Heritage

Heritage & Culture Project

[hherittage]

I went down to Hereford cathedral and did some sketches. I like alot of the paintings of buildings at the resource museum and I think that Hereford cathedral is a big symbol of English religious heritage and embodies the culture of Hereford. I'm thinking of developing these ideas in stitch by maybe embroidering the cathedral or possible experimenting with screen print.

[hherittage]

Here’s the finished product. I hand sewed the rest of the letters, sewed the back and front together and then stuffed it with wadding. 

Overall im happy with this piece however there are some bits that aren’t great. The lid and back section of the label aren’t the same shade of yellow, and the label bit is made of a furry piece of fabric that malts a lot. The green bit of the label isn’t the right shade of green. Also the proportions of the cushion are wrong, this is something i should have looked at before i made it.

I think i will make another cushion, addressing these issues. 

[hherittage]

Here’s some progress photos of my marmite pillow. I made pattern pieces of all my sections and made sure they where symmetrical. I cut out two body pieces and two lid pieces, for the front and back. I used a sewing machine to sew ridges onto my front lid piece. To do this i used a pin tuck foot. Unfortunately i forgot that the pin tuck technique would make my lid piece significantly shorter. To get around this i gathered the top of my two body pieces to make them fit the lid pieces. 

I then started on the label pieces ( which i’m only putting on the front ). I cut out all my sections and then stuck them all together using bondaweb .I used a zig zag stitch in yellow thread for the background oval label. Then i went around all  inner pieces in a black zig-zag stitch. This was to make them stand out but also to fix them to the pillow with an applique technique. 

I’m planning on hand sewing the rest of the writing. I decided not to do a free motion pattern on the body piece. This is because it would have taken a long time and also would have stiffened the fabric and i wanted this section to me soft. 

[hherittage]

This is the design for my final piece. I’ve decided to do a Marmite jar shaped pillow. I’ve bought my materials which I've tried to get to the right colours and a range of interesting textures. 

I think i’ll change a bit of the writing because i’m worried about copyright issues. Instead of the ‘100% vegetarian’ bit ill put ‘Love it, hate it, just don’t forget it’, which is a line from the marmite adverts. 

[hherittage]

I made this marmite jar using free motion embroidery. I tried to get the colours as accurate as possible but they’re not quite right. I used a zig-zag stitch to get the ridges on the lid like on a real Marmite jar. 

I really like the swirl pattern i used on the body of the jar, i’d like to use this technique again. Overall, i’m pretty pleased with this sample. If i was to do it again i’d try it on a darker fabric as i think the stark white of this sample makes the colours go a bit weird. 

[hherittage]

I tried using dis-solvable fabric to create a resist image of Hereford cathedral in the heat press. 

The free motion image looked great but when i washed away the fabric it was unrecognizable. I went ahead anyway and put it in the heat press but the image wasn’t obvious at all. I’m not sure why this happened but i’ve decided to scrap this process for the time being. 

[hherittage]

I was thinking about what English heritage is, and what kind of things a very British. I find British culture quite funny, things like socks & sandals, heinz beans, fish & chips. And i thought that using an old technique like embroidery, to create an image of something quite modern, like Marmite, would be funny. So this is what i came up with. 

I think it turned out quite well, it’s very obvious what it is and the colours are almost perfect. However, because i did it quite small, it was hard to get in all the details. I did it on one of my lino prints but this didn't work very well because the colours didn't match and the marmite jar wasn’t positioned quite right. If i was to do it again i’d put the jar in the middle of the print and make the jar larger. 

I’d like to try free motion embroidering the jar and having areas of space inside it so you could see a print of the cathedral. Or i could use applique to create the jar and print onto sections of the fabric. 

[hherittage]

I did this drawing of Hereford Cathedral and then made a print from the drawing in lino. I printed it onto calico using red printing ink. I would have preferred to use black ink.

I like the faded lines of the print, it gives an aged look. I’d like to try doing this larger scale or maybe trying a different type of print, like screen print or mono print. 

I was thinking about using the heat press as well. I could create a picture of the cathedral in stitch, on dis solvable fabric so that i’m left with just the lines of the picture. I could then use this as a resist in the heat press. The stitched drawing would act as a window through which i’d see a second print of the cathedral. 

[hherittage]

I went to Hereford cathedral and took photos of patterns and textures that i like. From these i could make my own prints or embroidery designs. 

Hereford cathedral is a symbol of Hereford and really embodies the people of Hereford. For a project on heritage, it’s the perfect symbol. 

[hherittage]

Ideas

I’ve been trying to think where my research could take me. 

I’ve looked at buildings a lot in the paintings i saw at the heritage site, and I've done drawings and taken photos of Hereford cathedral. Maybe i could put my drawings onto fabric using embroidery/ applique/ lino print/ mono print/ collograph/ machine embroidery/ dis-solvable fabric/ screen print etc. 

I’ve also looked at a lot of traditional costumes at the heritage site and in my research. Maybe i could create modern designs from these traditional clothes. Or use traditional methods of pattern construction/ embroidery. Or i could look at traditional symbols (flowers) from old clothing. 

I’ve also looked at a lot of British culture. Through poetry, tapestry and in photography. Maybe i could combine the embroidery techniques i saw on traditional costume and British culture to produce funny pieces of embroidery e.g a can of Heinz beans. 

[hherittage]

I've been struggling to relate to the words heritage and culture because I feel like I don't have any. I have a small family which have lived in the same places their entire lives and therefore don't have many or any traditions. In Caleb's poems he seems to feel a real connection to his town which is something I kind of have. I live in a very rural area with hardly any people but I happen to live really close to my two best friends. Unfortunately they have both left to go to uni so I'm currently feeling like I've lost a part of my 'culture'. Maybe this loss of culture is something I can take into my project? I decided to ask my dad what he felt about culture and heritage. His answers are above. My dad's an engineer so his answers related to industry and how we have lost most of ours in the UK. This is another type of loss of culture I could include.

[hherittage]

Inspiration

I watched ‘Shakespeare in Love’ yesterday and i thought the costumes where amazing. 

The costume designer was Sandy Powell and she won an Oscar for her work.  

These where some of my favorites. I’m thinking about maybe taking inspiration from this period in time (1590s) and creating modern designs from them. Maybe i could even make one of my designs. 

[hherittage]

Opening Times Prices - Easter until late September

Opening Times Prices - We welcome visitors on the following days from Easter until the last Sunday in September

So according to Eastnor castles website, they aren’t open until Easter which means i can’t go and take photos which is annoying. 

I might try finding somewhere else that’s local and feeds into the ‘heritage’ idea. 

[hherittage]

There was a lot of old clothing at the museum and most where decorated with amazing embroidery. These are four of my favorites. The embroidery was on bodices, dresses, coats and waistcoats. 

The second photo shows embroidery on a coat that was been threaded through a metal mesh. I love the range of colours and flowers. 

The third photo shows embroidery on a waistcoat that was made from real gold. The underneath of the pocket shows the original colour of the thread. 

I’d love to use embroidery in this project. I’ve used it before and really enjoyed it. I also like the symbols of the flowers on these garments. I’m interested in what each type of flower would mean for the person wearing it. 

[hherittage]

These are some of the paintings and drawings that i liked from the Hereford Museum Resource and Learning Center. The first one is really interesting because it’s a screen-print onto paper. I love the choice of colours and how effective and bizarre they are. 

I like the second one because of the detail on the log. It’s such a strange perspective for a painting. When you glance at it it looks really dull but the longer you look the more interesting it gets. I like how dark the sky is and how creepy the painting looks. 

The third drawing is in ink and i love that its in black and white because it makes the buildings stand out against the dark trees. There is so much texture created through small brush strokes. 

The last picture is my favorite. I love the amount of light and shadows. The outline of the bricks is really interesting, it kind of looks like a resist. The fact that it’s called the ‘House of Mystery’ makes it even more intriguing.  

[hherittage]

Promotional Material

This is a cushion advertising the two Tate buildings. Its was illustrated by Vic Lee who is a wordsmith, mapmaker and typographer. 

I like the range of different types making words that are districts from around London. This is a very British piece of art. I also like that it’s all in black & white, i think this makes it more effective. 

I think it’d be fun to produce cushions, they’re fun because they’re textiles and 3D and also very practical and functional. 

[hherittage]

Promotional Material

This is a print of a balenciaga dress that has been x-rayed. Its being sold in the V&A. I think this is such a cool way of producing what looks like a fashion illustration. The x-raying makes all the outlines appear, in and out of the dress. 

This is a really creative way of advertising an exhibition (this is an exhibition dress) but still managing to make the piece of advertising it’s own piece of art. 

Obviously, i would have trouble x-raying something but maybe i could get the same effect in Photoshop by inverting the colours?