Whilst in Colombia over the summer i started to explore my theme by using my primary photography as inspiration for my watercolours. Upon arrival to the country i already had the idea that i wanted to utilise florals within my work; however, wanted to make them slightly different to just normal floral designs as there already so many on the market. It was when i initially started seeing the range of Orchids that i thought they look like aliens which inspired this theme i have build on. I selected watercolours to portray my theme as this is a medium i have not as of yet utilised when studying at CSAD. When i graduate i want to ensure i can display competence with a range of mediums and styles so wanted to utilise one i have not previously.
To begin each illustration i would start by being inspired by the shape and form of the floral and then try to slightly manipulate this with some alien like features. Unfortunately at this point i had not completed my research so my ideas for how i could manipulate these florals was lacking. Despite this, i wanted to utilise the time i had out there so persisted with each illustration knowing even if they are not perfect they will still be vital experiments for my project.
Having not decided on my colour pallet i wanted to also utilise this book of experiments to explore hues without being restricted. It was at this stage i realised that the blue hues i was using were not appropriate for my girls market as they had a very masculine feel. I am still open to adding a blue hue to my colour pallet; however, this would be much lighter in tone than those i have utilised here. Utilising a softer blue would much better link to my young girls market and also match the other hues in their tone with the rest of my selected colour pallet.
As well as illustrating the florals which will mainly be featured in my hero designs i thought it may also be worth a try to see how i could extract elements from each floral to create a secondary or blender design. At first i started by extracting simple shapes and textures and repeating them across the page. However, after a while i felt these were too simplistic so started to put more thought into how i could make these more appropriate for my alien theme. I have labeled each image to indicate whether i feel it is appropriate for a hero, secondary or blender design to demonstrate this.
Overall despite these illustrations not being perfect as of yet i am so glad i started to experiment with watercolours whilst i was away as not only did it confirm my theme; however, also give me a change to experiment with this medium un restricted by time. With the high level of detail within each image these illustrations do take a long time to complete so they have saved me a lot of time now three weeks into the project. From here i want to start to build on these designs by using them to inspire my next wave of watercolour paintings.
BA Hons Textiles Final Major Project Blog 