Princes Hill Primary School Specialists Blog: The Art of Conversation Artist in Residence Term 3 2014

The Art of Conversation -Entering a textile designers world

Imagine a world without textiles. It would be a world without warmth and comfort and colour and pattern. Textiles provide us with a sense of well-being and comfort in our everyday lives.

This term we will explore the world of the textile artist and textile designer in our Artist in Residence program.

Sarah Rowe is a textile designer who has worked in the world of industry as well as an individual artist on her own textile works. She will be working with the grade 5/6 students over the course of the next five weeks.

Firstly she introduced the students to the world of the ‘conversational print’ and to the process of designing a repeating textile design.

Conversational prints are repeat patterns from the 1940’s or 50’s. They were aptly named because they provoked conversation. They are fun and attention grabbing and were meant to be light -hearted and represent areas of interest.

Sara explained that in the design process there are many technical aspects and decisions to consider when designing a textile printing block. We considered directional and multi-directional printing and repeating tile and brick patterns.

We began designing our block and focused on transferring our design onto the lino tile.

Some students began to cut out their design.

Students considered the technical aspects of cutting out the design. They reflected on their final print and had to work out which lines and shapes were to remain raised and which were to be cut into.

In some artistic mediums the process and preparation are lenghy.

We have now realised that the process that we are about to embark on requires us to make a commitment to our design as we will be spending the next few weeks working on preparing the block and printing the fabric.