OUAN503 - Feathr, Natural Forms

Of all the patterns I created this was probably the most practical in terms of the amount of time I dedicated to the tile outside Photoshop. I wanted to create something directly inspired and related to the types of natural imagery and various elements of the natural world. I think this is a great source of inspiration because it's so accessible in terms of primary research but in a more design sense it can be interpreted in a variety of ways and applied to almost anything. I'd seen images of trees, mountains, rocks, rivers and glaciers that all got me thinking about a way I could directly relate the types of textures and shapes that occur in these things to a design. I wanted to have complete control over the textures, shapes and colours I was getting as a starting point so I decided to look at ice.

So that I could get a texture I wanted and one that I was able to work with and photograph freely for my work I decided to create a sheet of coloured ice, before smashing it and manufacturing cracks and imperfections that could be then used as a texture - giving me a starting point for my design inspired by the natural world. I took a baking tray and covered it with a thin layer of water. To get the colour I wanted I mixed some gouache paint, specifically green, blue and white in a bottle with some water to dilute the colour further. I then sprayed this sparingly over the thin later of water in the hopes of creating a marbled effect or at the very least a difference in the intensity of colour across the water, giving me further variation to work with if I needed it. Once this was done I left the water to freeze for a few hours, checking it every now and then and occasionally spraying more of the paint onto the surface so that it formed spots of intense colour. After it was completely frozen I smashed the ice at random creating an array of cracks and imperfections in the sheet of ice. At closer inspection I was also able to see crystallisation under the surface that resembled frost. This was an example to me of all the different shapes and textures that I was going to be able to get if I photographed the ice carefully. To expose as much as I could and find a neutral light for the ice, I took a daylight lamp and shone it onto the ice before taking close up photographs, making sure to capture as many of the different elements and textures as I could.

I adjusted the basics of the photograph by increasing the contrast to expose the shadows and specks of light. Once I offset the image I realised that this would also be quite difficult to transform into a seamless repeat. The most difficult part was trying not to make one edge darker or lighter than another, as I wanted it relatively uniform across. Eventually after some tweaking the pattern worked relatively well and I turned to finalising the colours of the tile. After playing around for a while I eventually came across this almost sunburnt pink colour, and I really liked it. Admittedly it doesn't quite reflect what I originally set out to do in creating a link between the pattern and natural forms but I really liked it nonetheless. Overall this specific design was a challenge to myself to find alternative ways of gathering inspiration, materials and resources in order to complete a design and I think the manner to which I attained this was quite successful in terms of completing what I set out to do.