Sketchbook and Research.

A fundamental part of the design cycle is research, this is where idea's and concepts are born and grow into sheet work, improved and changed to create designs. To start off my research in my sketchbook i took advantage of the photos i took during our observational drawing class as the set up included plant's, shells and electrical equipment, which creates a starting point for my research. I drew and painted different parts of the set up i then supported them with photos. To do this i used different media and techniques such as using yarn and crunching my paper up to create a more 3D and textured effect.

From the start of this project i knew i wanted to focus on nature theme as it is more appealing to me than the man made theme, you can clearly see this throughout my sketchbook. I used many different medias to create my sketchbook, my favorite was watercolour as i like the transparent effect it leaves when it dries, it means i can layer it up and use collage as well which looks really good. My sketchbook includes primary and secondary research, pictures off pinterest and pictures i have taken my self. I also included leaves and feathers in my sketchbook.

I found this interesting and artistic picture off of pinterest of a peacock feather and i thought it would be really nice to recreate it on a bigger scale, i did this by using gouache. It goes very well with my nature theme. My goal for my sketchbook was for it to be very textured and for when people look through it they would want to feel  the pages. This page was defiantly successful at this because of the thick paint. 

These were the first pages i did which included insects, as soon as i had created these pages i knew i wanted to take the theme of insects further and maybe even into my final piece. Even though i had only done a few pages in my sketchbook i had created a lot of pages layered up, this one for example i had done a page with butterflies on and i did not like it, so i used tracing paper to trace insects onto and layered it on top of the page with the butterflies on that i did not like and i thought it looked really good. I carried on doing this on a lot of my pages in my sketchbook. I also did it with plastic wallets layered on top and drawing on top of them, that looks really good too.

I then looked at more man made objects such as stained glass windows, but keeping the natural theme i looked at stained glass with natural patterns on. I found this poppy one, i recreated it using fabric pens, fine liner and water and organza. After i did that i felt it looked a bit flat this is where the use off dots came into my work. This also carried on through my sketchbook.

I then went onto looking at tiles as these are also man made and i found it interesting as the different tiles i looked at were very different dependent on what culture they come from. This on the left was my favourite, i extended the pattern, and used water colours to add some colours similar to the colours of the tile.

As you can see on these pages i looked into tile patterns with flowers on and i also drew my own pattern on a tile which is stuck into my sketchbook.
As my sketchbook has lots of pages (like 250!) i could not show you all my work. My sketchbook also contains much more research, both primary and secondary. It also contains specialist artist research to support the techniques i have been learning in class such as wet felting, knitting and on the looms. As the final piece is a meter of wallpaper i also did some wallpaper research and got some samples and did a bit of colour theory in the back of my sketchbook to support the colours i have been using mostly in my work.
In conclusion to the start of this project i am enjoying it much more than the last project as i feel like i understand the design cycle more and i have more of an idea of what it expected from me this gives me more independence to work without instructions.