Progress: Geos and my Pattern Camp collection

Hello!

What a busy week it's been. I've been working on some more new techniques this week in an attempt to get my work to look more hand drawn. Don't get me wrong, I love very clean, smooth vectors and make plenty of patterns in that style but I also love to paint and scribble and I wish I could get that look in my Ai repeats. So here what I've been doing...


I did some geometric collage and paint pieces and started exploring different ways to bring them into Ai. I played with layers to try and emulate a watercolour style. 

Playing with the blob brush in Ai.

Manual tracing, drawing and layering it up...

More experiments...

I really like these soft edges...

I completed the patterns I started on Pattern Camp. I also did some more research and sketching for some further patterns for the collection.

Love this but have since tweaked the flower slightly...

Did this...

Then changed it to this! Decided it looks more interesting like this!

This was the first thing I developed on Pattern Camp. I've edited it a few times but think it's done now.

Started doodling some more motifs for this collection.

I did some scanning and tracing experiments with Ps and Ai and really loved the results.

My January Bootcamp stuff much improved! 

I also drew some Christmas baubles, danced to a lot of cheesy pop music and took this little cutie out running and walking a lot.

My lovely little Border Collie Jip

Have a great weekend,
Frankie x

Play: Collage

I've been playing around a lot more in my sketchbook recently. It reminds me of my art foundation year which was my favourite year in education. It was a time for experimenting, playfulness and intensive learning. It's easy to forget how to play around when you are under pressure to make lots of finished, polished work. Recently I started to 'play' for at least half an hour every morning. I do it before I switch my computer on or look at my to do list. It's great preparation for the day and puts me in the right frame of mind to be creative. I can make mistakes and be less precious about things and I've often been surprised by the results. 

For this collage play I used magazine scraps which I chose based on colour and texture. I love the aubergine and mustard colour combo I found in a magazine. This is also a great way of exploring new palettes. 

I added simple geometric shapes with Derwent Inktense Pencils, gouache paint and marker pens and threw some turquoise and jade into the mix. 

I can already see how I could use these pages to create a geo pattern collection and can't wait to scan it in. It will be easy to separate the motifs out in Photoshop and play with different combinations. 

I'll post some of my work in progress later this week!
Frankie x