Miao: Evaluation

On reflection of the Miao Unit X option, I feel that I have gained an exciting new wealth of technical skill to which I am extremely enthusiastic to bring to my future third year practice. I have felt this particular module very challenging, but feel I have definitely pushed myself completely out of my comfort zone in order to work efficiently within a group of opinionated individuals. I began by responding to traditional Miao culture by collaging traditional embroidery and understanding the motifs that frequently reoccur. I used abstract drawing techniques to then contrast this with contemporary architecture, and developed this further with the use of Photoshop to manipulate compositions, and then continued to add texture with the use of embroidery and the layering of fabrics.

 

Looking back, I believe I did thoroughly experiment during my sample development, and can confidently reflect this within garment designs. By considering the context and concept of where my prints and textural examples will end up, this allows me to have a broader understanding of the materials I use, and consider further into why I should select certain fabrics or weights due to how they might hang or be positioned on the body.

 

 I feel that my initial research was thorough,  therefore it built strong foundations for my determined concept and allowed my work to fit in with the group's over-arching values. I believe also that due to my mostly contemporary contribution to the brief, I bought something interesting to the group, which contrasted with their slightly more traditional-style and kept it relevant.

 

I also believe that we kept a consistent level of communication throughout the project, even when we didn't see eye-to-eye which made sure we were all mostly on the same page, and continued working at a fast pace.

 

Critically speaking, when looking back on my body of work, I don’t believe that the colour scheme is as coherent as I had planned. I found it increasingly difficult to maintain exact tonal qualities when interchanging between sublimation, digital printing and printing off images using the paper printers. This was even the case when the image file was exactly the same. Frustrating as this became, I continued to work back into them on occasion, using threads and embellishment that were closer to my colour palette, disguising the unexpected shades within the prints as well as I could.

 

I also don't feel overly content with the overall quality of my work due to the fact that I felt the development process was extremely fast paced, therefore I didn't spend enough time on working back into  my digital prints to make them look more polished and texturally interesting. Usually, in textiles we have a lot more time to develop and refine ideas and developments, therefore I generally feel happier with the finished product. This outcome has felt more like a work in progress to which I feel frustrated to end so soon.

 

When considering aspects of group work that didn't go as planned, the lack of contribution of some group members was particularly hard. One member wasn't able to contribute many samples at all, which meant that finalizing fabric compositions for the final line up became difficult due to the limited amount we had. I also felt that I struggled to get my point across in a variety of situations due to some members being particularly outspoken, therefore this was quite disheartening. This also was highlighted when a group member took credit for illustrations that had taken me four days to painstakingly paint during a crit involving both Rebel Tartan and Miao.

 

If I were to have more time during this project, I would take more time in the initial planning and drawing. I feel that if I had taken time to develop this further, my prints and the composition of my designs would have been much stronger. I believe I ended up concentrating too much on the end results rather than the initial steps that build the concept.

 

To conclude, I did enjoy the fast pace of this module, but can safely say I have learnt a great deal about how important it is to manage my time as soon as the brief is set. By doing so, I believe I have been able to consider a wider range of technique exploration that I would usually have to rush in a smaller amount of time.