Final piece/Batik

For my final piece I decided to do Batik and a collage of fabrics. I explored different techniques and dresses which led me upto this point. My ideas flowed well together from Mixed media to batik to generating ideas to looking at floral backgrounds and more. I really thought about my idea and what I would want to do but this floral background and a Victorian dress in front stuck to me like glue and I really loved this idea. From the mixed media I knew i wanted to do a collage of a dress and I thought about how James Owen Thomas and Viktor & Rolf used recycled materials and interpreted that into my final piece.

Planning/Sketching

For the sketching of my final piece, I took inspiration from the dress I made in one of my workshops for The Blotted Ink Drawing and used some of my idea from it as my own. I also used ideas from my mixed media piece and my batik piece and even my past postcard. I took ideas from anything that had a floral background to it and a Victorian dress from my workshops I did. I also scrounged around pinterest to find outfit ideas and floral backgrounds.

Here are the images I used:

This was the design I used for the Blotted Ink Drawing. I used the top part of her corset and sleeves to inspire my idea.
These were the hat choices I had. I Decided to combine both of them with a pearl beading around the top of the hat and adding feathers.
These were the other dress inspirations I had. I also used my ideas from my workshops and combined them with these 2 designs.
These were the floral prints I took inspiration from.

I combined my ideas and different images I took reference from and came up with this sketch.

I made sure to take a picture in between my design to see if anything changes or needs to be changed that didn’t fit the dress that well. After combining all the images I took reference from for the dress, this is what I came up with. I quite liked the design and how the Victorian dress came out. I also like how I surrounded the dress with beads and adorments like jewellery and such. If I redid the dress, I would maybe explore more with the different types of ruffles and skirts or change my design up.

After I had sketched the dress out, it was now time to do the background. I took all those images and ideas from previous workshops and came up with 2 ideas.

The reason I came up with 2 ideas depended on how the ink showed through the batik as I didn’t want to make the background over shine the dress. However, in the end I chose the more busy design as it accentuates the dress more and how it really gives a floral print background.

Dress Making

This is where I got the recycled fabrics and used it for my piece.

Here is where I drew my design out on fabric so I can use it to put fabric ontop.
This is where I began drawing out the design on fabric and cutting it to size. For the bottom of the dress I was lucky enough to find fabric with the design of swirls that I have been using all over my workshops. It fit well with what I’m wanting to do and I was glad I had found something like that. I used normal glue to stick it down to the fabric. I also used normal glue to stick down the corset of the dress too. I made sure to use different variety of fabrics to really show how I’m using them and recycling them well. For the gathering of the dress, I used purple velvet. Due to it being gathered and hpw glue wont hold it down and make it 3D, I used the hot glue gun to stick it down. Also for the lacing of the shoulders I used hot glue gun too on the top parts so that the bottom of the laces still flowed nicely.
Here is where I added the pearl beads. They had sticky tabs at the back of it so I used that to stick them down however for the pearls that were going to be placed on the gathering parts (due to it being 3D) I used the hot glue gun to stick it down well. For the little flares at the bottom, I gathered it together to create that bunched up effect and used the got glue gun to stick it down.
I added the final pearls to the dress and added 2 little gems at the ends to really accentuate she’s rich and jewels adorn her.
This is the final part where I used the same swirly fabric for the hat and used the pearls to adorn the hat. I also used the same fabrics for the choker and the little bow. I also added a gem to the choker like in my sketch and have made a pearl necklace to really bring out the fact she’s the centre piece. For the final touch I added 2 feathers to her hat however due to the gems being too big I didn’t add any earrings to her.

If I were to change or think about anything differently, I would change up the frabric and try using different materials or maybe change the placement of the fabric. Also with the gathering of the purple velvet you can see that it blends in well with the ones underneath it. I could have used a different fabric for that and gathered that one instead to really show it’s different.

Batiking

After I had finished doing the design for the dress, I drew out my design for the background onto the fabric.
This is the process of when I applied wax to the fabric around my designs and added ink to it.
This is where I ironed the wax out and how the end result of the batik looked.

In the end what worked was how the ink stuck to the fabric and how it was nice and bright and the wax came off nicely and kept the ink in the design. I also like how the dress came out and the nice different fabrics were well put together. What didn’t work was how the wax left the ink seperated from eachother and how it looks messy and not neat at all. What I could improve on next time is actually do a test for it beforehand on a different fabric or further experiment more with batik. I could also try to use a different tool to make sure the wax doesn’t become thick on the tool and that it lets the ink settle down instead of the wax overpowering it due to the tool holding too much wax. However I also had made the girl herself outlined in pen and no initial detail to her. Next time I could add features to her, paint her or also use fabric to create her skin. I could also try using different materials such as tissue paper or newspaper. Overall I think even though there is alot to improve on and test beforehand before I do my final piece, it came out nicely and still looks good and has a meaning to it in the end.