Tahlia Paige

Looking back at some of my patterns, I can see that my elements are either very large, or very small, and usually around the same size in each pattern. This is something I want to work on more, because I think its the little details in a pattern that can fill the small negative space gaps that I find stick out in my tossed patterns.

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I started working in this style of mark mking, using a good shape as the backing colour and adding a darker shade over the top instead of a flat black, although I did keep black outlines in some of the leaves to have that variety that I wanted to have in there. I like the new dragonfly designs too, I think they are simpler but also have an interesting mark-making quality to them. I also researched the idea of the lilies that are often seen in large ponds, I wish I could have gone out and found my own as research, but using the internet I managed to find a few sources to draw these.

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The ladybird is the key of the collection, I want to use the designs on the giftbag for this and I want it to be a detailed and attractive motif. They obviously have a very recognisable colour within the shades of red, pink and orange so this was a shade I knew definitely had to be in there. I thought originally choosing a muted red was the way to go, but after changing it to this dark red or pink shade, I think this allowed me to think better about the colour board and use pinks instead because the dragonflies and beetles could be done in these shades.

I think the pinks really go with the muted greens I used as well, and adding a touch of yellow in the designs has been very good and relates to lily pads, which is where I originally added it as when they die they tend to go for a more yellow shade.

I also simplified the ladybirds from the patternwork I tried first, and I think even though the top ones are more intricate and interesting images, the bottom ones will go better with the rest of the motifs in this new style I have tried out. I particularly like the idea of the quick lines, which leave some white inside the motif giving it a more creative and painterly quality.

I also looked into the movement of the insects a few bugs ago, I plan on putting a beetle to walk through some sand to see its texture if I can find one in the garden, it would not give me a really clear indicator but it gives me an idea of the path it takes. I did look at the way the legs move in the videos when they walk, and the movement of the anatomy, and I found the beetle and the dragonfly both incorporate a circular motion with their body parts that causes this effect to their legs or wings. The little squiggles I created are examples of this, some I imagined would be very close to the texture, and others were more further away. The straighter lines I imagined could be the route that they would take over the course of a few centimetres of movement, and others I thought were within a millimetre on how the leg is actually moving.

Overall I am much happier with this colour scheme and how it already looks here as separate motifs, and I think I could create some quite interesting patterns from these.

I thought about how the silhouette of the dragonfly worked better than the heavily worked on motif I created originally, even with the colour that I added I still think that when shrunk to that small scale it just did not have the desired effect, and maybe could work well on a very large scale repeat or as a placement piece on something the size of a cushion maybe, but I just do not see it working in this pattern and letting go of that may be what is needed to allow me to feel like I am getting somewhere with the designs.

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I thought about the plain backgrounds that do not stand out, and using these line work pads I thought I could create an interesting texture on the background using a darker colour than I usually would. The dragonfly as well I did use a couple of the purples and then used the white instead of my usual black to add detail into the wings of this piece.

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The pattern made from using the outlines on the lily pads works well, however the purple dragonflies added on top do not give such a good pattern and I do not see them looking good here. I think the purple has gone far too flat which is unfortunate as I think it has been simplified too much. I tried it over the previous lilypad design and and I think this has worked better, but I still do not see it as a very successful pattern, even when the contrast was brought up.

It was at this point I decided that my colour scheme needed to change, it was not working for me as I did not like seeing all the colours together in the same pattern and this was definitely a problem. I like the green and I know I need some form of red or dark pink for the ladybird as I think this makes it a base that I then need to expand from.

Using my pattern created yesterday with the simpler motifs, I decided to play around with some adjustments and filters to see how the design may look improved, or to spark some different ideas with colour schemes or something.

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I play around with a few effects here, vibrancy was something I played with and made the dragonflies very bright and visible, I just do not react well to the colours and I do not think this is something I would like to take to my other patterns. Along the line of colour, I also tried inverting the dragonflies to give me the complete opposite colours to experiment again with colour scheme, as I am seriously considering altering my scheme at this point. I also tried a more greyscale effect which I think looks good, making the pieces stand out a long more. I thought on this point that I could use a silhouette, and completely take out that pattern I have been desperate to keep this whole time, so I created the white and black silhouette pieces. I think these two are my favourite out of this little alternative bundle, but I thought about how there is a really lack of colour other than the shades of green in there, and I think this defeats the purpose of the idea of changing my colour palette and the motifs because I am still not using the complimentary and contrasting colours that I want to be able to work with more.

I think next I could think about taking the designs that I like with the black and white bold silhouettes, and adding more of a range of colours into the backgrounds instead. So turning some of the lily pads to purple or blue, or even red and seeing how this would work in the background of the design since I think the bright silhouettes work so well.

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I started with some blue added in, which I think was quite attractive looking, I tried to add the red and purple into this even more but I did not like this very much, I think it gives me much more of a younger audience colour scheme. I think I may try a different motif set again in the greens that I know I like, but this ultimately is convincing me that I should be changing my colour scheme away from this.

I think a main issue with my motifs now is the fact that they are just as busy as my main insect motifs, I think that the issue is that I enjoy drawing and I enjoy creating completed artworks, so each motif for me is more of an illustration. I go from things in my book that I try out as mark-making that I would not use and not show to anyone, to very intricate final motifs that I could use as a placement by itself, because hours of work have gone into it and when shrunk down it becomes even more dense and busy.

I wanted to then create some more mark-making pieces on Procreate to go better with the dragonflies, I thought about the idea of looking down from above on a pond, and seeing all the lilypads on the water and the dragonflies flying above them.

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I kept the shapes and forms I have used before because I did like them, this shows two different versions that I tried here, one with a darker outline than the other which I do quite like. I tried the little ones too because I thought it would be interesting to completely fill the space and having the variety is very interesting.

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I tried to make the leaves in this same style, with the faded greens I think they look good and will allow the other insect motifs to stand out a lot more being bigger and brighter in colour. I managed to add some of the line work into some of the motifs which I think is enough to show texture and a pattern, but not to overpower it and make it a complex design like I had before.

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Using the lily pad motifs, I created some backgrounds for the patterns that would repeat seamlessly, I think this would work well and be quite hard to see in repeat because I worked on a very small scale within the tile here.

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Adding the dragonflies over the top was quite interesting, I think they do stand out against the green background but maybe not as much as I would like. There are so many lines and patterns within the dragonflies and this cannot be seen at all. I think the next step would be to play around with some image adjustments to see whether there would be a way to brighten up this image.

Using the new motifs that I made yesterday, I decided to create some patterns out of them to see what the motifs will look like in repeat. I found before that using my motifs had had so much detail and pattern in them, they made a plain background look very flat and if it was anything except a very light colour it would totally overpower the rest of the design and that is a problem.

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So using the new motifs I created the tile here to be used for a block repeat, I actually do not mind the mixtures of colour here, it is difficult to jump into colour when I am not used to using a huge amount of it, I also do struggle with colour in general, it can be very dependant on lighting for my eyes, and colours from my Ipad to my laptop can sometimes translate very differently. If I am building a colour palette for myself, I tend to use threads to do this in a shop, because the thread is very dense and shows off the colour well. This often helps me to see what will go together well too. For this particular module, I did not get the chance to do that, and I was very unsure with my colour palette, so this may be the next thing to consider changing.

I think on the negative side of this pattern, the background looks very flat and the use of the texture stripe that I tried is quite big and looks more like a motif at the foreground than the texture on the background which might have added some more depth to it instead. I do not mind the colour mixture, I think the dragonflies do stand out because they are flying over the negative space, but I think I would like a busier design, I love doing tossed busy styles as hero designs and I think for the giftwrap sheet and roll these should be busy designs to keep them interesting all over if they are going to be wrapped around something small or large. I think the main issue I had with this design is that I do not love it, I know I can do better and I want to achieve something I can be proud of. I think part of that process will be learning how to do a proper half drop too, I achieved it last year with a flower design that had no negative space, but I could not translate this to a design that has negative space around the motifs, so this is an important step for me to achieve better quality patterns.

A critique of my patterns were the colours I included, my original patterns are usually not that colourful because I do like to use black and white patternwork to fill space and create depth and texture. I think usually when I am given feedback about the patterns I struggle to adapt them into patterns that really pop because I never think I have the time to create new motifs or to completely change my colour scheme. I decided to try and keep my colour scheme but to adapt my current patterned motifs to something more coloured and usable.

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I used the blues and the purples particularly from the colour schemes to make these motifs that are less bold in terms of the patterns that can be seen on them. I think this works well with some better than others, and even some of the designs when I decided to take the black outline to them but kept the colour inside quite pastel and bright, I think these all do work better than the old black and white motifs. I also thought that they would probably go with some of my original bug motifs too, I took the original dragonflies and decided to just colour behind the wings to add some more colour behind there, I also used textured brushes which made for quite an interesting effect, such as the dragonfly wing that resembles a stained glass window.

From these new motifs now I plan to try and create a range of patterns, stating with the dragonfly first as I think the lilypads are an easier motif to work with and go with the dragonflies well.

The insects that I was looking into included ladybirds, dragonflies and beetles. I decided that the way they move and the marks and patterns that they leave behind would be an interesting point in my patterns, so as current restrictions mean I cannot leave the house, I went to YouTube to find some sources for these creatures moving instead of my local pond or marsh area, where I have seen dragonflies before.

This slow motion video shows the dragonfly taking off and the way in which its wing move, there is more of a rotary circular motion to the wings than the average flapping that you would normally see in anything that flies.

I decided to look into the idea of flight more, and this video goes much more in depth about the way it flies, even managing to create models of the dragonfly which work well and illustrate this. Even the way the small parts of the dragonfly’s back moves separately is very interesting, and a texture that is quite possible to explore.

This video illustrates how a dragonfly sees the world, I thought this might be literally through the unusual insect’s eyes, as if we would see some kind of kaleidoscope view of a very colourful field. However, this video more addresses the reflexes of the dragonfly, the speed at which it notices a seed flying past it and it’s ability to react to that in under a second, however it quickly notices it is not another insect and changes its mind. The whole process is over in little more than a second, but its clear that these creatures are incredibly fast and smart.

This is quite an interesting video of a beetle moving as you can imagine from this the kind of marks it might leave in the soil which I think is worth exploring. It is much more of a dragging motion than that of a walk, so the soil would be disturbed in linear patterns.

This tortoise beetle video however shows that it is much more of a walker with longer legs, and takes off with ease at the top of its leg height. It has a circular motion that it rotates in as well.

This next video shows a ladybird in slow motion, they walk very slowly but the wings can pop in and out very quickly, in a way that does not look very natural. The way it walks too could leave little scratch marks in the surface of where it decides to walk.

After exploring all the creatures I think I would like to explain how the online research differs from real life. For a start, I am only seeing glimpses of these creatures on videos, a glimpse that someone else has deemed the most interesting thing about them, but me personally. Ideally I wanted videos of dragonflies flying around the pond, because from experience I know they take on more erratic, quick turning type of flying. They also rotate in the air while hovering, which completely changes the way they move in the sky. From experience, I do not remember seeing them walking very much, but that might have been something I could see if I was able to stay by a pond long enough. Beetles too, I was interested in the slow walking video, but I thought about how different it would have looked on dirt, or sand. Even a video where the motion of the material moving with the bug there invisible would be useful to see the exact marks that it makes. A video where they have paint on the bottom of their feet could be interesting as they make a more creative and graphic display of the way that they move, the route they take and the pattern that they leave behind then which is usually unseen.

I think in terms of markmaking, I should explore the dragonflies circular motion as well as its erratic flying path, the beetles act of dragging his feet through the mud with the pattern it leaves behind and the ladybirds smaller scuttle with its feet and its more linear flying pattern.

After creating some of the stitching to try out as motifs, I wanted to try and edit them to create patterns out of them, to see whether I could make a bigger range of stitched motifs to use.

I played around with brightness and contrast first and then saturated the image more to get more of an idea of the colour of the stitching. I tried a gradient map on it too which turned it red and inverted, and finally tried a posterise effect which I think did make it quite lino-looking. Although because of the backing fabric it does make it quite difficult to define the border, which I think would have made it a better motif, as it is quite dark due to the heavy stitching in the leaves.

I used the lilypad stitchings that I created here as motifs and created a few different patterns from them. I would probably place these more as blenders but again I think the backing fabrics made these quite dark and even saturating them up has not done too much to help it. I also think there is too much detail in these to really call them motifs, as then the background behind it looks far too flat and one toned, which I do not find as much when my motifs are made up of a couple of colours and are more graphic and present.

Using some of the motif ideas I created in my sketchbook, I had a go with some more patterns today.

I think some of these look okay, the idea of using the bugs in a line is interesting and I think would work effectively. The leaves create an interesting pattern and I think this shows the idea of changing the colour scheme could work quite nicely as I think these go together quite well.