Part 1:

I think my biggest issue is my slow drawing speed. When I draw, I often focus too much on details and lose track of time. In one class, while other students can complete five drawings, I can only finish two. The quickest way to change this, I believe, is to switch my drawing materials. I habitually use colored pencils and solid watercolors, which slows me down because both mediums have small strokes and less vivid colors, requiring multiple layers to build up intensity. However, if I switch to acrylics, collage, and rubbing techniques, I could work much faster and achieve great results.

In my daily assignments, I have gradually started using new materials to increase my speed. During this process, I’ve discovered that these new materials can also inspire me. For example, I had never tried rubbing before, but after experimenting, I found it excellently captures texture patterns, making them more vivid than my colored pencil drawings.

Regarding collage, I still need more practice. I’ve already ordered some magazines online. I think using images from magazines for re-creation should be very interesting. It’s like deconstructing someone else’s mature work, understanding its meaning, and then recombining it to create something new that belongs to me. I will try this in my upcoming assignments.

Additionally, I feel I often still just draw from photos or objects without incorporating much of my own thinking into the process. I’m not truly acting as a designer, which is something I need to improve in the following courses.

Part 2:

Another thing that impressed me deeply and made me reflect was my first workshop class. The teacher meticulously explained every step of the print process, from introducing each machine and cleaning tools to drying procedures and even the dress code. This was completely new to me before starting university. In high school, I had done some print work, but we lacked professional equipment and simply applied paint to fabric. So, when the teacher detailed these steps, I was shocked by how meticulous and regulated it was. I had never imagined there were so many rules, as high school was more about free doodling and printing. I initially thought university would be similarly relaxed.

However, I realize that as a university student, I should standardize my operations. I want to become a designer in the future, which means I must learn professional knowledge. Otherwise, no one will invest in my designs if my production process seems amateurish. Therefore, I studied each step carefully and will adhere to these rules going forward.

The inspiration for this project came from the cheongsam. During my first week in London, I was sketching the clothing of various people on the subway when I suddenly noticed a woman wearing a red cheongsam in the crowd. She stood out like a rose, and her outfit immediately caught my eye. I sketched her right then.

The next day, I visited vintage stores in London that sell cheongsams, where I observed many different styles and the classic floral patterns found on them, which I also sketched.

I drew what I saw and experienced in the Buddhist temple. My mother follows Buddhism, so since I was little, I often went to the temple with her. To me, everything in the temple felt like a dream. The grand Buddha murals and the plants in the temple seemed to glow.

The last time I visited the temple was before school started. My mother took me there to pray. It was a rainy day. The temple, located in the mountains, looked even more hazy. That’s why I chose solid watercolor — it blends easily. The top part of my work is the original painting. The bottom part shows the fabric texture I wanted. I used overlapping layers to create a dreamy feeling. I plan to print many pieces of organza fabric and layer them together.

My painting follows my line of sight. The second piece shows a scene inside the temple. I want to use stamping to create it.

The third piece shows a ginkgo tree I saw in the temple. That tree is over 100 years old. I didn’t draw the leaves in their real shape. Instead, I used the colors of the ginkgo and mixed them with shapes from my imagination and Buddhist descriptions of plants in the Western Pure Land.

Then I walked into the temple corridor. There were carved Buddha patterns on the walls. The rain had stopped, and the sunset was beautiful. So I decided to paint it. I used a repeating pattern in the print. After arranging them, it looked like many small Buddhas offered by believers.

Next, I entered the main hall. There were Buddha images on the walls.

After that, I saw an old Buddha statue in the backyard of the temple. I was very interested in the worn marks on its body. I think tie-dye can create a similar effect.

At the end, after praying, a monk served lychees to my mother and me.

1.This picture shows a layered version of my favourite yoghurt ice cream, topped with blueberries, mangoes, and other fruits, with popping candy adding playful elements. It aims to explore the richness and variety of ingredients, textures, and colours, presenting them in an engaging visual way.

2.My original inspiration came from my favourite everyday food, like ramen. The long noodles have a nice flowing shape, which makes me think of knitting. In my painting, I tried to show these lines by turning straight or curved noodles into a round shape, creating a flowing rhythm. I filled the round space with colour, just like the bright egg yolk in ramen, making the painting fun and full of life.

3.I noticed the sunlight reflecting on the window and the colours it created. I used soft pastels to lay down several large areas of colour, and I drew the lines on the outside to suggest the look of glass.

4.The wheels and parts of vintage cars on the street were observed, featuring metal-looking components, like silver, giving a metallic feel. Combined with the tire patterns and the purple doors in the background, a repeating pattern was created in the drawing.

5.The door frames and car parts were combined with the light from street lamps in the dim night, creating reflections that highlighted their textures.A new method was explored by applying paint onto paper and then removing it, similar to a collage technique. This allowed the print to have more depth and layers.

6.Observing the black iron fence next to the doors in London’s historic streets, I extracted its shape and repeated it in the painting, scaling it up and down. The composition was combined with the sky during the blue hour, using it as a colourful background.

7.Continuing to observe the iron fences next to the doors in London streets, which are almost all black, I created a new version using vibrant pink. This contrasted with the original black, creating a playful clash between the soft, bright colour and the sharp forms.

8&9.Continuing to observe the doors in London’s streets, I noticed some had small black perforations. I extracted this element and incorporated it into my painting. I also carefully studied the different shapes of the door locks, which inspired further development in my print designs.

10&11.I noticed that even a small leaf or a truck suddenly appearing on the street could inspire ideas. Unique shapes and elements were extracted from these observations and repeated in my drawings.

Reflection

In this project, I learned to paint more boldly and to see mistakes as a natural part of creating. Experimenting with colours became an important part of my work, helping me explore how different shades can show emotions and moods. I also tried a collage-like method, a bit like following adventurous rules, by painting on paper, then cutting and layering it to put the pieces together again. However, one challenge I faced was that I wasn’t always happy with every sketch or design I created. Not every idea turned out the way I wanted, so I had to keep drawing and experimenting to improve and build up my skills. This approach gave my work more depth and made the surface feel richer and more textured.During the creative process, I started paying more attention to everyday details, such as the colours of doors, the patterns on iron fences, and the reflections of streetlights across London at night. These small, ordinary moments often sparked my inspiration and became the basis for my patterns and prints. I realised that, with careful observation and curiosity, inspiration can come from anywhere. This project taught me how to use colour and composition to express emotions and turn everyday experiences into visual stories. I am really looking forward to developing these ideas further and presenting them in a more polished form on printed textiles.

For the theme “Taking Pattern,” I explored how simple shapes and everyday forms can be repeated, transformed, and layered to create new visual rhythms. Instead of focusing on one place or one inspiration source, I allowed myself to experiment freely with colour, texture, and mark-making. Many of my drawings started from very simple motifs such as flowers, leaves, spirals, or organic shapes. By repeating them in different scales, directions, and colour combinations, they gradually developed into patterns.

I also experimented with mixed materials like oil pastels, markers, acrylic paint, tape . Each medium created a different type of texture, which helped me understand how patterns can change depending on the tool or surface. Some pieces focus on soft, blended colours, while others use bold outlines or overlapping layers to create movement. Even when I used the same motif, I tried to push it further by changing the composition, density, or the way shapes interact with each other.

Overall, this project helped me understand that patterns can come from very simple ideas, and the key is how I repeat, distort, and develop the shapes. It also made me more confident in experimenting with colour and playful mark-making, which I hope to continue developing in future textile design work.

These works were inspired by a visit to Brick Lane. With the theme “Taking Color,” Brick Lane felt like the perfect place to explore because of its bold street art and layered graffiti. I played with different colours, quick drawings, and overlapping marks, similar to what you normally see on the walls there. I used materials like chalk, markers, and acrylic paint to capture that messy and energetic atmosphere. I also layering some of my photos that i took in Bricklane.

Through this project, I learned how colours can interact when they clash or overlap, and how layering can create a strong visual impact. Brick Lane encouraged me to be more experimental and less controlled in my process. It helped me understand how a real environment can influence my ideas and how I can turn my observations into creative work.

1. I used acrylic painting to draw my neighbor’s cat. I used different colours to make the picture more three-dimensional and detailed.
2. I used a variety of materials to draw this picture. I used crayons to draw the outline of the woman with different colours to express different positions. Then I used acrylic to draw fruit stitching and draw together, and then applied acrylic on my hand and pressed it on the picture to wrap the woman’s body.
3. I drew vases and flowers with various repeated lines to emphasise the layers of the picture. Different colours better reflect the visual effect.
4. I went to the street to take photos and came back to paint because the light and shadow of the naked eye were particularly good at that time, so I chose to paint with different rich colours to better reflect the three-dimensional effect and realism of the picture.
5. The painting is done with different materials. Try to practice drawing continuously and then fill the picture with watercolor blocks to make it richer.
6. Only acrylic is used to express the picture, but the effect is different. This time, acrylic has been drawing the lines of the whole process, drawing a frightened lady. The red acrylic circled lines express the chaos and complexity of the surrounding environment.
7. I used acrylic markers and crayons to draw salmon meat on a drawing paper, and then cut it out and collage it on the paper with the same line pattern to make the picture more layered.
8. Draw a flower with warm red and cold green to contrast the different details of the flower to make the picture more visual.
9. The cat was painted by the window with acrylic paint and coloured lead, and different colours were used to show different light, shadow and dark sides.
10. Different lines and colours were used to draw the leaves of the leaves I had painted and cut before, and they were collaged together. Let the outer lines have the effect of brightening the lines.

reflection:

In this Pattern project, I mainly try to explore the rhythm and visual tension of the pattern through the superposition of colour and details. In the process of creation, I used a variety of colour combinations and decorative elements, hoping to establish a structure and hierarchy with a sense of rhythm in the picture. However, after the completion of the project, looking back at the whole work, I realised that the expression of the lines was still too rough, lacking in delicacy and control. The rhythm and strength of the lines do not fully support the complex details of the picture, resulting in some parts visually stiff, lacking in coherence and sophistication.

In addition, although the use of colour in the picture is relatively rich, the processing of the detail level is still not deep enough. Some areas are thin and lack a proper sense of space and level changes. The colour matching of individual pictures can also be further strengthened to make the contrast between cold, warm, light and dark more expressive, so as to better guide the visual rhythm and emotional feeling of the viewer.

In the subsequent creation, I plan to pay more attention to the diversified performance of lines and enrich the structural level of the picture by adjusting the changes in line thickness, rhythm and direction. At the same time, I hope to study the subtle relationship between colours more systematically, so that lines and colours can form an organic interaction and balance in the work. Through continuous experimentation and observation, I hope to make the pattern works more formally complete and emotionally more resonant and profound.

‘Intro to’ has been a really fun and interesting project. I found that it really helped me to get back into the cycle of making and being inspired by my surroundings. I enjoyed incorporating the project into my daily life and finding things that I could possibly use for my artwork. At times I found it difficult to get into the rhythm with this project as at one point when we were juggling two different projects it was hard to organise myself to give both my full capability. Although this was the case I still managed to push through and enjoy the project for its simplicity and creative freedom. I learnt a lot about my personal style and what I tend to be more attracted to as a designer, for example I have always been drawn to bright colours which is something that has never really changed. At one point during this project I was given advice to try using more muted colours which I did try but I really did not enjoy this at all. I also learnt that I am very inquisitive of weird and wacky shapes which are often depicted in graffiti. This shows throughout my work as I used a lot of street art/graffiti as inspiration for my drawings. At the start of this project I was extremely excited about how much freedom we had with this project and how we could really make it our own. This soon became quite overwhelming as I often found myself asking the question “how can I make this object my style?”. I had to stop overthinking how my work would reflect me as a person and just allow myself to create without thinking too hard about how it resonated with me. This has made me realise that the less you think about how your work relates back to yourself, the more it will be purely your style which is something I will now try to remember in my future work. Now that all my drawings are finished I am happy with the outcomes. I think that I can definitely produce a higher standard of work but I’m going to try not to be too hard on myself an instead use this as motivation to improve on my work. I will definitely work on my time management for future projects as this will help me to benefit in my creative practice but overall I had a great time doing this project and am very pleased with my outcomes.

This is a simple painting I made using acrylic paints and a roller. I was trying to mimic gritty textures of walls around Hackney Wick and translate this texture into a pattern. I decided to not add any more things into this drawing as sometimes I feel like I can tend to add too much to a drawing.

This pattern is of a crane I saw at Stratford station. Although the crane is suppose to be the highlight of this drawing I really like the technique I used to create the background of this image. I also really like the pop of orange I used as it really stands out with the blue tones.

This repeat pattern is inspired by the bottle cap artwork on the bridge in Hackney Wick, the backdrop is made up of the colours that majority of the bottle caps. I used blue tones to draw the clusters of bottle caps as they stand out from the backdrop. I used a roller for the background.

This is another pattern I made mixing the bottle cap design with the shapes of graffiti overlayed. I like that I used black for the graffiti outline as I can imagine most other colours wouldn’t look as bold. I also liked that I focused primarily on the outline and didn’t fill the shape in as it wouldn’t have given as nice of an effect if the shape was coloured in.

This is a pattern I made from a shape I saw within some street art. I thought it was a cool shape and at first I was going to colour them all in the same way but I actually really enjoy all the rows being different. I like how the backdrop peeps through the first and second row of the shape.

This is a pattern I made which is heavily inspired by my other painting depicting more shapes from graffiti artist. I absolutely love the effect of the repeat and would really like to see how I could create this texture on fabric.

This is a pattern I made depicting some cool green brick work I saw. I decided instead of trying to paint every brick perfectly I would just make a coloured backdrop for the brick and draw the shapes on top. I like to layer fine lines from post pens on top of crazy, liquid backgrounds from pure acrylic paint.

This is a pattern I made inspired by a plant on my windowsill, I decided to deconstruct the plant which actually has pink in its leaves and also the black dots which are similar to the pattern on the leaves. This was a fun task and I really like the outcome of all the individual parts of the plant having their own space to be shown on the page.

This is my favourite pattern that I created. I drew some shapes from graffiti I saw and let the paint drip down. I then went in and outline the shapes in black. The outline really brings the piece together and I love how letting the paint drip down actually connected the top and bottom which created new shapes.

Im not very happy with this pattern. Its inspired by another plant on my windowsill. The colours don’t really stand out to me or look very appealing together and I think I really overcrowded the page which I tend to do. This is good as its something I can learn from and I will definitely keep in mind not to get too obsessed with filling the page and actually leave room for some blank space in my compositions as this can be more effective in most cases.

1.I used printing to press the brush, print the colour, and then draw the details of the stamen brush with coloured powder and crayons, which can draw more details of the petals.
2.I choose to use a brush to click on the picture to better depict the difference between the shadow and the bright side of the flower in the sun and the layer between the layers of leaves under the light and shadow.
3.Now I draw the details of the flowers on the board, and then use the method of overprinting to print on the paper, which is more textured and the picture is more powerful.
4.Choosing paper with different backgrounds can better reflect the beauty of the flower colour encountered in the garden. I paint it with my fingers, and the sticky pigment repeats the thick texture on the drawing paper many times.
5.I first drew a colour block, and then drew a sketch of the details of the place I met. I cut out the gaps of the sketch paper, let the colour block paper be exposed, and then glue them together. I sprinkled acrylic on it to make the texture.
6.Splash all kinds of acrylic on it, and then use the other end of the brush to draw lines along the traces of the paint to make more textures like the veins of leaves and the accumulation of colour leaves.
7.Use crayons, acrylic and coloured lead to draw different details, and then pile up folds on the paper to make the picture more three-dimensional and clearer.
8.Using water powder can better show the shape and texture of jellyfish mixed with different colours of water powder. Then I drew some details of the pattern with acrylic markers.
9.I used gouache and acrylic markers to draw this picture. The plants I photographed use different dots and lines to express the overall shape.
10.Three colours, black, white and gray are used. Black paper can make the picture more three-dimensional. There are not only hand-painted squares but also collage squares to better reflect the chessboard.


Reflection:
When reviewing my “colour” creation project, I realised that there was a significant flaw in my artistic techniques: the separation of colour and details.
Although my colour choices can trigger emotional resonance and convey a sense of atmosphere, they often exist only as basic tones and fail to carry a delicate narrative or inner rhythm. Similarly, my detailed processing technique tends to be single and mechanical, which cannot fully support or enrich the depth performance of colour. This disconnection results in a lack of colour expression within details, and the colour itself loses the intrinsic variations and subtle transformations that should emerge through texture and form.
For example, a certain red is always a flat emotional area, lacking the vitality and breathing quality brought by strokes, texture, and delicate changes in colour temperature. Techniques such as flat coating, washes, or simple gradient transitions restrict the overall visual expression and emotional layering.
My direction, therefore, is clear: we must realise the genuine integration of details and colours. I plan to explore a wider range of techniques — such as dot colour method, colour mask dyeing, and thin wiping method — so that each movement and structure of the strokes can enrich the colour layers simultaneously. The green of a leaf should not be a monotonous patch, but a living tapestry interwoven with warm and cool tones, light and shadow, and subtle contrasts between hues.
In the future, I will observe natural light more closely and experiment with diverse media, allowing each stroke to shape form and deepen colour, creating more resonant and compelling works.