OUGD405 | Studio Brief 01 - Rocks and Gems

I had had difficulty with drawing or tracing gems on illustrator as the patterns and shapes are very complicated. I was going to photograph some gems but I do not have suitable camera.
I overheard some students talking about live tracing, so I taught myself to do this out of interest and I felt that this could be applied to the rocks and gems. I took some photos of pinterest and google images as an experiment and I came up with the designs above. I like the result - but I feel like I didn't really do any work to get the designs. I plan to continue these experiments with gems and see where I end up!

OUGD405 | Studio brief 1 - Space textures and triangles.

As I was inspired my the outer space texture from Pinterest, I wanted to bring this into my own designs. Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to take photographs of outer space so to keep my work as original as possible, I began to create my own texture on photoshop. I used the colours from the original space artwork I found as inspiration.  To create the texture, I simply used the default brushes in photoshop. I adjusted the settings including the mode, size, opacity and colour. I then finished off this with the starlike brush to give the space effect. 

 I then brought this into illustrator and cut out an organised triangle design. To to this I originally created a simple line triangle and copied and pasted this across the whole image...

I then used this as a template and filled these in with white block triangles. I repeated this with the upright and upside down triangles within the pattern. Sometimes I would misplace a triangle and a strip of the image underneath would be visible. I left some of these lines visible as it added an area of interest to the design. 

As a brief test, I added the words photo frame so that I could imagine what this design could look like in practice. I took away a line of triangles so that the text was readable. I only used an outline for the text as I felt this makes the design a bit more quirky and would therefore appeal to younger audiences. 

After getting some feedback from students, one suggested that I add an area of blue to the design as this would achieve more of a  space effect. After doing so, the design really improved. I prefer the variety of colours and the deeper blues make the design feel more realistic.  I tested this new design with all the variations - 

OUGD405 | Studio brief 01 - 3D experiments

I was inspired by some designs I found in my research constructed with 3D paper shapes so I began to experiment with making basic 3D paper triangles. At first I tried to create triangles by trial and error as there were no tutorials online for 3D triangles, only flat shaped triangles. This proved difficult and it took me a while to establish any suitable shape. Another student showed me how to make a 4 pointed star shape, together we developed this into a triangle by pushing one of the points into the shape. I created a few triangles of different sizes and photographed these in a variety of positions. At this point, I was unsure what I was going to use the triangles for so I tried not to limit myself too much with the photographs...

I then very roughly used paperclips and string to hang my triangles on to the wall to achieve different angles and a new composition. I tried to photograph this in different angles to achieve a variety of shadows. 

I then briefly took a random photo from my experiments into illustrator and traced the shapes of the triangles. I was pleased with the way the paper was folded to create the shape as this produced triangular creases. At first I went over the triangles roughly with the pencil tool. I took screen shots of the design with and without the photo to see how the lines looked. 

I then used the straight line tool to create a neater, more organised illustration. I feel that this would be more appropriate for my frame design as I would like it to appear crisp and professional. Again, I took screenshots with and without the photo. 

I repeated this experiment with another random photo from my hanging triangles. I really liked the alignment of the triangles in this photo and I feel that the lines without the photo creates an interesting illustration. I am considering using the shapes created from these photos and filling them with a variety of textures. 

OUGD405 | Studio Brief 01 - Experiments with texture

Because many of the work that interested me consisted of textures, I began to photograph textures around my flat and the studio. The quality of my camera is poor and it often struggles to focus, but I tried to use this to my advantage and create more textures with this fault. Although I was trying to find a variety of textures to experiment with, I focussed mainly on finding textures with an 'outer space' feel , similar to one of the illustrations I found on Pinterest. Below are the photographs I took...

As a starting point, I took one of the textures and used the image adjustments to play around with the colours. I wanted to make the colours pretty bright to reflect the colours of space, or perhaps the vibrant colours found in precious stones. 

I then worked with this texture in two different ways. At first, I placed the edited texture into illustrator and draw random white lines, forming triangles, over the image. This was a similar style I saw in my research. I then took this into photoshop and deleted outside of the outlines I had created. I feel that the result is good and with some development it could be really successful. I dislike how the shape created seems to look like an animal such as a dog. 

I zoomed out to see what the image looked like from a different perspective and I discovered that the shapes seemed to look better on a smaller scale. So, to quickly test this, I copied the pattern and rotated/skewed it to fill the page. The design does not look good as a finished piece but it has given me a good idea of what the design will look like with smaller triangles. This is something that I would like to develop. 

My next experiment consisted of creating a large pattern of overlaid polygons in illustrator. This created a geometric triangular pattern. I then transferred this to photoshop and took triangles from the edited textures and laid this underneath the pattern. I initially planned to fill the whole design but this was becoming time consuming. 

\

I made the pattern invisible to see which effect looked best. I was pleased with the result despite the whole design not being filled in. I added one larger triangle in the design to add an area of interest and contrast. To further imagine this as a product, I placed the words photo frame in arial bold as this was what the font was set to at the time. I felt that this font worked well with the triangular design. I used a darker teal so that the text was readable but was consistent with the colours of the pattern. 

Because of the grainy textures created by the bad quality camera, I do not feel that these patterns would work on a larger scale. However, large scale is not a requirement of the brief. 

OUGD405 | Studio brief 1 - Further Research & Inspiration

I later found this image of geometric animals grouped into themes, including a sea theme which is perfect research for me. The artist explained their work-
"This style is based on distribution of proportions of the simplified geometric shapes and on emphasising this shapes with colour . I distinct visual demand for shape and color , as these are two properties perceived separately from each other . Colour conveys the emotion, and the proportion and shape play a functional role in the understanding of the image. "

There were so many geometric images I was coming across that inspired me. Here are just a few. It seems to be that most of the geometric images I am interested in are constructed with triangles so perhaps this is the shape I should use. 

I love the complexity of the triangular shapes covering the sky. Again there are thicker dots at the points where the lines join, similar to the artwork in a previous post. I love the tone of colours used on the image and the effect used to overlay the triangles over the photo. 

Nature is a great source of inspiration and this representation of a feather has been beautifully constructed with triangular forms. I am looking to see what other natural forms I could use in my backing paper design. Many of the backgrounds for these illustrations have been inspiring me too. For example, this image is made far more interesting by the textured paper background, rather than plain white.

Creating pattern within shape is another route that I could consider. This design is uniform and structured but it does not lack interest. There are different tones of grey and black which direct the eye around the image. 

I find outer space images and photography fascinating due to the vibrant colours and textures created by the forms. This piece in particular caught my eye as this is brought into my theme with white outlined triangles separating the image into sections. I feel that the white outline works better than a black outline as it does not draw any attention away from the beautiful photograph behind. The way the triangles have been drawn gives a 3D look. 

This is similar to the previous circle design, consisting of shapes filled with pattern. However this pattern is a bit more wobbly and disorganised, but it works. The triangles all overlap each other and I like the density of the patterns. 

Here is a good example of geometry in nature. The jagged edges on rocks and minerals create the perfect pattern for this brief. I am inspired by the perfection in nature which is difficult for humans to create. Less is more in this image and I would definitely like to consider only using simple lines.  

This image led me to search for more mineral images and artwork. I found this beautiful piece below by Karina Eibatova. The colours are stunning and the pastel texture softens these. The pale background brings out these colours and shapes. The colours of minerals are really inspiring as they are always so vibrant. 

Here are some beautiful examples of colourful rocks, minerals and gems: 

I found another crystal illustration by Marija Nabernik. Although this illustration isn't as colourful, it still shows the beauty of these natural forms. There are blue and grey hues which combined with the texture of the pencil create a really realistic drawing. I know my drawing skills are not as good as this but I feel that this artist can help me identify the shapes within these precious stones. 

Here is a combination of both triangles and circles. The triangles combine together to create a 3D effect. I love the textural background and the simplicity of using only two colours. The text seems a bit to fine to be readable but this fineness is effective in the shape illustration. 

The contrast in this image between the two triangles is effective. One hosts a single block colour whereas the other contains a detailed line drawn illustration. The texture on the block colour is consistent with the background and this brings the image together. I like how only one colour is needed to add interest to the image. 

This is potentially the most simplistic artwork I came across. It consists of only black and an off white. Texture is used again on the black triangle and the off white lines separate this into pieces. I plan to experiment with complexity to see which is more successful. 

This image was similar to the other illustrations I found but took a different approach. A vivid and vibrant image layers the background and this is cover with much thicker geometric lines and forms. I like the effect of over editing the photograph and bringing out the bright colours within this.