Week 7 Work & Critique

This week I started a couple of larger character panels on different sized stretch canvases.  I knew I wanted stretched canvas because the intent is to sew into them after they have been painted.  So far one is just sketched out, ready to be painted, and the other one I have just finished painting.  I took into consideration the feedback directed toward the scrapbook panels last week and implied a background in this painting.  I would have liked to start sewing into it, but as I'm using oil paint, it takes a while to dry.  The first character is much more ficitionalised than the plausible characters I've been painting on the scrapbook panels.  One of the fabrics I found reminded me vaguely of space, so I drew and painted a space princess.  The other character is still fairly fictionalised because I don't mean for her to represent a specific culture or era, but she resembles the other panels more in that she is more plausible; i.e. not in space.

I would still like to finish these, but during the guest critique today there was overall less of a response to the character panels and more of a response to the original textiles and the larger painting.  Some people said they seemed more resolved because they're not set in scenes, or because less time appears to have gone into them, or maybe because they're obviously drawn.  Some suggestions I got from guests were to design more original textiles and to dry different methods of rendering them, like block printing, or painting on fabric, or having more of them manufactured (which is something I finally did with the tartan, but it didn't arrive in time for the critique); to attempt to do textile character design/wardrobe design for some male characters in order to show diversity in a portfolio with the goal of pursuing textile design for the movie and tv industry in mind; to attempt to use fabrics in different ways (which is something I will do when the work from this week dries); and to attempt another large painting like the one I've been working on (which I would like to do and have a canvas for already, but don't know what the scene or subject would be).  Suggestions from the curatorial class were to focus on some things that were more personal to me, like heritage and family, because the tartan and the painting were perceived as rather strong.  Another suggestion was to design more plaid, although now that I've finished the one for my family I don't know what else I would design for.