Much more than just abstract patterns...
It has been a very funny journey...I've learned many things i didn't know and I really enjoyed all the process, from the beginning to the end.
I loved experimenting with mark making. After a start experimenting with the mark suggestions indicated by Evgeniya, I found myself more and more attracted by the more spontaneous ones... I mean the marks you can't control too much, so you don't know exactly how they will look. For example: dripping paint.
Here some examples with acrylic and ink:
These are the ones I picked up for continuing the project. Even if these were meant to be abstracted patterns, the curved ones made me think immediately about fishes. So I scaled the curved marks for trying the fins...even if at the end I discarded them in favour of the simplest marks (even for keeping abstraction). And i discarded even the dripping marks as I didn't like the result in the pattern version.
I first made the patterns with the marks chosen and then, developing the project, I stayed connected with the fishes idea...playing with it!
Making patterns, I made the first variations experimenting with solid and non solid marks for the continuous lines.
Instead of using these patterns just to fill the whole artboard, I preferred to use them for filling a shape or, like in the second example below, I played with both patterns together, using the one with the continuous solid marks as a "background", and the one with the continuous non-solid marks in the filled shape....as if the shape was "animating" the dead, grey and solid background, giving it life, colour and movement.
I still needed a touch of dynamism so I made some marks escape from the pattern .... or, as my cat suggested, I made some fishes escape :)
Then I made some more variations with the colours and the shape filled with the pattern.
Having still my cat around, I couldn't get out of this fishes idea, so I took inspiration from a tropical seascape for the choice of colour variations. And for the shape I thought about water.
Even if my cat pushed to be involved in the new variations, I kept her away just for trying something new. So I added the image of a woman, top view in order to play with the perspective and to emphasise the depth. (Surely the image of the woman could be worked better but Photoshop is almost new to me, so I was already happy I had been able to cut the woman out from the background!!).
Then I wanted to try to apply the pattern to a mock up....I saw many of them: bags, mugs,... but nothing convinced me, until i saw this one.... Anyway I couldn't help but still think about the fishes...
....but this time the fishes are freeee!!!
Thanks for the course!! Really appreciated and enjoyed it!!!
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MORE EXPERIMENTS
- Just wavy patterns: I started from just the circle and white background and then, keeping only the wavy pattern, I played with the background too.
- Wavy pattern on flip flop
(mock up taken from Freepic created by zlatko_plamenov)
- Very first patterns on their own and applied on flip flop
(mock up taken from Freepic created by zlatko_plamenov)
- The new experiments
I've made some experimentations with patterns and old black and white photos. I found a beautiful photo which served me right for this kind of approach. I love the feel!