Design techniques and approaches - under the microscope

For the above picture which is called 'plant cell' technique, I added ink to washing up liquid before blowing into it with a straw allowing the mixture to make bubbles. I then placed my postcard on top transferring the ink onto the plain postcard. This resulted in it looking similar to plant cells. I didn't particularly like this technique as the colours turned out very faint and the ink had spread everywhere making it almost like a blob of colour. To try and improve this I have sewn in some simple circle shapes make make much more refined shapes and vibrant colours. I think it has really added to the over all print well.

These two above images are both of a technique called Brusho. This is where you wet your whole postcard so it's completely wet then you sprinkle some of the Brusho powder paint in a selected area and selected colour. I really like this technique as it give a really abstract outcome. The first picture which is with all the green tones is my favourite, the colours work really well together and like each one they are very unique. The second picture reminds me a lot of space, this doesn't come through as well on the image as it does in person but again it is a very unique print. When I come to do this again I could improve by not putting to much water on the postcard as it smudges the paint to much, as you can see in areas of the second image.

This technique is called the marble technique. It is where you get a tray of water and add paints to it, you can use variouse amount and various colours of your own choice. You then just simply lay your postcard on top of the water and the paint transfers onto the postcard almost instantly. This is my favourite technique out of the ones we've experimented from today as I feel that the image you are left with appears a lot more preside and sophisticated as aposed to Brusho. I don't particularly like the coloures that I have chosen above but as you can see from the middle picture that after adding another colour to tone the yellow down it looks so much better. I feel that the middle one really. Looks like something from under a microscope. 

Over the summer I collected a wide range of objects to look at under the microscope.

Bellow is a stale potato

Bellow is a blue bottle fly

Bellow is a butterfly

Bellow is Finger nails

Bellow is dog hair

Bellow is mouldy beans

Bellow is a moth

After experimenting  for the above samples I have then moved onto using the the techniques with inspiration I have found looking at my primary and secondary research.

The above picture is marbeling. I love this outcome the colours work great and it reminds of space and earth, I was reLly pleases with the  marbeling, it is something I will defiantly be using on my final layers.

This is both marbeling and Brusho together which I didn't really like. The Brusho being as vibrant as it was didn't work with the delicate dullness of the marbeling under neath.

Again I love this marbeling technique, this one really worked well, the outcome can just be so different every time no matter what colours you use. There really is endless outcomes.

This is continuos line drawing with marbeling ontop.

The above picture is a Brusho, love the colours on this however it does run quite a lot. 

The same applies for the green Brusho above. The colour looks amazing, it almost reminds me of like an crocodile print or snake skin, the part in the corner anyway.

When I had a wide range of experiment peices I then moved on to opening my pictures onto photoshop and editing them on there to see what different outcomes I could get.

Here are some of my favourites.

This was made by changing the hue and saturation on photoshop.

This blue one above was made by using the invert tool.

The above picture here was created from using the gradient map tool. This tool had a lot of options within it and I found my self using it a lot.

Again the above is from using gradient map tool.

 The three images above where created from using the hue and saturation tool.

And finally the two above are from again using the gratient map tool.

After carrieing out a few more experiments on fabric such as heat transfer paints and heat picture transfer, I went on to creating the layers of my dress. This blue one bellow was my first layer, it was orginally a Brusho, however it didn't turn out how I expected it too. That didn't mean that I didn't like it though. The blue was very royal so I decided to break it up abit by sewing under the microscope like circles into it and burning through them. The outcome was great I loved it. The picture doesn't give it much justice though.

The layer bellow was made from using the heat transfer paints technique. The outcome again was very unexpected, however this time I didn't like it at all. The. Odours where just to bright and it kind of looked like an illuminouse cow. I decided to not use this layer on my dress.

The green layer bellow is my favourite layer. It was done by using marbeling. It worked so well, you carnt see clearly on the picture but the patterns and colours turned out really beautifully.

I also created another marbeling layer which is the middle brown one on the image below, because I decided not to use the blue one in the end, the colour was just too bright compared to my other layers.  So then because I only had two layers and a solid leather back I decided to make. Small lazor cutting layer out of spare leather. It turned out amazing, the final look is really earthy but edge yay the same time with the full leather back. Considering I was looking deeply into the bright colours of alcohol under the microscope didn't expect to end up with such a dull coloured dress but I love it.

My photoshoot took place in a Forrest I wanted to carry on with the earthy theme that my dress conveys. Here are a few of my favourite photoshoot images.

I have also edited a few of my favourite images on photoshop, as seen bellow.