Homebase Competition.

Final design

I decided to enter the Homebase wallpaper competition to force myself to think more about market levels, and where I could see my work fitting contextually. Homebase being at a very domestic commercial level, I thought it would be interesting to see if my work could fit, I think it's important for my designs to be adaptable and not just suited to one market level. 

I chose the brief 'Scented Garden' as I felt this was most fitting with my current project, so I could adapt some of the work I'd already been doing. The brief asked for a design in repeat, to be based on vintage florals and using light tones of colour.  I chose to use one of my original photographs from gardens to adapt digitally. 

From doing research into already existing wallpapers within the Homebase range, a lot of the prints are quite simple and motif based, as is the same with most domestic ranges of wallpapers in shops like B&Q, Next, or Ikea. 

So to be in keeping with the commercial marketplace I chose to work with a few motifs and work in simple repeat, keeping the colours tonal and not having too much going on within the design. 

I found this brief to be useful mainly because it forced me to think in a different way about how to adapt my work to certain market levels, it was also interesting to work to a short time frame, I often find that I work better under pressure, so I enjoyed the challenge.                                                     

Drawing & Bleach.

Over the past few weeks I have been starting to create a body of drawing for my minor project, to get ideas flowing and to create a range of inspiration to work from to take into the print room.

As during the summer I had found it hard to use colour, I had stuck to a mainly monochrome palette so as not to distract from the marks in my drawing. To begin to feel more confident with the use of colour, I've decided to create colour boards throughout the project to focus on how to put colour together and how to apply colour. 

As a starting point to get away from black and white I've decided to work on coloured grounds, experimenting with different media.

Looking at hiding and revealing as one of the main ideas, I've been masking off areas with masking fluid and bleaching away sections to reveal different layers beneath.  

As I don't want the original inspiration to be obvious within the drawings I have been drawing in an expressive way, hiding the identity of the original source, so the viewer is unsure what they are looking at. 

I decided to experiment with different scales, I found it worked well to work larger as it allowed the marks to become freer, to further develop this the scale may need to be upped again to allow the marks to really flow. Different methods in applying the bleach worked well to achieve different textures and surface qualities, using a spray bottle worked particularly well to create an ombre effect. 

I've started to experiment with different papers and opacities. I found that layout paper with olive oil worked well to distort what's underneath and to also reveal sections. I'd like to develop this on a larger scale and layer up a drawing underneath so that the oil piece conceals and reveals parts.
Some of the up close studies of the objects weren't that successful as I was focusing mainly on the shape of the object, rather than the marks within, the objects need to be zoomed in on and not thought of as a whole object. The abstract drawings that create more of a surface pattern are a lot more successful at linking back to the original concept.

Autumnal.

I wanted to collect a selection of objects that I could draw from instead of drawing from photographs, since it's autumn and the season is turning I felt this would be a great time to gather objects that had a range of different colours and textures. 

I think that drawing directly from natural objects will help me to focus on shape and form, and allow me to look closer at the pattern within the objects. 

Boards.

INSPIRATIONS

These are my boards from over the summer, these show my inspirations, concept, media & processes & the context I think that my work might go into. 

My main inspirations for this project have been the nature that surrounds us, mainly looking closely at the marks and patterns embellish a plant or tree. 

CONCEPT

My concept stemmed from looking at identity in nature, such as crypsis, mimcry & camouflage and how animals and insects often hide their identity to pretend that they're something they're not to catch their prey or hide from their predators. I'm quite interested in online identity and how people can do a similar process & become or pretend to be something they're not. 

MEDIA & PROCESS

I aim to explore this concept through layering and concealing patterns, revealing and hiding different sections. I will play around with different opacities when drawing on different papers. I will experiment a lot with drawing techniques, which will then progress further into screen printed designs on fabric, and also digital prints. 

CONTEXT

I see myself working towards a mainly interiors based context, I am interested in fashion, but perhaps think that interiors is a stronger area for me.