Ginger Squiggles Crafts

As part of my work this year I have developed my own bespoke craft business called Ginger Squiggles Crafts, as an opportunity to sell products which I have made and designed. I have learnt a lot about the business world, and how to sell and promote my products, which will be useful if I want to sell designs, or surface pattern products when I graduate. (www.facebook.com/gingersquigglescrafts)

I design all of my bespoke cards which has allowed me to work closely to customer briefs and consider commercial aspects such as pricing and time scales, which are crucial when designing in the real world. I have also had to consider my online presence, on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as this is how all of my customers find me. This involves taking good photographs, as my customers don't see the product in person when purchasing, and updating these sites regularly. I also need to make it easy for customers to see the service that I offer, as well as the pricing of the products. I feel that this is working well as I already have almost 2,500 likes on Facebook and am making a good profit after being set up for over 6 months.

Another part of this business involves working towards trends and future events. I therefore work months in advance to design christmas cards, and valentines day cards, to meet customers needs. This has also taught me a lot about customers, as when designing cards, I am designing for two customers: the person buying the card, and the person receiving the card.

I am hoping that this experience will help me to sell my own textiles and surface pattern products when I graduate, as I am considering stocking my products in shops and markets, as well as on other online platforms as well.

Practising repeat in Illustrator

My main aim this week was to create a selection of wallpaper repeats based on the drawings I completed last week. After having a workshop based on repeat in Illustrator I also wanted to get to grips with how this works, as its a large part of my learning agreement, and I believe it is a very important skill to learn. 

To make it easier when learning more about the technique, I looked at a design I created a few weeks ago, and tried to replicate this in repeat. I encountered many problems, such as file sizes being too large, and the normal hiccups when using Illustrator when you're not used to it, such as how different the interface is from Photoshop, and rasterising and tracing images. However I feel that the design below is starting to look like a successful repeat.

After getting to grips with the process I felt confident in trying to create new patterns using the elements I created last week. As mentioned in the last post I wanted to create designs that resembled the botanical nature of my research, and I feel the print below achieves this due to the writing and layout of the flowers. I chose to use writing that wasn't actually a word so that it didn't detract or distract from the design itself and I feel this is working well.

I also changed the backgrounds to involve patterns such as the example below. I really like how this example turned out as I feel the colour is working well, as well as the scale (taking the time to make a visualisation helped me with this). I am concerned that the colours aren't looking like the palette I created for the collection, but as I like the designs I will see how the rest of them develop and consider whether to change my palette at a later date.

Now that we have finished for christmas, I will probably work on some surface pattern ideas and designs over the break to bring back in January.

Botanical wallpaper drawings

After last weeks tutorial I realised that it's okay to commit time to completing complex large scale drawings. After developing my mood boards last week, I wanted to spend this week developing some drawings for my wallpaper collection.

I drew 4 flowers on A2 sheets of paper using methods I used when researching botanical drawings (pencil and watercolour). The type of flowers that I drew also linked back to the science part of my brief as each flower had medicinal benefits, such as the echinacea treating cold and flu. I drew them with the intension of putting them together into one arrangement, however in the future I might consider drawing leaves, flowers and stems separately to assemble on the computer to allow my drawings to be even more flexible.

The drawings took up most of my time this week, however I did have time to arrange them into a half drop repeat shown below. I think that the colour is working well, and I am also pleased that I managed to create a good repeat.

Although I like the result, and I could see it working well as a wallpaper, I feel that playing with different backgrounds could add another element to it. I also want to try arranging the elements in a more botanical way, possibly incorporating writing like traditional botanical drawings.

To help with designing my wallpapers I also created a few boards of wallpaper research and contextual research (one is shown below). These have allowed me to focus my attention on specifically who I am designing for, and I feel the next stage of designing and drawing will be even more focused.

Pin up: Dividing work into two collections

This week I had a pin up of all my work to divide it into two collections. I found this hard, as my work could be divided in so many ways, for example visually or conceptually. I decided that the best way to do this would be to select around 6 pieces of work that would be the starting point for each collection. I then created inspirational boards based on this selection.

Above is the inspiration board for my surface pattern collection, consisting of current work. I picked the work based on the quality of drawing (small scale, linear and painterly) and the concept behind the work. All of the work above is based on data collection so I will use this and the work I have done so far to drive my designs. However, after doing work based on data such as pie charts, I know that I do not want my work to look like mathematic data because it will not suit my market. I will therefore be inspired by collecting my own material and making prints that represent a moment in time. Therefore the print will be my way of representing data.

I also created a board of surface pattern designs that inspire me. I wanted to look at how different artists and designers assemble their designs, including all over prints, motif based prints, and single or multi directional prints.

This is my concept board for my wallpaper collection, where I chose work based on botanical drawings. The concept for this collection will be based on anatomy and botany, which are two aspects of my research that I really enjoyed working with.

I also conducted some market research and created an inspiration board for the wallpaper collection, looking at how designers assemble repeats, and how they use all over pattern structures, as well as motifs, in their designing process.

I am really pleased with the starting points for each collection. I feel that I now can develop my work in a more refined way, using the best parts of my research to inspire my collections. I have also tried to incorporate as much of my initial research as I can, whilst being selective about which bits would work best. At the moment I am unsure about the name of each collection, and the colour palette that I will end up working with, but I am allowing for the fact that this will develop with the project.

Engaging with the wider design world.

When graduating University I want to make sure I am in the best position possible to gain a job in my desired field of work. At the moment I would like to be a surface pattern designer, and I am also looking at Graduate schemes.

A lot of Graduate schemes are receiving applications now, so this week I have concentrated on updating my CV with my work experience from over summer, and finding schemes to apply for. I have also taken careful consideration when answering online application questions.

As well as directly applying for jobs, I am engaging with the design industry by actively taking part in competitions and putting my work out there. I took part in the Ohh Deer Pillow fight, by submitting four of my most recent designs. They were uploaded onto the site, and sold for a short period of time! They can be found at http://ohhdeer.com/competition#compartist=766 and below is a screen shot of the cushions I uploaded.

Screen shot of my designs on the Ohh Deer website

I have frequently taken part in Tigerprint competitions too, and I uploaded some designs onto the Christmas Wrap Brief. I felt that these designs took a modern approach to christmas and the winter season, however they weren't specifically designed for the brief.

I would love to take part in more Tigerprint competitions, and when the next brief is released, I will consider making a few designs specifically for entry to the competition, aside from the rest of my work.

Responding from what I learnt during Review week.

Putting together the presentation for last weeks review helped me to see which parts of my practice I enjoyed the most, and made me realise what I need to do before the end of the project. This week I have therefore been doing more development drawings based on the work I have done so far.

The anatomy part of my project has really inspired me ever since I did it, and I also enjoyed producing more abstract work a few weeks ago so I decided to mix the two together. I therefore produced abstract paintings of the cross sections of my own flowers. Overall I didn't like the paintings as I felt they looked childish, but when photographing sections of my work, I realised that they became more abstract and more focus was on the marks an brush strokes rather than the overall painting.

I also thought that my prints were working well, and the idea of creating a print out of lots of elements from one flower worked well along side my learning agreement. I therefore created new work based on a Lily, using the parts to make marks, drawing it, and using the pollen to paint with.

When painting with pollen, I added a little water to make it a liquid but it turned into a really sticky substance that ruined everything that I was using, and was really hard to work with. I think the idea of using pollen could develop further into possibly printing techniques such as screen printing. However I will need to try it out when mixing with manutex, as it might not work at all. This might be a task for after Christmas or in Unit X. I also intend to make these into prints made from just Lily's.

The review also made me realise that I need to try different compositions for my prints, possibly linking them more to the research I completed at the start of the project.

Review Week

This week was review week, and we had to present our work so far in powerpoint form to two tutors and a group of our peers. I used the opportunity to reflect on the work I have done so far and see what parts of my work need more research or more development.

A key part of the presentation was establishing our context. My work for this project is for a surface pattern context, and I am considering four main product areas; wallpaper, stationery, giftware, and soft furnishings. At the moment I can see these dividing into two collections, of a larger scale and smaller scale. The decision to do this has been inspired by my two placements at Tigerprint and Digetex, as well as some key contextual influences.

Rachael Taylor is a surface pattern designer who designs for a large range of products including lamp shades, duvets, throws, cushions and wallpaper. As well as being inspired by her work contextually, I also love her drawing style as it stays hand drawn and quirky.

(Images from Rachael Taylor Designs)

As well as being inspired by designer makers, larger companies like Paperchase also inspire my practice as they have ranges of patterns that are produced across a variety of products such as gift wrap and stationery.

(Images from Paperchase.com)

Compared to Rachael Taylor, they have much lower prices as they are a high street brand. At the moment I am not sure whether my work will be aimed at high end or high street products

As well as examining my context, I also visited a Close up Exhibition at MOSI. It consisted of microscopic images of natural forms which I thought would give a good twist on the work I am doing at the moment.

Image from Come Closer Exhibiton

The geometric nature of these images lead me to think about butterfly wings, and other geometric shapes found within nature. I therefore gathered some first hand research at a zoo and completed some drawings of the patterns, with the intension to mix these patterns with some watercolour based paintings at a later date.

Design Experimentation and Development

For me, this week was all about developing the drawings I have been doing into ideas and designs. Sometimes this was just placing different elements together to see what they looked like, and some developed into design ideas.

I started off by defining my colour palette which is inspired by natural and scientific elements, as well as colours that I like. I have enjoyed working with the colour palette but to improve it, I feel that I need two different palettes or colour directions for me to experiment with (such as bright and tonal). I will bare this in mind when working on drawings and designs in the future.

Colour Palette Development

I started by experimenting with some of the large scale shadow drawings that I have completed, and I like the design below as there is a good contrast between line and shadow. I also like the fact that it involves the shadow and contour line drawing of the same plant, so both elements have come from the same source yet look totally different. However, I after using the larger scale shadow work in my designs, I dont feel it does justice to my concept and the ideas I have had throughout the project. I therefore might use the data ring idea with other elements to make a stronger print: the larger scale work might be something I could pick up again in Unit X.

Shadow and contour line print experiment

I also mixed up some painted elements to create a traditional style print with a modern twist. I like how each element works well together, with the paler silhouette in the background, and the bold flowers. I think if I created more similar, but smaller motifs, they would all make a good repeat pattern too.

Experiment with gouache flowers

I also wanted to keep some prints simpler, using just a few colours, and I am pleased with the print below. I like that this print represents the taxonomy, and data collection part of my project, as all of the elements were collected on the same walk. I think I could experiment more with the way I arrange these, possibly bringing in the botany element from my work so far. 

Print based on collection of natural elements

Finally, I also like these two prints below because I feel that they are starting to become more original and different to whats already out there. I feel that the mix of hand drawn, graphic, textural and solid colour work well together and I wish to develop this with my next set of designs too.

I am really pleased with my design development and I feel that this will now help me to focus my drawings as I know the kind of designs I want to create. 

Tree ring data and going even bigger!

This week my main focus was to go even bigger scale than I did the week before with my shadow drawings.

I created paper that was up to 1.5 metres by 1.5 metres and pinned them up on the wall for me to draw on. The way I chose what I was drawing linked back to my original brief based on data collection, as I went and collected 5 objects from my garden that had 2 colours in the leaves. Using these I then created my own experiments in 10 minutes using a variety of tools and media.

I am not sure whether I like the results as I feel the paintings look rushed and bad quality rather than loose. However my favourite painting is the one below, because I like the way the two colours of paint mixed whilst I was painting.

Large scale shadow painting experiment.

Another task I set myself this week was to look at ways that data is found and recorded in nature. I came across tree rings which hold a variety of data for each half year of a trees life, meaning scientists can look back into the past to find out what weather conditions, and various other factors, were like years ago. After doing tree ring drawings I decided to make concentric circles inside and outside of the outline of a plant. I thought these were effective and have the potential to be part of a design.

Concentric tree ring data drawings

I then combined these two ideas: paint mixing on the surface, and tree ring data. I also wanted to illustrate both the inside and outside of a tree, so used the mixed paint to represent bark patterns, and added the line to illustrate the tree rings on the inside.

Tree ring, bark and mixing paint.

I felt that this small painting was quite successful as it got across both elements and I like the contrast between line and mixed paint. I have also realised that I am at the stage where I need to establish a few colour palettes to work with so that I can start to develop my work with colour. However, I feel that this style of work wouldn't suit my target market based on the research I have done, so this more abstract style might be something that I could pick up on in Unit X.

This week has also shown me that I should look over my learning agreement again. I stated that I wanted to look into science and nature, but now I have realised that it is data, rather than science, that I am interested in investigating. I intend to edit this next week.

Large scale, florals and doodles

Last week we had a 2tutor crit with Alex and Rihanna which was really useful because the main idea that I took from the tutorial was to be more experimental. I brought up the fact that I was feeling lost but I was reassured that at this point in the project experimenting and trying new techniques will make my work stronger in the end, which is what I aimed to do this week.

Large scale experiments: casting shadows of plants and represeting with different tools in 5 minutes

After the shadow drawings that I did last week, I wanted to continue this, as well as bringing in the data part of my project by making them a set of experiments. I therefore made myself do them in 5 minutes and experimented with different tools like a stick (left), a tool made out of scrap cardboard (middle) and a brush on a stick, a meter away from my body (right). I was really happy with the way they turned out as it loosened me up, and created effects that were out of my control such as the dripping paint.

I was also keen to try out different styles this week, and also creating an all over pattern. I therefore created an all over floral with gouache, and scanned it in to play around on photoshop to create the two versions below. I enjoyed creating more stylised work as I haven't done it before, however, on reflection, I dont believe that this does justice to my concept so I probably wont take it further, unless it's mixed with other more relevant elements.

 I also created more 'experiments' this week including creating 3 'doodle' style drawings in increasing time to link back the idea of creating my own data. I then produced the image below, mixing them together. Although I like the line qualities in this piece, I think that the large mix of elements might be too much. I feel I could solve this by either mixing it with painterly qualities or not using so many different elements. However, I feel that if I added colour I might like it more.

Combinations of 'doodle' experiments

Organising data and using shadows

In this weeks tutorial I realised that most of my drawings consist of various lines so I wanted to experiment with different styles of drawing. I tried to push myself by producing a loose watercolour painting of flowers rather than accurate ones, and produced the painting below.

Watercolour flower painting

As well as doing this I played around with the image by collaging it with a line drawing (below left). I also cut up a scan of the painting into shapes and tried to re-organise them based on their colour (linking to taxonomy, and data collection), and the way that the colour merged (below right). Although I wasn't that pleased with the results, I learnt that I like contrasting line and watercolour, as well as using the paper as a way of documenting data, even if its just sorting an image into colours.

Manipulating scans of my drawings and arranging into data 

I also wanted to try and do some looser drawings to add variety to my work so I drew from plant shadows, drawing quickly because the plants were moving in the wind which helped me to achieve a loose drawing. I felt that these drawings were slightly out of my control as I just drew as quickly as I could before the sun went in, rather than consciously choosing which bits of the plant to draw which I thought added a really nice quality to my drawings. I definitely intend to develop on the idea of working with shadows next week, possibly on a larger scale.

Quick shadow drawings of plants outdoors

I also went out to take photos of various natural environments that I liked the colour, texture or composition of. I then studied a few of my favourite photos closely and represented them as data. I started doing this using Pie charts, but also dividing up rectangles in a similar way. I think the rectangle experiment worked better because I don't feel that using traditional data representation such as pie charts will suit my context.

Representing my photos as data

I think this could give me some good ideas for composition and I think that taking more photos like these could help the rest of my work as well.

Anatomy and Time

This week I started off by looking at a book called 'The Anatomy of Flowers' by Arthur Harry Church. It is filled with intricate drawings of cross sections of flowers (such as the drawing below), some of which looked like expressive shapes rather than flowers.

Scan of drawing from 'The Anatomy of Flowers'

I began by painting accurately the drawings from the book, and also drawing the parts of the plant that interested me most. However the most successful part of this exercise was when I scanned in one of my drawings and cut it into the main shapes of the flower, rearranging it into another shape. This collage idea worked well for me as it created an imaginary shape that I wouldn't have drawn if I tried to draw normally: I will bare it in mind for other drawings that I complete. 

My Collage made up of my original drawing based on the anatomy of flowers.

This week I also collected seed heads from Hogweed and drew them at different stages in time, from being alive and flowering, to having seed pods, and being dead. Whilst drawing all of them in different styles, one drawing inspired me to create these drawings below. I illustrated how many flowers/buds/stems, each seed head had with a key, which I thought linked back to representing data very well. 

Data drawings from Hogweed seed heads

I also came across an artist called Marisa Redondo this week who creates lovely drawings for a similar context to what I want to make designs for. She has a brand called River Luna, and her work can be found at http://www.riverlunaart.com. 

River Luna Artwork -- https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/RiverLuna

I love the way that she uses painterly effects and line, and creates tone (even through thin lines). I wanted to explore the way that she creates her designs, so I have been recreating the way she works so that I can be inspired by the techniques and methods she uses.

My response to artwork by River Luna

I tried creating the designs using various methods, but the most effective are the designs above, created digitally from a watercolour painting and a fine liner drawing. Although I didn't get quite the same effects as Marisa creates with her paintings, I have taken on board different ideas and techniques, including filling abstract shapes with loose watercolour, and experimenting with fine lines on top of this. I intend to develop these in my own way next week.