Melanie Bowels

After recently undertaking copious amounts of research for my Monograph on the implications digital print has on the creativity of practitioners, i came across Melanie Bowels work. Melanie is a designer, researcher writer and lecturer at chelsea college of art and design, who's work explores new concepts for digital textile design, the collection that particularly inspires me is her digital craft collection called 'digital shibori' which i have attached in the link below.

i like how she has translated these traditional techniques into digital print, using a similar process to my own, but what is most inspiring is how there is not actually any traditional techniques used of the fabric, it is all done digitally with a traditional concept and narrative.

http://www.melaniebowles.co.uk/m_bowles/Digital_Craft.html

UVassisted screenprinting of flat textiles Kozicki 2012 Coloration Technology Wiley Online Library

UVassisted screenprinting of flat textiles Kozicki 2012 Coloration Technology Wiley Online Library

Print Debate: Digital Or Screen: EBSCOhost

short but interesting views on wether digital print is on the rise in comparison to screen printing (more craft based techniques)

Print Debate: Digital Or Screen: EBSCOhost

Exploration 2 - jelly

with this experiment, jelly wasn't my initial idea but the shop that i went to were out of stock of gelatine so i opted for a yellow pineapple jelly flavour because it is still fitting with my colour scheme and i thought it might compliment the colour of the threads.

i feel as though the colour of the jelly takes away from the colour of the threads, some of my threads were multicoloured which had been died from pigments in print, but in these imagines you cant see it so next time i am going to use clear gelatine and maybe even vege-gel because it is more transparent and vege-jel is harder which will hopefully give a smoother edge.

Exploration 1: Ice setting

I decided as part of my experimentation process of materials and surfaces i would do a few casts with different things, after finding my colour scheme in collection one i used the inspiration of that colour through threads and set them in water, i decided to not emerge the threads in the water completely so that they wouldn't all sink to the bottom which i think worked really well because i like how they drape over the side and have formed an interesting sense of movement and lines.

i was happy wit the situation of the threads so i placed it in the freezer over night 

 when it came out of the freezer it was frosted over and i couldnt see through the plastic container so i removed it

once i remobed it you could really see the detail in the colours, shapes and cracks in the ice

i was especially pleased with how these threads hung and how some of them were mysteriously gidden by the cracks in the ice

i am happy with the metallic thread as well because each of the threads reacted different to the exposure of the water, some expanded, some stayed normal like the silver, and i think the metallic silver really compliments the other colours

 it was especially interesting once the ice started to melt, they started to poke through the top and some even stayed perfectly formed in place, again, playing with that thought of 'freezing' movement 

i am really happy with this experiment however i think ice is very limiting in terms of development and using it in a final design. My next experiment with ice is to freeze inks and see if they produce a drawing technique as well as some interesting movement images.

Probes; SKIN dresses

Philips Design Probes is a dedicated far-future research initiative to track trends and developments that may ultimately evolve into mainstream issues that have a significant impact on business. one of the project areas is, SKIN, which examines what the integration of sensitive materials in the area of emotional perception will be like in the future and researchers whether or not it is possible to change 'intelligent' products and technologies to ''sensitive'' products and technologies.


These garments are intended for demonstration use only, demonstrating how electronics can be encourperated into fabrics, which is something i am going to explore with LED's

http://www.youtube.com/v/WRX-3DDBow0?version=3&autohide=1&showinfo=1&autohide=1&autoplay=1&feature=share&attribution_tag=FgAIXgriqSS0_DRFNsSudg

Galaxy Dress

The Galaxy dress

This elegant evening gown is made of taffita silk, organza, over twenty four thousand LED's of all colors, converting it into the worlds largest usable color display garment with more than four thousand swarovski crystals.
LED's as thin as paper were used, which wee hand embroidered into the silk. four layers of organza were used over the silk to defuse the light and to create the feeling of a magical aura.
The circuits that connect all the lights work with several ipod batteries and were built on an extra thin flexiable surface, which enable people to move gracefully, as if it wee a normal fabric.

although i am not really aiming to make a fashion garment myself, the idea of this would be something great to explore in my prints and possibly include some kind of final design, LED's are a big exploration for me, i want to use them in lots of different ways so this would be a good experiment to under go, on a much smaller scale to begin with, obviously.