Fakeha Naeem Textile Designer

Although, Silk Painting, an ancient technique used by many artists of the past from various cultures, retelling stories or showing off their skills on silk fabric, creating either miniatures on them, patterns, motifs or designs or simply just plain strokes of colors for decoration or apparel purposes. Silk Painting to this day remains revered and loved by many. Customers and artists both. Silk Painting requires great skills, control on brush strokes and material knowledge,patience. Once one gets the hang of the basics silk painting is one of the relaxing form of painting with quick end results, satisfying and surprising the artist with the unexpected spectrum of colors which emerge when combining one color in to another. Here are examples of some of my work.

Going through projects from the past has always been a surprise element for me. Mainly because it brings back memories off how one created a certain piece , what led to the inspiration of the final design, painting etc and how many ideas were rejected before a final conclusion. These explosions of memories and the realization of what we used to do and how we have left those techniques of way of thinking behind and become more commercial now then back in the university. These are some of my paintings using various techniques and mediums while creating paintings which were our inspiration of shopping malls within the vicinity of the city.

I was going through my work this one fine day, just rummaging through the past and I came across my black and white works that has ot htis inspired me in to looking capturing the world and its color in black and white. Some how the simplicity and the message in black and white is more deep then random colors on the canvas.

My recent ventures have been completely different from my prior interests which I have been putting up in the form of my work via weaving and print. decided to take a dive in to metal work and work my way in to creating jewelry that interests me and allows me to continue further in to self exploration. I kept myself limited to bracelet pieces with silver wire and sterling silver silver wherever necessary. What caught me by surprise was my intense love for a semi precious stone and that too Jades! I created plain Jade bracelets to Jades in combination with two toned stones, single rowed elegant pieces to two rowed double heavy beads to cater to nay customers desire. Above are the pictures of the bracelets that I came up with. They are up for sale. Check out my face book page "The Green Parrot" for more information and design details and orders.

Weaving is like second nature for those of us who are not only fascinated with textiles but it's history. How cloth was created and the possibilities one can weave on a basic floor loom with not more than four heddles and frames. For an observers from far it may seem that the possibilities of weave is very limited but for us textile designers there is always a concept of texture and weave mixtures using various thickness of warps and wefts or keeping both thickness constant and yet create textures within. I wove some small pieces inserting twill and plain weave to create an interesting wave alleviated textured forms by just using one weft material and creating effects by changing treadling on the loom.

Just like Paisleys are a constant favorite for the people of Asia likewise Hound's Tooth seems to be a predominant motif and design which seems to pop out every season varying in colors ,sizes ,prints and weave. At least that was my observation during my time here in States. I have seen this motif in apparel, on luggages, bags accessories you name it and it's there. To my understanding it is very popular in the South of America I do not know the history behind this particular motif but it seems to be very fascinating for me and hence I compare it to the Paisleys. I created my own version of Hound's Tooth with respect to colors, repeat patterns and size. Enjoy!

Plain Weaving with imbedded pattern in it's weave is not only restrictive to just one pattern or method to go about giving a creative tapestry or wall hanging look. Nor should it be restrictive with respect to woven on loom or woven on a single tapestry frame. What makes things stir and interesting to see in a fabric woven is the wonder the observer gets while looking at your work and wondering how you could have achieved it. When questions such as how did she do that? what material did she insert in that weave? or can you do that? isn't it merging two various techniques together in to one? This wall hanging that I actually woven on a four frame loom in a plain weave with metal insertion has a tapestry wrapping technique introduced in it done by hand . The entire piece is all woolen and has some jewel metal work done on the surface of the woven fabric. I hope you enjoy my art work as much as I enjoyed weaving it.

Of the geometric shapes which are known and available to us we see circles as a top favorite and the most recurrent one used widely by print, logo , card, wallpaper, fabric and many more mediums to create something or the other. I have no idea why circles or polka dots seemed to be so regular and never replaces irrespective of trends changes. There is always one or the other form available. If small circles are out big ones come in. Hence a never ending cycle. Here are some of the simple circle designs that I created via Photoshop.

Between warping and figuring out how many threads to warp on to the warp bed my thoughts lingered on to changing my product to something experimental rather create a yardage to be finished on later when stitching. So i decided to weave BRACELETS!!! and metal inserted woven belt.I used small crystal beads with soft metal memory wire to twist and turn to my liking. It took ages but I was able ot create various surfaces with and without the use of metal wire and manage to create a textured small collection for those people who like to wear something a little different then the norm.

I was sitting this one day at my husband's uncle place with a pen and paper in my hand, and while I was busy conversing over random issues my hands were engrossed scribbling away joining one line to another as if it was their second nature! It was one of the most peaceful moment when your mind takes it's own lead. I ended up creating a few small sized sketches on paper. Once they were done I was stuck between whether I should throw them or let them be. I decided to leave the papers on the table for a while till I decide to throw them when the next garbage van comes. Several days passed and due to sheer boredom I looked over the table and got hold of the forgotten scribbled lines and decided to take pictures of the random sketches and try creating some sense in to them on Photoshop. Having the desire to create some funky prints I decided to play around with the lines. Here is what I came up with. My original hand sketches to the final prints.

Woven Yardage My weaving temptation got me to weave a larger width and length this time. I decided to weave yardages utilizing the basic weave design patterns (nothing fancy just weave a fabric to enjoy the true beautiful pattern design of the fabric and the potential a fabric holds). I decided to work with a basic weave design called the Rose Pattern Weave and a Reverse Rose Pattern Weave, using only white cotton yarn as the warps and one single cotton colored yarn Pink for the Rose Pattern Weave design and Blue cotton colored yarn for the Reverse Rose Pattern weave design as wefts. I woven about 3 yards in length and 45 inches width for the Rose Pattern Weave design pattern and 4 yards with the same width using the Reverse Rose pattern weave. I thoroughly enjoyed weaving my own personal yardages of fabrics to be used to create almost any kind of product out of it. There is no comparision to a handwoven fabric its simply just beautiful.