To start off with, I brainstormed  few ideas relating to my chosen word and the direction and style I wanted my project to go in. Gothic Victorian elements along with whimsical imagery was what I decided upon. From this, I took some pictures of things that I had made during lockdown which kind of tie into this whole idea and aesthetic that I was chasing after.

I decided to make two teddy bears using an old jumper and dressing gown. I wanted to create something straight from my imagination and make it as interesting as possible. While sewing is certainly not my forte I feel I give it a good go and I’m happy with how the two work. Before university and at the start of lockdown I made these and it was my first time ever doing anything related to textiles. It’s strange to think that first teddy bear, the one with two heads, was what got me interested in fashion and textiles and how fun and useful it is. The third picture you can see is a clay rabbit head I made. The reason I’ve shown these three things is because I think all three look so so interesting and I’m really proud of them. They have elements in them which I showed in my mood board and brainstorm, there’s no clear gender for one, none seem particularly girly or boyish, they are what they are and they were made just to look nice and let me have fun. Secondly, you can see a similar colour scheme as my mood board in all three as well as matching articles of clothing, for example the neck ruffle worn by the rabbit. It was from these three that I based my first hand drawings for this project on.

As you can see, the two teddy bears feature in this A3 drawing where I used pen, charcoal and acrylics. I thought I would make a sort of print from the teddy bears and add little stitched hearts and pieces of a clock. I thought this might look quite interesting but I had no idea until I tried it.

Sticking with my colour scheme still, I decided to tear out some text from a ruined book I have and stick it on top, from there I used a brown chalk pastille to draw circles, lines, eyes, mouths, clicks and a waistcoat as well as a few teeth. I did the brown lines because it looked ver Victorian to me against the black, like a pinstripe jacket. I have an obsession with pocket watches and waistcoats so they simply had to be added. As well as that, I believe that again, this goes well with my chosen word. It’s not boyish or girly but quite gothic and ambiguous in meaning. The eyes mouths and clocks while seemingly meaningless at the time of drawing them suddenly start to form a message or story in our heads though vague. I think that’s really cool and interesting! I like how this goes beyond aesthetics and looks which is what I see as non binary as as well.

I like to dry flowers and my room is covered with dry and withered roses, baby’s breath and more. Before I drew this picture of a dead rose I was at a loss for what to put on this page so I started to lay things on top to see if inspiration would strike. Below you will see the photograph and that’s how I got to this final piece.

My final idea is by far my favourite!! It took hours but I really think it was worth it! I was getting a little bored of drawing on paper so I decided to draw on a blank book cover! Unbelievably the one I selected had a plain blue hardback cover which is perfectly because that is exactly my colour scheme! I got a hard scratchy pen and got to work. The book I drew on was called Celtic fairy tales which really adds to the whimsical nature of this drawing. My idea was to draw a fashion show but instead of drawing the clothes on people I’d do animals waiting in line to get into a forest play or something! I tried to make the lines scratchy and gothic looking, reminiscent of old children’s book illustrations.

Those are all my first hand drawings and photographs that I created for this project in response to the word non binary, hopefully you can see what I’m aiming for in my project; a gothic, whimsical, Victorian but also non binary mess!