Unit 5: Pattern Theory

March 5: To understand pattern. I had to learn how to do it and how it was made. Therefore, I learnt the theory of patterns.

Before I started making my own patterns, I first researched on different artists who made their own designs and patterns in Graphics and Illustration. My classmates and I analysed what was happening in their work which was printed and handed out to us.

We researched about Liberty which had large repeat patterns. They were also made to be flat and 2D. It was inspired by their English Heritage. This included many floral patterns. There is a variety of different patterns going on in there. There are also big motifs which are balanced out by the small ones. This doesn’t overpower the artwork at all. It doesn’t have much much emphasis but it does have balance which doesn’t overwhelm a person when they see this. In fact, it looks a pleasing to the eye. The artist used complimentary colours like red and green. They also used red, yellow and orange that makes it insipid.

Mouni Feddag’s patterns had something different compared to Liberty and that was texture. His work is also more abstract. Abstract in the sense where his designs are more simplistic. If we compared his artwork to a real life object, they would look completely different however, we do know that his designs are modelled after flowers and nature as it has petals and leaves on them. There are brush marks on this to create the type of texture. Another interesting this to this is that he has contrasts in this work. He used dark blue to create the deeper tones. He even used the colour indigo to help him create more of an effect by exciting his artwork than using just one colour. For the lighter contrasts, he used yellow and left the background white to not overpower his designs. There were many small motifs in his work. In comparison to Liberty, this has no large motifs. You would think that this is not good however, Feddag managed to balance this out using contrasts which was very smart.

We then moved onto Ona Honour. She used colours that related to each other which was an interesting concept which worked well together I thought. There is a limited colour palette onto this as she wanted to emphasise on her patterns. Instead of repeating motifs, she used lines to create blocks. This helped her create light and dark tones onto her designs. She even shaded the areas where there were shadows on the flowers. Her designs are very geometrical as she used different shapes to help her create this. In a way, its very detailed and I am amazed by the time and effort she put into this design. Honour arranged it in a random order. She did her designs with careful lines. But before she should ink it down with her pen, she pencilled her designs first. This just proves how much she actually cared about the details. There are lots of negative space which looks minimalistic.

This was very interesting at Helen Dardik’s work appears very childlike. It was nothing like the previous designs I analysed. Dardik appears to have used many lines, dots and dashes to create her work. Again, like the previous designs by the artists, this appears to have been abstract. People when they look at it, might not be able to tell what kind of flower she was inspired by. Maybe she created a new type of flower on the top of her head. The point is, she made it look interesting. With so many motifs of different sizes, there’s little room for any negative space as everything is filled up. SHe even used a variety of colour. There are about 8+ colours she used here and everything is very well balanced. This could not have been an easy task to do but she made it work.

The last artist we researched was Sue Jean Ko. She is a Korean artist who focuses on childlike designs. As can be seen with this, she did this digitally. Compared to Dardik’s work, this has lots of room for negative space. It’s naive and simplicity brings attention to children. She got really creative with this as she selected her motif and dragged it out of the background. She even made the background and her motif overlap each other, adding layers to where she dragged it out. I can make out the shapes of the design. It was very easy to interpret as she drew out hearts, plants and flowers. Another thing that was interesting is that she put a face on the flower where the eyes of the plant were also dragged out and it overlapped with this pink petals. The blue of the eyes and the pink of the petals turned the area where they overlapped each other became purple in colour. This had more room in but it didn’t feel that empty as the big plant in the middle filled the whole thing along with the smaller motifs around it.

The artist research made it clearer what I was to do. We were also asked to research about artist Bridget Riley which was an eye opener for me I feel. Her patterns played tricks on the mind which was baffling to me. The brain cannot interpret many continuous patterns as it is too much and confuses the brain. The fact that she could do this without confusing her own self is amazing. We did not only do this in Textiles. We also learnt different repeat patterns.

This was poorly done as this was just a practice. Next time I promise I will do better in my designs. However, I felt that this was a learning process as I was learning about the different patterns I can make with my design. I was just testing the waters to see if it worked out well or not. I kept it simple as I had to draw lots in Textiles. I learnt about block repeats, brick repeats, drop repeats, stripe repeats, dot repeats and check repeats. I managed do a few repeats on my own and that was Positive Negative repeats, Check repeats, Dot repeats, Rotation repeat, Brick/Half brick repeat and Block repeat. I used secondary research as well as primary for my designs. I even did some based on my own imagination which did not necessarily turn out alright.

Overall, I felt that this lesson greatly helped me understand the theory about patterns and how artists created their artwork. With this, I’ll be able to apply this on my next assignment. I didn’t necessarily do a good job with all the work I did however, I would like to think this as a learning process which I will greatly improve on with a bit of time and practice.