Claire Coles creates delicate images using vintage wallpapers as well as other surfaces to create new original designs. Her work is very feminine and has an intricacy about it. I have found her work interesting mainly because of her use of stitch in her designs. The quality of the stitched line is shaky and open, and yet structural and tight within the stiiches themselves. The layered papers and surfaces create soft, subtle textures, and the stitch creates a sense of movement. The use of the continuous line and the stitch line quality are both things that have always interested me.

Kevin Laylock

The important elemets within Kevin's work are the stuctural abstraction and use of colour and form. These works provide harmony in their use of a variety of tone, although based on a very limited colour palette, and the structure of line and shape, which creates a very subtle sense of texture.

William Turner

William Turner is a very well known painter from the Impressionism period. During my current project I refered to his paintings as my main source of inspiration for colour. His ability to blend, and merge colour creates a great sense of movement and rythm. Each of his paintings seem to radiate strong emotion. In 'Snowstorm' for example, the intesity and direction of the brush stroke make me feel like I am going to get drawn in to the storm, lost in elements like the subject of the painting.

'The Snowstorm'

Maki Kahori

Maki Kakori is a Japanese artist who creates beautifully intricate illustrations. The designs have a focus on contrast between light and dark and look like they are from another world. The amount of detail within the images is amazing.

Sandra Backlund

Sandra Backlund is an exceptional knitwear designer. Her knitwear is more like a manifestation of fantasy than real life. I love that the knitwear doesn't have to have any sense of functionality or even practicality, it is simply something extravagant, beautiful and incredibly complex. As I am currently specialising in knit she is a great influence in my work. My current project is nowhere near as experimental as Sandra's work, however her use of structure and the contrast of tight, dense and almost heavy knit with the open structures that give it lace like qualities was a strong influence.

I absolutely love the above image. The dress is very sophisticated and almost has the appearance of a ball gown or dress that would be worn down the red carpet. Being a knitted dress, and because of the way that it hugs the body, I feel like the dress would be incredibly cosy and comforting, rather than restricting. The dress has a very organic look and appears as though it could have grown from the ground, shaping itself around the model (Tilda Swinton).

I was in the knit room at uni the other day and, while I worked away like a mad woman on a mission, I found I had created something rather exciting, although really quite mundane. As I kept changing the threads on the machine to create my masterpieces I kept tying off the loose threads to the leg of the machine. I found that the layering and knotting of all the threads created a very textural and intriguing little oddity. I decided to photograph it for my own amusement before I hacked away at it.

The Launch

My first post, how exciting, and scary! I hope that anyone reading my posts and having a nosy at what I include enjoys the ride! Let the blogging begin!