I went to the International Intangible Cultural Heritage Expo Park in Chengdu. Young people nowadays are rarely willing to learn about real traditional culture. After the visit, I discovered the difference between traditional skills and material cultural heritage. Visually, you can see the production of traditional ethnic costume. Audibly, you can hear folk songs from all parts of China. In the sense of smell, you can smell the food while the cook cooked the traditional food. After the visit, I was going to develop this project with some traditional techniques, and I corrected the error information I had been searching for.

After watching the Shu embroidery Museum, I got a lot of inspiration about colors and patterns. The embroidery method of Shu embroidery is very delicate and pays great attention to detail. There are many types of patterns. The main categories are natural weather and plants, immortals, ancient beasts and animals, and a few religious and human.  Synthesizing the previous research, I used some Chinese character that related to colour, as well as some Chinese ancient embroidery patterns to do some print. I also made some fabrics to emphasize the connection between color and some Chinese characters. I also tried to use some millet as a composite material. In fact, this is not a particularly successful idea, I did not use a particularly good way to deal with these millet, maybe I should add some hard materials, and these millet in contrast

We made the group critique, and all of us were very objective. Everybody gave me some very constructive and helpful suggestions. After critique, I summarized myself with the following questions: Maybe I've made too many prints in this project, so I should develop a little more stereoscopic samples. Secondly, I should collect more colors of the ginkgo leaf and chose a key point to development. Sometimes I think it's time to focus on some key points and develop and make them in the same direction.Because the last thing I've done on this project is that my focus is too divergent.

This project looks simple, but it's actually very interesting. The simpler the starting point, the more imaginative and creative it is.We gathered a lot of diverse information through the panel discussions. We collected the different languages of corduroy. We also think of corduroy's history. And the shape of corduroy reminds us that there is never an end. After that, we made some small samples in a very clear and concise way. Materials are limited, but we are made in different ways. I used stitches mainly to mimic corduroy's patterns on pure white cloth. Because I think this will highlight the texture.

When I looked at the text of corduroy, it suddenly occurred to me that there was a Chinese medicine whose name was very similar to that of corduroy in Chinese. So I drew the shape of the traditional Chinese medicine and looked for its properties and effects. And then I searched for more Chinese herbs, and these are very similar to corduroy. I used a lot of contrasting color in previous project，so I decided based this project on a natural color palette. In order to follow this color arrangement, I chose clay and real Chinese medicine as materials. But I also found the problem, besides doing print- it's hard to change the shape of some special Chinese medicine. Collage workshop and knitting workshop make me feel completely different. At collage shop, I learned to use my imagination in logic, to constantly change between logic and imagination.But in my knitting study, I expanded my ideas and learned to incorporate this new technology into my work, and I wanted to combine knitting with multivariate materials.

 In the process of learning lino print, I failed twice, once because of material selection is wrong, I chose a more fluffy cloth to print, finally find it difficult to paint adhesion on the above, then at the time of carving, my strength is too small, the trace of carving is very shallow, cause pigment filled sag, print failed again.Then we displayed our own collection of color items，We found the lines on the ground and put them together to form the shape of the stripes.We did a quick painting with a strong shock of death, and we recorded their shapes from different angles, and I believe we can find very good prints from them.

The teacher gave us a professional tutorial.I also got valuable advice, although I had a good combination of traditional Chinese medicine and PVC, but I did not display them well. Maybe I should put it in a more three-dimensional and expressive way. And I should be thinking about some special ways of making things, rather than just imitating simple shapes. And then I thought of using candles to make some more spatial shapes. The candles are melted and dripped together, not only in natural shape, but also in texture. Then why should I use candles? Back to the beginning, the Chinese word for corduroyis comes from the candlestick of the candle, because in the eyes of the Chinese people, the stripes of the cloth are very much like the candlestick, so its name was created, so I think of candles. And used candles as one of the main materials.

In the end, I chose three kinds of Chinese medicine as the main materials of final sample for my project---“Amomum tsao-ko”，“Flammulina velutiper (Fr.) Sing”，and “Codonopsis pilosula”. I would like to make the husk and seed of the Amomum  tsao-ko separately. So I cut them open, and for the sake of good vision, I did a stich on the shell. I think the combination of these Chinese medicines is very meaningful, For the Chinese, the smell of mixed boiled herbs is very bad. But putting them together in a very interesting way, in the form of textiles, not only creates a pleasing texture, but it also makes people smell the real flavor that these herbs haven't boiled.  These smells are very special and good to smell. 

For the second research,  I went to british museum. I saw Susie Freeman's collection and manufacture of Western medicine. Her work was very impressive and had a very big impact on me. I began to pay more attention to the efficacy of traditional Chinese medicine in my work this time.And added some traditional Chinese medicine‘s packaging into the sample. The most common technique I used for this project was weaving and knitting，It is very beautiful to combine hard special materials with soft yarn. Speaking of which, I don't think I have a very effective schedule for this project. Because I had to deal with those herbs, I wasted some creative production time. But it also gave me more experience in production and time planning. This project has inspired my enthusiasm for comprehensive materials, and I am confident that I will better work with variety materials in the future

This is the first time I've tried to join folding in this way to interpret textiles. Although this approach is difficult, I will try more origami in the future and combine other synthetic materials to create textiles. A simple piece of paper can change a lot, which makes my thought more broadly. When I was sharpening my pencil, I also found a nice shape, so I cut some colored pencils into a fish scale. Although they have great visual effects, I thought later that it would be better to unify them because it would highlight its texture and draw attention to its surface.

Then in this project, I did some testing on color, and I saw Bruce Nauman's art exhibition on neon at TATE MODERN. Neon lights give me a kind of psychedelic feeling. These lights are beautiful and childlike. I used the main colors of his work: green, pink, orange and blue. Coupled with the corduroy element, I did some knitting samples to create a feeling of youth. I also added Chinese characters to the middle of these samples, and I chose transparent PVC to make them, because I wanted to highlight the colors and make the characters partly hidden and partly visible. 

We had a tutoring about portfolio , With tutor's advice, I know better how to choose and present my work. A series is a very important thing.We need to clearly show the development of our own work and our own thinking process. There must be some relevance to the work in each project, It is not enough for works and samples to do well. We need to know how to make them look more beautiful and harmonious. I also added a few series of samples in the appropriate part. It is also very important to continue to improve the sketchbook in a printed way. I think that sketchbook is a symbol of our thinking mode and our creativity and technical capabilities.