Textile -2

This week I've been experimenting with different prototypes and trials to test the feasibility of my design plans. Before doing this I did some drawing on the computer and made two design schematics.

This one was inspired by the poem ' The Butterfly Hiding from the Rain ' by Lin Ping. The poem describes a butterfly that gets lost and enters the poet's window when a rainstorm is coming. I combined the butterfly with traditional Chinese costume patterns to create my first design, 'Butterfly Labyrinth', and put Lin Ping's poetry on the back of the bag.

For the materials test I made a specimen of the butterfly 

and after the specimen had dried 

I found that the butterfly's wings were too fragile 

to be used as a material for my work.

The inspiration for this image came from the food I buy every day

 and I used a combination of fish scales

 and kale to make this design.

I collected fish scales from the market and preserved them by deep-frying 

and baking them in the oven, both of which were very unsatisfactory 

and resulted in fragile and perishable fish scales.

I also used the same process for kale and the results were very unsatisfactory.

Conclusion of the week : 

After many failed experiments, I think I need to think about

how to replace these traditional ingredients with other ingredients.