Project 4

DEVELOPING DESIGN IDEAS

STAGE 1 - INTRODUCTION AND DEVELOPMENT
The first exercise was to divide the space in the square with lines, to create tension and energy and in the other to create something peaceful.

I then had to create four squares using interesting arrangements of little black squares.

STAGE 2 - LOOKING FOR SHAPES AND DRAWING
I used an image of a series of stained glass windows that I had photographed - I looked at the shapes and used them in the hexagon shape I had used in my colour bag/mood boards.  I also like the shapes created by the stack of bangles.

Exercise 1
I chose one section of the stained glass photographs to use for exercise 1.  I first looked at the textured in the glass.  Then tried to recreate the colours and finally I looked at the shapes and colours and recreated the image using a collage of coloured paper.

Exercise 2
I used oil pastels to recreate the marked off area I had chosen.  I rubbed into the surface of the pastels to merge the colours.

Exercise 3
I created three more drawings by marking off different areas of my drawing in exercise 2.  I used three different media - pointillism, inktense watercolour pencils and ordinary coloured pencils, which gave very different results and feelings.

Exercise 4
For this exercise I chose to use some fragments of blue and white pottery that I find in the garden.  The little shards remind me of patchwork and as I have been using the hexagon shape a lot I decided to use a little hexagon cut out to isolate certain pieces of pattern.  I used a water based felt pen for my first drawing,  brushing over it with a wet brush.  I then tried a white gel pen on blue sugar paper and just picked out different patterns and then tried bleach on tissue paper.  I think the felt pen was the most successful.

STAGE 3 - SELECTING FROM DRAWINGS
Having looked back over my work I didn't think I had done anything that was right for this exercise.  But I liked the mosaic image from my colour page in my sketchbook.  I liked the watercolour sketch based on my paper sculpture work and I chose a small piece from a drawing of honesty seeds.  The other piece I liked was the small calm sample from Project 3 - Stage 4: Exercise 1 and a seed head sketch from my sketchbook.

I didn't think that any of my drawings would really work for this exercise but I was surprised that when I started flipping and repeating the small sections they all worked really well and produced some very interesting patterns.

STAGE 4 - DEVELOPING DESIGN IDEAS
Working from the mosaic image I tried watercolour painting of the bricks and circle centre.  I then made hexagon shapes and filled them with different isolated patterns from the image.  I tried dry brushing the brick shapes, and also repeating a swirl pattern in the hexagon shape.

SKETCHBOOK

REVIEW OF PROJECT 4
Did you manage to make space move?
I don't understand the question really, but looking at the image above of the repeat pattern in the bottom right I think this does "make space move".
What are your thoughts about the drawings you did in Stage 3?
What really surprised me about this exercise was that whatever piece of the original image I used, it was possible to flip/rotate/repeat the image into endless patterns - all of which produced really good ideas.  These could then be worked on in different colourways to produce even more possibilities.
Were you able to use your drawings successfully as a basis for further work?  Are there any other things you would like to try?
I found it quite hard to use my drawings for anything I had to do by hand.  The manipulation of images on the computer was relatively easy to repeat/flip/rotate/re-colour etc.  But to recreate my drawings into stencils/repeats/flips etc was quite difficult.
Now that you have a good working method, do you feel confident that you can carry on working in this way independently?
I have found this way of working quite stifling, and I don't know why.  I don't usually have any problem in developing things and the ideas usually flow and I can't wait to get on with my next ideas/experiments/trials etc., but I have found it hard to take each exercise onto the next stage and have really struggled with this assignment.