Wed 17.04.13

Today I did some drawing and began to develop the elements within my initial designs into some more developed ideas and motifs. I did my drawings using my existing designs, my inspiration book and my observational drawing book for reference.  I used the drawing of the little man which I used in one of my initial design drawings and took inspiration from the figures in Twin Seven Sevens paintings. I began at the corner of an A2 page but also I expanded my drawing outwards, this time it begin to take on a more linear shape and it is now beginning to look like a long strip of pattern. I am happy with the look of the design so far, using the man as my central focus, I have repeated this image, but each man is slightly different in facial expression, clothes and position, which I think gives a nice flow to the composition and adds character. My friend likened the style to children’s illustration and I think that this is true to some extent, but I am wary of going too far in this direction as I would like my later designs to look quite sophisticated rather than appeal more to children.

I have also started to develop my own kind of style of drawing which is influenced by the cultures I have looked at, but also has my own stamp on it. My figures are very round and squat and I have exaggerated this further by the curving positions that they are in. I have drawn the facial features in a way similar to how faces come out when I draw using continuous line and the nose and eyes are interlinked, with the eyes being very large and prominent. I am happy that I have begun to develop a style that I feel comfortable with and I think that this will help tie together all my developmental work. At the end of the day I had one almost complete strip of pattern, I was planning to expand my design across the whole A2 page and use a real collage of different elements and motifs (like a larger version of my initial drawings) but I am now thinking about filling the page with two more strips of pattern and within each focussing on a repeated character, such as the man in my first design. I will continue this work on Friday as tomorrow I am going to focus on re-writing my project proposal to hand in for the end of the week.