Budding designers learn the art of fabric designing, clay moulding 

Apeejay Institute of Design (AID), one of the pioneer institutes of Design Education, focuses on imparting quality education across all design domains which is backed by a well planned curriculum. The leading design institute in India believes in producing professional designers who are capable of setting new trends, dedicated to raising standards of living and concern to make the world a better place to live in.

Aligned with this thought, AID recently organised a fabric workshop for students of GDP I Sem, Foundation. The workshop focused on fabric composition by upcycling the waste fabric swatches into utility articles and artworks.

Students sourced waste fabric swatches and procured various tools required such as needles and threads. The process started by stretching the cloth on the frame as a base. Swatches of fabric were arranged to form the composition by exploring the juxtaposition of colors, tones and pattern. 

Using different threads to create the flow and embellish the surface, students performed hand stitching. The techniques used on the fabric along with the manipulation of materials, provided another dimension to the surface. Various creative abstracts and utility articles were created by students of Foundation as the outcome of this intriguing workshop.

Sharing his experience Harshit Ahuja, GDP – 1st  Semester Foundation said, “Fabric workshop was such a new and unique experience for all of us. This workshop taught us about place management, negative space, positive space, etc. I’ve never even touched thread work before but I learned some basic stitching techniques as we used threads to fixate clothes in desired places. Personally, this workshop was the most challenging one yet, but at last I was able to create a great abstract with rag and threads and it was an amazing experience overall.”

Another student of GDP- 1st Semester Foundation Pranav Singhal highlighted, “The fabric workshop was a great display of our creative thinking and exploration. It was very productive. We experienced the way to use threads and needles. We creatively used different pieces of waste swatches and rags. After the completion of our compositions, it came out to be more beautiful, which was a more expressive and colourful display of art on a canvas cloth.”

Similarly, the Institute promotes material exploration by students. In this pursuit, GDP I Sem, Foundation also attended a clay workshop based on the relief process. Students got to know the characteristics of clay, its usage to build a structure and techniques used on clay namely coiling, pinch pot, scoring, scratching and slab. The process started with laying out of composition, followed by execution of the same by giving a three dimensional structure. Many interesting pieces were created by all the students.

Mentioning how this workshop was very intriguing and a new experience, Avni Ramiya, GDP – 1st Semester Foundation  expressed, “It was different to handle the clay which was very flexible and can also be moulded diversely. First, I started with carving out the clay from the tile and places, and then added some of it to give dimensions. While experiencing the new medium we even got introduced to the sculpting tools that helped us in carving out and sharpening the clay tile. Some of them were sharp and pointed and others were slanted and blunt, through which we created our final tile.”

“During our clay workshop, we moulded clay to create animals, inanimate objects, etc. This workshop encouraged students to come out of their comfort zone and experience a new medium, especially me who had never worked with clay before. Personally, I learned some ways to knead clay into a desirable shape or form through pinching and folding to create a creative tile,” said Lakshay Raj, GDP-1st Semester Foundation.