Inspiration and preparing for the start of third year!

As the start of third year is approaching I have been thinking about what context I want to design for. I am always swayed towards interiors and feel my previous work is best suited to this context, I want to carry on with interiors but thinking a bit more about interiors not only in the home but in public spaces also, such as contemporary cafes.

image found on pinterest.

I think that designing for this context would suit my prints because they are quite bold and I feel that a public space would suit bursts of bold prints.

I have also been inspired by these artists, all of them create art work on paper and I like to start my design process in this way and take it into print on fabric. I hope to be very experimental in third year as I want to push myself and create my own style.

 



 





Sketches from Italy

I like to draw blind, by not looking at my paper and just looking at what I'm drawing. By continuous line drawing I feel it creates a truer interpretation of the subject and creates a playfulness feel. Here I carried a small sketchbook around with me and tried to draw wherever I could, I kept the materials simple by using graphite, markers and coloured pencils.

Layering the materials and different drawings. I like how the drawings aren't perfect and I want this to come through in my prints by having a hand drawn/painterly feel.

Summer Inspiration: colour, context and drawings

After gathering a body of visual research I was extremely inspired and ready to draw from this. Whilst I was in Italy I drew in a little sketchbook with only basic drawing materials so felt that I hadn't got my ideas down fully and wanted to create texture, movement and layers using other materials. I started to look back at my images to gather colour reference, I found that most of the colours I saw in Italy were quite simple and the same such as greys, browns and oranges from the buildings and blacks from rocks. Rich turquoises and blues came from the sea. I thought it would be a waste not to use these wonderful organic colours so started to draw in larger scale from my small sketchbook, images and ideas.
Colour inspiration...

 

I found a lot of texture in my images and wanted to show this through my drawings using different media. I was also inspired by the work of Heather Day, who is also inspired by where she travels to and shapes/textures in nature.

 

I love how she uses different media creating varied line quality and texture. Here I have used the blind contour line drawing method for the building and the other two using inks and silver leaf.

I hope to carry on creating large drawings showing movement and contrast. I want my prints to be layered with different shapes and textures, keeping a hand drawn/ painted feel. I really want to experiment in the first unit to push myself and see what works best.

Summer influence: Inspiration & concept

After seeing the degree show, I started my summer very inspired by the work and was excited to start to gather inspiration. I found this image in Homes and Gardens magazine it reads: 'This welcoming spring table, with its mix of tumbled blue linen, teal patterned crockery, gleaming copper cutlery and pretty flowering bulbs'

This got me thinking about deep blues, mixed with warm copper and set me off in search for anything else which inspired me. It also made me think about styling and how I'd like to style my designs.
 I spent 6 weeks in Italy and gathered plenty of visual research. I felt my eye was always looking towards arches and architecture. I felt inspired by looking through
something such as an arch and seeing total contrast in what was seen on the other side such as the sea, or the bright blueness of the sky.

Portovenere Italy.

                                                                         Piazza Italia.
Thinking about:

• Negative space
• Block colours
• Texture
• Contrast

I still had the first image I was inspired by with the blues and metallic copper colours in the back of my head, and kept thinking about how they would look layered with the colours and textures from Italy. My other inspirations came from contrast in materials and the surroundings, I visited St. Peter's Basilica, climbed all the way to the top and became inspired by these statues.

I love the boldness off the stone in contrast with the smoothness of the sky.

As I walked around the Medieval town of Perugia I found many little side streets with original buildings linked together by arch ways and labyrinths of streets and dusty stone walls. Once again I found plenty of arches and negative space, and felt eager to start drawing and painting how I interpreted what I saw. Travel was a big influence this summer, I also visited Budapest and felt extremely inspired by the buildings and the cityscape.

I love the mix between the dark and light stone/bricks and deep richness of orange hues of the roof tops. The linear qualities of the windows and architecture make me think of layering and line drawing.