rose using fabric, I highlighted the rose petals with pastels which worked really well. I additionally linked this in with the D&G dress I came across within a magazine. The colours, textures and prints are very delicate but detailed which represents the charaistics of a rose petal.

Bow Dress

Within this lesson I was able to develop a knowledge for pattern cutting. We were asked to create a top working around the word ‘twisted’ where we were given templates at which we had to firstly create pattern cutting in paper then interpret this in fabric as well. It really made my understand fabric and the importance of understanding how the fabric is weaved,  as this can make an entire different outcome to what you may have wanted to achieve. It was fascinating to realize the amount of shapes, and detail that go into making a garment. Here is an image of what we were aiming towards.

Here are the directions on tying the bow.

The top can be worn like so and additionally a bow style top can be achieved by tying the fabric at the front.

Below is an image of our early stages where we were trying to get all our templates onto paper. 

This is a template of the back of the dress.

Here I have illustrated out paper version of the dress, which works very different effect to the fabric due to the fact paper is a very stiff material to work with, however it's nice to be able to see all the shapes combined to make quite a sculptural piece.

Once we had achieved our pattern cutting and placed all the pieces together it was very rewarding, to add to this I was able to get visual ideas as to how the garment could be developed upon.