Some initial ideas:
Monday’s child is fair of
face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace,
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go,
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
So far illustrating for
children and characterisation have not proved to be my strong points and I
don’t enjoy them very much so for my final assignment I have decided to make the most of a fairly open brief and concentrate on my strengths and the processes that I do enjoy which are:
Elegant, objective line drawings
Digital manipulation
Collage
Making patterns
Last summer’s boating holiday on the Canal du Midi in the south of France could be divided into 7
day chunks; I took many photos for research and made a few sketches at the time
Instead of recording the trip as a strip I have decided to draw a motif
of one aspect of the trip for each of the 7 days and to then make a pattern from
it.
Moodboard, thumbnails and patterns
Title page
This is to serve as an introduction to my series of patterns, showing the location of the inspiration.
Fonts
· 7 Days : Eccentric Std, Art Nouveau style, very French
· A journey...I settled on Blackoak Std in lower case as it has a retro 70’s feel which I like very much
The combination of these two together is reminiscent of a 70’s French cookery book
I printed the words, traced them in pencil, scanned them to Photoshop and cut, cleaned and inverted/ coloured them
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| Fonts traced in pencil and scanned |
- Kathryn Hockey: I chose Shruti, very clean and clear in contrast to the fancy fonts of the other text
Maps and background
I used my adapted Europe map as a background, stretching it out and adding and subtracting the outlines of my motifs as I made them; trying out different positions and inverting them as well as playing with fonts
Marking the Canal du Midi
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| collaged it using torn pieces from a road atlas of France |
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| scribbled over it with water soluble crayons and applied an acrylic wash |
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| when that was dry I applied a crackle glaze and rubbed a mixture of bees wax and white acrylic paint over the cracks to highlight them |
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| I embroidered a running stitch to mark the Canal, with French knots to mark the towns of Toulouse, Carcasonne and Sete, with another for Paris in the north |
I don’t find it that appealing visually, so I will have to think of a different way to mark the canal but I do like the effect of changing the tone and saturation
I used this map I found on the internet as a guide, first tracing the line of the canal on a new layer in Coral Painter with my
tablet
and then using it to mark the canal in the right place on my collaged
map of France in Photoshop where I also added the place names in Blackoak Std, the same font
as the ‘a journey in patterns’ text for continuity.
I experimented with different types of border and layer effects
for the canal line on the Canal du Midi map, and also played with the position of the background map
I eventually labelled the Canal du Midi with Courier New font, to resemble an old fashioned type face. I made the background darker to improve the contrast.
I added one of the boats from the lock drawing (see below) in a new layer, coloured it and added a granular texture in Photoshop and Corel Painter. Then I placed a smaller copy of the canal map with reduced opacity over the larger map of France to complete the orientating diagram.
The France arrow
is cut from one of my adapted maps which I collaged with labels before applying a crackle finish and white glaze
I liked the strength of the orange Canal du Midi map but felt that it was slightly over powering so I adjusted the tone and saturation
before settling on this version
7 Motifs for 7 Days
All the motifs were made in a similar way: photos / sketches on site; preliminary sketches from my photos;
pencil / pen drawing; scanning to photoshop; cutting out line work; cleaning; colouring
with collage or flat digital colours; adding texture in photoshop and / or painter; repeating the image to make patterns; adjusting the colour/texture of the backgrounds.
Dragonfly
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| My photo |
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| Drawing |
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| Scanned, duplicated and flipped |
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| Playing with tones and saturation |
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| Playing with tones and saturation on inverted version |
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| Inverted and multiplied |
These are my favourites
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| With an aged paper background |
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| Multiplied |
Locks
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| 3 of many photos |
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| Sketches made on the spot |
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| Postcard showing the lock mechanism |
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| Lock mechanism diagram found on the internet |
To work out how to portray the lock mechanism in a 3D way I made a
series of sketches showing the various stages
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| Final sketch |
The one which emerged at the end of this process had a fairy tale
quality which I liked very much, so I tried out making a pattern from it
I traced my sketch and made a pen drawing which I scanned in two parts
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| Sections of the drawing duplicated, cleaned, aligned in Photoshop |
Patterns
The outlines were cut out and applied to a scan of handmade paper in Photoshop layers, I adjusted curves, levels and saturation/tint.
In this pink version the colours reminded me of the fading flowers of a bougainvillea, I applied stripes with the pencil tool in pink and green to accentuate the vertical, reducing the opacity of the layers so as not to lose the surface texture of the paper.
Obviously the fine detail of the repeated unit cannot be seen from a
distance, but I like the idea of a hidden message that is revealed the
closer you get or the longer you look.
Patisserie
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| My photos |
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| Sketches |
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| Photoshop sketch |
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| Photoshop proper, showing inverted outlines and coloured versions |
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| Patterns |
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| Addition of inverted line drawings in the background, textures and curves adjusted to give more depth |
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| Final crop |
Plane Trees
Planted between 1681-1810, plane trees line long lengths of the Canal du
Midi and are dying because of a fungus. I decided not to portray the dying
trees in favour of aesthetic delectation.
At first I thought to draw an entire tree and repeat it but had problems
working out how to do it, primarily because of the proportion of the trees
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| My photos |
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| Sketches from life |
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| Sketches from photos |
Then, remembering the beautiful designs of Marthe Armitage I decided to concentrate on a small section of leaves and branch and repeat
that.
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| Sketches to work out the repeating unit |
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| Photoshop sketches to try out the repeat |
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| Drawing |
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| Photoshop pattern layouts |
Patterns and collage
I used a scan of the collaged map of France I made for the cover/ intro page.
I recently got a large display screen to go with my lap top, which is
great for photoshop-ing but is very bright in comparison meaning that some images
lack contrast when seen on another screen or printed
Images with contrast, tone and saturation adjusted
Cropped
I like this one very much but I think that the pattern is overwhelmed by the background texture; I will try to make the pattern bolder and the background planer to improve the contrast. This outline does work well on the cover though.
2CV
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| My photo |
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| Sketches |
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| Pen drawing |
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| Coloured in Photoshop |
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| Initial pattern experiment in Photoshop with a scanned paper background for texture |
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| Experiment with saturation in Photoshop |
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| Cleaner background and tonal experiments in Photoshop |
My favourite
Grapevine
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| My photos |
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| Sketches |
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| Drawing, scanned and cleaned in Photoshop |
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| Monochrome Photoshop pattern sketch |
Colouring with collage in Photoshop layers:
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| Map fragment collage |
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| Marbling with adjusted tone and saturation |
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| Paper |
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| Paper |
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| Single unit |
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| Pattern |
Sunflowers
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| My photos |
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Thumbnail sketches
I wanted to show the sunflower turning, as if towards the sun
|
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| Pencil drawings |
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| Photoshop pattern layout sketches and colour experiments |
I chose a sun flower yellow background for the next stage
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| Line work cut out, cleaned and trimmed in photoshop |
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| Possible patterns |
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| Potential colour combinations |
I like these very much but I wanted to add a bit of texture and colour to the flowers so I collaged the centres and green parts with two different tonal versions of my collaged France map and coloured the petals with flat and graduated colour in Photoshop layers
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| Collage and colour completed |
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| Single unit |
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| Repeated |
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| Multiplied |
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| Different arrangements and backgrounds |
Lastly I added light texture to the background by introducing a scanned canvas with the layer mode set to multiply. I think the blue background works best as a contrast to the yellow flowers, it also represents the summer sky.
So just to recap, here is my title page and my 7 patterns
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| 7 Days - a journey in patterns |
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| Day of the 2CV |
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| Day of the Sunflower |
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| Day of the Locks |
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| Day of the Grapevine |
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| Day of the Dragonfly |
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| Day of Patisserie |
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| Day of the Plane Tree |
I had lots of fun with this assignment and I am very pleased with the results. I think the French-ness comes across quite well and I can definitely imagine some of the patterns adorning the papered walls of a chateau.
I would like to get the patterns printed as an eight page book, perhaps as a promotional tool, and would love to see them on fabrics, wallpapers, wrapping papers, greetings cards and other surfaces. Wallpaper certainly seems to be fashionable again at the moment and features in many TV programmes and films such as Sherlock, American Hustle and August: Osage County.
It was very helpful to have feedback from a few trusted friends during the exercise when deciding which patterns and colour combinations worked best and which needed further adjustments.
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