I'm almost back.... In Progress

Hello, hello, I’m almost back!

Apologies for the silence lately - I’ve been away to the wilderness of home and had very little in terms of wifi access so it wasn’t possible to keep up with the blog. However as from next week I will be continuing my Studio Tuesday and Word Wednesday features and hope to bring more regular features to the blog. Please get in touch if there is something you would like me to blog about. I’m open to ideas as I want to continue to grow my blog as a resource and inspiration to other budding surface pattern designers. 

Whilst away I worked on my entry for the March Tigerprint competition which was all about black and white designs. I found this to be a really challenging task and I’d really recommend having a go at designing with a limited palette in this way if you wish to really focus on shape and line. 

My research for the competition can be found here on my Pinterest board. My initial thoughts where around: 
Mark making - using a variety of lines and textures.
Negative space - look at the space between motifs
Cross hatching and clipping masks
White on black - invert conventional, paper & pencil contrasts.

Damask, hand drawn geometrics, Fair Isle and optical illusion style patterns all seem to lend themselves well to this no colour, all contrast palette. I particularly like how hand drawn geometrics look in black and white - I think the formal palette really contrasts with the irregular shapes and spaces.

I ended up focussing on mark making and found myself utilising some new skills that I picked up on a Skillshare course in making brushes for Photoshop and Illustrator. Using a variety of media - charcoal, graphite stick, acrylic paint and pencils I set about exploring the different quality of lines and textural effects I could make. It really felt like Fine Art drawing class all over again and I enjoyed being playful and exploring different media. I took black and white photographs of my study sheets as I didn’t want to scan charcoal dust or wet paint and worked with Photoshop to clean up the images. I then traced my marks in Illustrator and created scatter and art brushes.  Warning: it’s addictive! Once you start making brushes you can’t stop and I also played around with scale using lots of different media to find out which ones work best. You could also photograph found objects such as twigs, coins, soil, etc to create brushes - I’ve some beach photos that I’m still to work with for this purpose. 

The circles and hearts were drawn with art brushes from my mark making experiments. They look so simple, casual and quick and are not what I would normally submit for a competition but I think (and hope that I’m right in thinking) that they work. Despite their simple appearance, a lot of technical effort and thought has gone into creating the marks and I think that both of these designs have a sense of rhythm, balance and style to them and would look great on gift bags/wrap, suitable for male or female. 

The geo stripes above came from some scatter brushes I designed  from marks made using a Derwent Onyx pencil. The Onyx pencil is great for thick dark lines - it’s perhaps my favourite pencil to draw with. 

My garden doodle was first drawn in Photoshop using my Wacom. I have a nice brush from another Skillshare class that I use for this. I find it very similar to a pencil and I really love the line quality I get when I trace it in Illustrator. This pattern is more in keeping with the kind of style I feel good about - busy, multidirectional repeats using lots of motifs. I think this design might be suited to gift wrap.

The geo poppy design just came from a doodle drawn straight into Illustrator. I felt this pattern really worked in black and white. When working in black and white I became much more thoughtful about the negative space - and I really like the negative space in this design.

On reflection I think there’s a lot of room for development with my designs and studies for this competition. I’ve realised that I rely on colour an awful lot to balance my designs and perhaps I need to pay more attention to the use of space, shape, line and texture. I feel more attention to such details would go a long way in helping me to hone my style and I’m keen to reintroduce hand drawn ‘signature’ elements into my Illustrator work. I wouldn’t say this competition boosted my confidence but it has certainly been great food for thought.  If I get shortlisted I’ll be surprised but either way I’m glad of the learning experience!

I know I say this every month but I think for any budding surface pattern designer the Tigerprint competition is an essential resource. It really has helped me to consider my work in a commercial setting, work to external deadlines and up my game by striving to learn new skills. It’s easy to get trapped in a little bubble of your own when you first start to work alone in a studio. This is a great way to take your first steps to going public with your work too and it’s a great confidence boost if you make it to the shortlist. 

Good luck everyone who has entered, now I’m off to get me some colour!

Frankie x