That peace of mind and sense of realisation faded within 24 hours.
Inspired, my back shoe.
After a couple of sleepless nights, and constant copying and pasting via Illustrator, I'm slowly starting to remember why I and illustration don't get along. I've been trying my best to come up with a wrapping paper design for the pop-up shop we're having in about a week, and I'm still struggling. Rather than going on and on about it though, I'm just going to insert a bunch of scans of initial sketches and pattern ideas below.
My aim was to stay away from the generic Christmas themed stuff, but that's exactly what I ended up doing - when you can't beat them, join them (because your deadline is in a few hours and let's just face it your having a major creative art block), below is my original sketch and a developed a base pattern I did for a generic route, I also had some final versions but they've disappeared. Moving on, it was a quick project, and I usually prefer quicker projects because it means I don't over think things, however this time around I feel as I haven't had enough time to blink. My aim was to incorporate illustration into the design, but I feel as if it's nowhere near the best I could do... I'll upload pictures of the final thing in the upcoming blog.
I visited Shepherds, a bookbinding store in Victoria, and I saw so many patterns and prints that were stunning, I've inserted some quick pictures I took below. I noticed that a lot of the printmakers there came from a background studying at the Royal College of Arts, I've been there to do printmaking in the past and I loved it. Maybe a Masters in Printmaking would be a fun route to undertake after my degree course at uni... But anyway, seeing the patterns and little prints in Shepherds kind of made my day. I was actually talking to my DPS teacher the other day, and as soon as I mentioned that I'm falling out of love with printmaking she instantly rejected my comment, which I actually appreciated because it's a method and process I've appreciated for a long time of my art and design journey.
Potential Goals for myself - Getting back into printmaking:
- Explore patterns making (start with drawing/sketching and move onto developing them later)
- Buy a new sketchbook dedicated to patterns
- Buy a brush pen for patterns only and dig up fancy fineliner's that were never used for GMD classes.
- Make a new Instagram dedicated to patterns and typography? (Fuse both subject areas together? See how it goes)
- Be inspired by others, do research!
- Be inspired by yourself (me)! Look at old printmaking briefs and experimentations from college, dig out the many A3 sketchbooks to remember what effect printmaking has to a piece of work.