Monday, November 19, 2007

The Intuition of Making

This red and black duo, dressed in red and blue, practically, makes these billowing garments:

and they give the way of thinking that produces such frivolous unsculptured garments at
Julien and Sophie's School of pattern cutting, password, Bananamilkshake. Fashion Incubator gives a place to start to investigate this diaphanous way of making clothing.

what I love most about this way of making clothing is that it isn't a pattern, it isn't a set of rules that you must follow one two three like a paint-by-number, in order to have excellent results.

I feel that art should be a series of questions asked about the creation process, not a series of steps. While following step by step instructions to sew, or to paint, can be instrumental in the learning process, the true joy can be found in this more intuitive method. You know how and why it works, which you can then apply to your practice without consulting some third party.

Questions I ask myself when drawing or painting:
Is the composition balanced?
Is it visually interesting, making my eye travel throughout the whole work?
Is there a whitest white and a blackest black- a complete range of values, tones, and shades?
Am I telling a story? What's happening.
How does this feel to me?
Am I using variety?
How do the colours interact with each other?

Questions that Julien and Sophie might be asking:
Do you have enough fabric to fit around the model?
Is the fabric interesting?
Should there be a skirt waistband or a top piece included?
How are we going to twist and fold the fabric?
Do you have some visually interesting draping happening?
What side would look best as the front? the back?

What questions do you ask yourself, say, about writing? about making a business plan? about calling in sick to work:

Does this excuse sound plausible?
Will they believe I'm sick?
Will the sound of the sewing machine make my headache worse?
Can I afford to miss a day?
Can I still paint or sew while I'm hacking up phlegm?