July 2, 2013

I finally chose a final design. I have uploaded it to Spoonflower here is the link.

http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/2201188

Picnic Pigeons - image 1 - student project

I enjoyed the class alot. It was fun seeing all the different concepts everyone else developed for the Picnic theme also. I wish I would have been able to spend more time on the project and each individual lesson, but summer is a really busy time at my job. I am happy with the final (although I wish I could have done more) and I really learned alot during the course and learning how to navigate CS6, Thank you Majo.

This is a link to the other version I uploded to the Spoonflower site. It's only slightly different then the one I entered in the contest.

http://www.spoonflower.com/designs/2201292

Pigeon Picnic

Picnic Pigeons - image 2 - student project

June 29, 2013

Sometimes it's easy to become fixated on an original idea and how to make it look as good in your head as it does on the screen. With a little help from Majo I got away from the square and started trying out some different ideas. Here are a few of the pattern experiments I worked on over the course of the week when I could. I believe I have narrowed it down enough to pick so I can complete the project by tuesday.

I added leaves that I made in the begining of the course and played with the size in the first two Picnic Pigeons - image 3 - student project

Picnic Pigeons - image 4 - student project

Tossed 1first attempt with ketchup bottles

Picnic Pigeons - image 5 - student project

Tossed 2

Picnic Pigeons - image 6 - student project

I altered a flower I made in the begining of the course and colored it red then added it to the pattern to see how it would look.

Picnic Pigeons - image 7 - student project

I have a few more but I am still working on them hoping to finish things up by tuesday.

Project 5

I didn't want to get behind on the work so I begin the class using CS4 while I waited to get my Adobe Creative Cloud account straightened out. Once I had CS6 I went back and kind of played with things from the previous lessons to familiarize myself with the new environment...

Picnic Pigeons - image 8 - student project

This is a sample of me playing with textures but I hated the final full result.

By Friday I was still only in the early stages of Project 5 these are a few of the samples I created.

Picnic Pigeons - image 9 - student project

In this one I kept the pigeons guarding the ketchup bottle on all for sides of the focal diamond, but didn't really like the result.

Picnic Pigeons - image 10 - student project

Next I tried the pattern with one set of pigeons guarding the ketchup and liked the result a little more than the previous.

Picnic Pigeons - image 11 - student project

This is the second version of the one above with only the ketchup bottles

Picnic Pigeons - image 12 - student project

Diamond

Picnic Pigeons - image 13 - student project

Small red diamond in center

Currently I am trying to play around with changing colors and possibly adding texture to the background although I haven't come up with anything I like yet. So I am still working on this at the moment but here's what I was playing with Saturday.

Picnic Pigeons - image 14 - student project

Wanted to see what the red would look like up against a pink background so I just quickly arranged only the pigeons guarding the ketchup to see what it would look like.

Picnic Pigeons - image 15 - student project

Working on a blue version

I am hoping by tomorrow night to have worked on enough samples I can narrow it down to a few I actually like with a nice look and a comical feel so I can move on to the next project.

Project 4

Picnic Pigeons - image 16 - student project

Arrangement 1

Picnic Pigeons - image 17 - student project

Arrangement 2

Picnic Pigeons - image 18 - student project

Arrangement 2 with floral boarder

Picnic Pigeons - image 19 - student project

Red and White

Picnic Pigeons - image 20 - student project

Picnic Pigeons - image 21 - student project

Ketchup Bottles

Picnic Pigeons - image 22 - student project

I am still in the process of playing around with the colors. I am trying to decide whether I want to keep everything bright and colorful or if I want to change everything to white and reds like the colors of a picnic blanket.

Project 2

Picnic Pigeons - image 23 - student project

In this part of the project I made it a point to take another look at my brain map so I could really narrow down what kind of things I would like to experiment with in illustrator. In Illustrator I played around creating different shapes, flowers, elements and ideas for how I was going to bring my whole project together in relation to my sketch and concept. I did this by using shape builder, creating brushes, playing around with different strokes, etc....This part seemed like it took forever but it was fun.

Project 1

Picnic Pigeons - image 24 - student project

I joined the class after the start date so I am a little behind but will do my best to catch up by the end of the week.

I thought I had a pretty good idea about what I wanted to do before I started the class, since I am currently doing a Study on Ants with my students at work. But, once I watched the videos on how to develop a design concept through the usage of words and brain mapping all that changed –– for the better I must say. The exercise really allowed me to explore different ideas, memories and expand on the picnic theme.

I started by writing a few lines describing how a picnic makes me feel and from there I began my thought map. I broke it down into words, picnic food, places where picnics take place, holidays where people are more likely to go on a picnic and things in the natural environment at a picnic. I even came up with the idea to do a pattern in either a Rococo/Baroque or Turkish pattern style.

Moodboard:

http://pinterest.com/brnd23/picnic-pigeons/

While mapping I remembered a 4th of July picnic where a pigeon tried to bully me out of a hotdog. So I wanted to tie this memory together in a nice and funny design. Once I was fixed on the story I started to sketch out different kinds of pigeons, then fireworks and hotdogs etc... While doing fireworks I decided I should move away from the literal fireworks and work on an explosion of flowers to represent fireworks. The sketches below were my final attempts at bringing all these elements together in a final concept.

Picnic Pigeons - image 25 - student project

Picnic Pigeons - image 26 - student project

B Little

8

26