The process for this design, like my first started with some visual research. I knew I wanted to create quite an abstract pattern on this one and I already had a good idea about how I was going to do it so it was simply a case of getting on with it. Initially I thought that one design for the Feathr brief would be sufficient, but I'm really quite enjoying it so I've decided to see how far I could take it. I've asked people who know more about pattern making than me if it's possible to create a pattern purely from a piece of abstract colours and shapes and I've been told yes, but it's a little more difficult. I'm basing this piece on colour and texture, a combination of the two to create a nice motif and hopefully in turn a nice pattern. I've started in the same place as before looking at an image board make as inspiration and it's given me a lot of insight and quite a lot of ideas about what to do. The first thing I've done here is taken a piece of scrap wood that I found in the wood workshop and use gouache paints to create abstract marks and colours on the wood. I tried to use colours without any real direction and although it's nothing overly complicated I created marks and textured using a mixture of dry brushing, painting and bleeding colours into one another before leaving them to dry. Once this was done and there was a good mixture of different textures and brush strokes to work from I scanned in the piece of wood and altered the colours using the hue, saturation and levels options on Photoshop. In the past I've developed a lot of textural work on Photoshop using custom brush sets and various settings and techniques that are available through the software but I feel like doing it in an analogue way gives a lot more control and overall a much better result, so I'm glad I did it this way as oppose to doing it digitally. Once I was a little happier with the colour scheme I offset the pattern and began adjusting it to create seamless edges. As you can see from the image split into four quadrants that the lines of separation or the edges are very distinct due to the nature of the initial image and the way it was produced. It look a lot more thought and effort than my first attempt but I eventually managed to create a new image still holding onto as much of the initial work as I could, but this time without the edges. It was more difficult than before, and I had to actually paint over various sections and use the stamp tool repeatedly to conceal certain sections. The elements I liked I copied and used elsewhere in the image, so overall I think it still holds true more or less to the original I created. With this image in particular it took a lot of back and forth regarding the pattern itself and spotting certain areas where the connection between tiles could be seen, I eventually got it to a point where the divides between the repeat weren't visible any more and the hardest part of the process was complete.
At this point in the process I wasn't especially happy with the colour, so using all of the techniques to modify and experiment with colour that I've tried and used in the past on Photoshop I altered the image. The best results came from overlaying colours on a separate layer and then modifying the layer properties - 'soft light' and 'pin light' gave the best and most radical results when compared to the original, so I saved these and continued to experiment until I had four different variations of my tile that I was happy with. After one final test of the pattern and it being a success I chose my favourite one of the variations I created ready to submit which can be seen below. What I especially liked about this process up until the final results is the way it was created using thick gouache paint and layered on means that there is now elements of this in the final pattern. I'm please it can be seen as real paint and not something that could have been made exclusively using digital media. Finally, I really liked this way of working and my only regret when creating this design specifically is that I didn't experiment more with creating textures and separate elements that I could of perhaps brought into the tile later on when I was experimenting with it. Nonetheless I'm really pleased with the way the final repeat pattern turned out and also pleased that I managed to create a seamless repeat from an abstract painting, despite the time that it took to get it right.
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