Cultural Fusion: Henna

Finally I have decided what culture to fuse my Incan/Peruvian patterns with! I have decided to go for India, purely for their beautiful bridal dresses. I love the Henna patterns and the heavy embellishment (definitely an embellishment lover if you hadn't guessed...) I'd like to embellish the collar/around the neckline of the cape with a variety of Henna patterns. 

Neckline Design

Cultural Fusion

Fashion Illustration of a cape design

After doing a bit of experimenting on my original design, I think the top one is better!

Portfolio Building

After a day of trying to produce more portfolio boards I can safely say I have never been so stressed in my entire life. I'd also like to add, spray mount is HORRIBLE stuff, i'm still trying to scrub it off my hands, and the furniture...

I can't decide to whether or not to stick this board down, I'm not sure if there is too much going on!?

Cultural Fusion: Embellishment

Stencil experiments + Embellishment experiments 

 

Cultural Fusion: Fashion Illustration & Cape Cut Out

Some people may think, a capes a cape, but when I got drawing, there is actually so many ways you can have/wear one, so I drew a few illustrations to see how they would fall on the body. I've gone for a dip hem as this sort of trend was rather fashionable in the summer, and I like the waterfall sort of look.

Now to decorate!

Cultural Fusion: Block Printing

Most Peruvian patterns are geometric, which makes them take hours to produce as everything is symmetrical. I however have overcome this problem with simple block prints! A very messy few hours, and I definitely feel like a child, but personally I think it's paid off...

Cultural Fusion: Peruvian Patterns

For this project I am fusing two cultures together to create one garment, hence the project title 'Cultural Fusion.' I have so far been looking at the Incan empire. The Incan empire was the largest in pre-Columbian America. The base of the empire was situated in Cusco, now Peru. I found a beautiful pattern in a travel brochure a few weeks ago, that I copied and have then branched off with my own ideas.

Peruvian Pattern From Travel Magazine

My own painting of the pattern

Inspiration

This weird little creature is by far my favourite part of the piece. It does look rather creepy, and dragon like, however he has certainly drawn my eye. I have proceeded to make a stencil of the design, a rather simple one, and have experimented with paints on paper and fabric.

I made this stencil by cutting the shape out of foam, and then gluing it to a cotton bud box lid! Very make shift, I should definitely have my own section on SMART or Art Attack. Simple as it may be it has proven to be relatively effective and I am rather pleased with my prints.

 As you can see above, the red and brown didn't really stand out well on the red fabric, so I think I will be giving them a miss next time. After the Paint experiments, I then decided to move on to bleach (the last picture) however as you can see, The red fabric doesn't seem to respond to the bleach as well as I had initially hoped. (Don't use best paintbrushes when using bleach, you won't have bristles left)