Week 3

This week was digital printing and we were asked to create three patterns that embodied who we are. Our starting point for inspiration was answering basic questions about our family history. Who am i? , what is my ethnic background? , what did my grandparents do?. I was brought up in a British household but the Nigerian values and expectations were always very heavily imposed. I my country and try to embrace it when i can and i thought this would be the perfect opportunity. Nigerian (African) textiles is rich, colourful and heavily detailed and correlates very well digital printing.

Having never used photoshop before I was dreading the first encounter. I head that it was very difficult and tricky to use and takes a long time to master. Surprisingly I found the tasks through out the week to be easier than expected and way more enjoyable. I found that I could simulate what I saw on African textiles in my house and what the teacher did to create my own modern take on basic African prints. When creating my repeats at home I was unable to mask the seams if my patterns. This was a problem that shared by my classmates and with more time and practice I will be able to create seamless patterns.

Rendering my patterns onto clothes was also easy for me, the challenge arose when I could see thin white lines around the different cut shapes. They may have been unnoticeable to some people but to me they were ruining the effect. Prime example of where my ability and my exceptions clash. I want to create seamless and professional illustrations but my ability is stunted.

The tutor for the week said that my work was okay and the colour scheme worked well together but to improve I could have varied the scale of the different prints to create more interesting garments. I thought that the outcome was successful as I was able to create three designs and render them onto garments and mount them ready to discuss my thought process.