Project 1 Material Innovation Progress

Right from the beginning of this project I knew I wanted to look at moss, not only at its soft, spongey texture but also its aesthetic. I have been fascinated by natures effect on our lives, especially through architecture and the things we build. The way it persists, cracking concrete and decorating walls. Brining a sense of life to our scientific creations.

I began looking at how I would intemperate moss as a textured fabric and found it difficult, even in our mark making session I struggled to put across the marks I wanted to. So I came away from this idea and started looking at walls, bricks that had been broken down by moss, their texture and aesthetic.

From these marks I not only developed a pattern I liked, but a silhouette. The idea of broken down walls lead me to create a panelled effect to show how things used to fit together but have been interuprtd by nature. From my final piece I hope to make this more apparent before hand in by adding to the seams a sense of overgrown raw edges.

A mistake I made in this process, was not double checking the fabric content before I made my Print. Although I had been told my fabric was cotton, after it had been printed for hours it was washed and my print faded so much it was practically none existent. Theis was incredibly frustrating as I then had to spend another day using a different dye and heat pressing it instead of sewing. I believe I could have avoided this by washing a sample piece first. However I count it was a blessing in disguise, as the colours from the second, disperse dye where much better.

I wasn't sure weather to add some bold black lines into my final piece, as my final sketches all have these lines on. However after talking to Kate, I realised that though they are in my drawings, I did not want them in my final piece. I will therefore be altering my drawings instead of my final piece for the deadline.

Overall I am really happy with the progress I have made with this so far, and am excited to fix it up for our final hand in.