After my mark-making and exploration of the insects as a motif in pattern later on in my sketchbook, I began to see how these could work in a more graphic sense with my patterns. I considered live tracing them with illustrator, but I know from before that this does not capture colour as well as I would have liked, and if I drew the images again on Procreate, I could adapt them more and colour them with a variety of tools.
I explored beetles first, using my patterns I had tried out in my sketchbook in Procreate using the Apple pencil. I drew the outlines in a more realistic way to my research in Cardiff Museum, then filled in the pattern. I wanted to add colour to the motif in a subtle way so they would not effect the patterns I put them into massively, just enough to catch the colour in repeat.
The dragonflies were interesting as I was able to be creative with the pattern in the wings which I liked, I added some colour into these as well. Due to doing them digitally I was able to cut and take parts of the species and combine them, creating another motif with the wings of one and the body of the other which I think is good as another variation.
Finally I worked on ladybirds, which with their distinctive red colour these turned out which bright and interesting. I included the patterns again instead of using a black fill on some bits, again I think this makes the motifs more interesting and more in the style of my drawing instead of a graphic style that is not related to my hand work.
I plan on using my research from my summer research trips to do some drawings of lilypads and greenery, leaves and berries, things that would be found with the species I was looking at.
Tahlia Paige 