Guns

The next thing I’m posting about is my gun design. it started from my Sherlock Holmes research. The revolver was quite a popular item and kept popping up in the film so I thought a simple drawing of it would be a nice starting point. It might take my project down a sinister route.

With this image I decided to try another multi directional repeat using the stamp tool again. This time I left the background simple and I think it looks really interesting. The black gun has had a filter used on it which I think makes it more eye catching. It means it’s not all completely the same image.

I love the inverted design. I think the purple and the yellow really sit nicely together and the white guns add a feel of an ex ray. Which brings the project back round to the title hidden treasures I think. When messing around with the image when making it I simplified it and got the length design. I think it sits nicely with the full pattern as maybe a coordinating border. The image is really crisp and graphical with the black background I think.

As I tend to like doing I duplicated the original gun layer flipped it over the top of each other and then changed the opacity so you could see the different layers. I really like how this abstracts the design. At some points you can see what the image is made from but others it looks really graphical and simply line and shape.

From the guns I selected a simple bit and tried to make it into a design of its own. I think it looks nice, it’s a lot simpler than my other designs which I think is interesting. Obviously at this point you can’t tell at all what the original image was which is an added bonus, really going for literally ‘hiding the ‘treasures’ 

I then decided again to mess around with the colours to see what I could get.

 The next thing I did was go back to my original multidirectional and see if I could make it more interesting which as you can see below I did. I added a floral pattern into the background giving the design a little extra pazaz. The background and colour palette is quite feminine whereas the sunject matter is quite masculine. Due to this I think this is the best and most interesting design I have created so far.

Because I like this design so much I made it into the repeat and actually had it printed out on a length of lining paper to see what it would look like made for the wall. Which by the way looks awesome if I do say so myself. 

Lastly I decided to try and see what the guns would look like as a full repeat along a wall. I then had the idea to fade it out and have one strip full guns, the next half gun and half flowers, and then finally have a strip which is simply the background pattern of the flowers. I think this would look great on a wall. It would add something extra to the design instead of simply having it all the same. I also tried this in a few different colour ways to see if it looked as good and to be honest I think it looks great. I still like the purple the best but it would give clients a few more options.

Again its time to love you and leave you... Good night for now. Tomorrow is a big day (setting up for my final show :S gulp, scary) so it's time to get my beauty sleep.

Posting set back

So posting each of these catch ups is taking a lot longer than expected so for now I’m going to have to love you and leave you. I have another post almost ready but I’m going for a family dinner at the moment do you'll have to wait till I get back tonight to find out what it’s about... pop back later to see what more is in store...

Keys

Rght so post number one seemed to go off without a hitch so let’s go for post number 2. After the success of the first multidirectional I tried I thought I would give it another go. I had done some simple drawings of keys using different techniques and decided to use them. I also used the stamp tool as well to add some extra colours. On top of that instead of leaving the background white or overloading the design with motifs I added the kaleidoscope pattern into the background to see what it would look like. I thought it looked great so I left it there.

I again inverted the design once repeated to see what it would look like. Although I like these colours on the shoe design I think for this one the purples are better.

I then went onto the filters and went a bit crazy changing the design around, this is one of my favourites. I used the stained glass tool to make it look more interesting.

I liked a few of the abstracted designs so I thought I would try and combine a few in an interesting way. I liked the way the image above looked with the different cells so I thought I would keep that idea but make them bigger. I really like how you can subtly tell the design continues from one cell to the next, it’s not really obvious till you actually look. I think the plain cells mean the design isn’t too complicated as well which is good. I originally planned to work into this design by hand sewing round sections but I never got round to it, but then I think it looks good as it is anyway.

This is where the chronological order doesn’t work out. I could leave these designs till later to fit in but as I am discussing the key design now I feel it’s appropriate. After the New York trip my project completely changed (ill get to that in more detail later) the colour palette also changed so I had to make some adjustments to some of my original pieces. The key design was one of them. I really like the new colours in the image below; I think it makes it stand out more.

As I liked the way the stained glass looked before I chose to do this again in the new colour palette and I think it looks awesome. As always I inverted the design as well to see what it looks like and I think it looks just as good... let me know your opinion on the designs in the comments below...

This last image is a close up of the inverted key design to show more of the detail. I love the abstract nature of the design, the fact you can still tell it’s keys but it’s not as obvious as it was when it was the normal drawings...

So 2 posts down, I don’t know how many left to go. All I know is we haven’t even made a dint in the list of updates so clear your calendar we’ll be here a while...

Ballet Shoes

So as I said I would be back to catch you all up on what has been going on over the past few months and here I am. Hmmmm where to start where to start, a lot has happened...

I’ll try and keep to chronological order if I can but sometimes that may not be possible. From the beginning I knew I wanted to try and incorporate people’s guilty pleasures into my topic so I tried my own to start with. It’s quite an innocent one but when I was young I never admitted I did ballet, it just wasn’t the cool thing to do. As I grew up I got over this but I always remember telling people I did dance but never explaining any further what I did. As I still attend classes on a Saturday I asked a few of the younger girls if I could get a few pictures of them dancing to use as primary research. One of my favourites was a simple picture of the feet and so started with this image. Instead of drawing it from scratch I tried simply adding oil pastels over a photocopy to add colour and texture. 

I think this image although slightly weird is really cool, I love the colour choice as sometimes when I look at it; it looks like her feet are on fire. I chose to simplify the image even more and trace the lines and texture from the photocopy to see what I got. I thought by not drawing the foot out properly it would make it interesting to look at as it’s simply the tone and shade being used.

From this I decided to try and make a multi directional design with this motif as I thought it was interesting and different. Instead of doing one by hand like we were taught I thought I would try the same techniques on the computer and see how it turned out. The first image is of the shoe motif being layered over itself in different colours using the stamp tool. After that I have added a picture showing what my first multidirectional came out like. Although it isn’t amazing I still really quite like it as it’s abstract. You can sometimes see what the motif is but others it’s not as obvious. I think the colour choice is also interesting because it isn’t the usual baby pink you would expect when thinking ballet, I think it helps abstract the piece more.

As I have said in the past one thing I love to do on Photoshop is to invert all my designs to see what it looks like as different colours so I tried that with this design and strangely found that I really quite like the colour combination that it came out like.

Earlier in my FMP I found the liquefy tool on Photoshop so I decided to give it another go with this design to see that it came out like. Again I think this looks awesome. The motif id completely hidden, it could have started as anything.

I then used this design to make a kaleidoscope looking flip repeat. I think this design looks awesome it’s really detailed but really abstract.

As at the time I was aiming for interior designs I had to change my design slightly to fit into the size restraints for a repeat. This meant picking out a section I like and then simply repeating that instead of the whole piece.

For now that is the first section of the catch up complete. I think if I keep typing away like I did with this post the catch up will take a very long time. O well, I guess I better start organising the next bit... see you again soon...

Long time no see part 2...

I know I said I would come back to posting a while back and didn't hold onto that promise but this time I mean it...

As you can see I’ve started with changing the look of the blog using an image of some of my final fabric's from my FMP (original image shown below) and creating a simple flip design with them to fill the background (goodbye flamingos).

Over the next day or so I will continue to fill you all in with how my FMP actually turned out but for now though, I’m going to leave it here... so I guess it’s taa taa for now...