Module 2: Pattern, Tone and Proportion

Well I have finally got to the stage where I can start posting my work for Module 2! I am aiming to get to the end of it by the end of this year (2009), so we will see how I go.

Introduction

I had decided to focus on patterns in the skin or feathers of Australian animals for this module. But then I had a holiday in Thailand and had the opportunity to get close to some tigers, so I just had to add the tiger to my list of animals for study. The Australian creatures I selected were the budgerigar, the frilled neck lizard and the Ulysses butterfly. A selection of photos and some word associations are shown here. Drawings derived from this collection are included in Chapter 4.




I like the budgerigar because the rings around its neck and the markings on its wings remind me a lot of the sort of effects you can obtain with dyeing techniques such as Shibori. The skin of the frilled neck lizard is more motley; again this could be achieved with some dyeing techniques, especially using discharge approaches. The lizard's frill is superb and could lend itself to a 3-D design (perhaps combined with Shibori). The butterfly wings are interesting because of the bold areas of colour and the clear patterns in the wings. The lines could be reproduced with some printing techniques. However, at this stage of the module it is probably the one that I am least attracted to for a black and white study - I think it is the superb blue colour which really draws me to this one. I love the boldness of the tiger patterns and the interesting shapes that are found, especially on the heads of the tigers.



Chapter 1: The Study of Tone
Tonal Columns: Different types of marks were made with a variety of pens, crayons, pastels, paper and fabric, arranged to show a tonal progression from black at the top to white at the bottom of each column.




1: 0.5mm Uniball pen
2: Fine Eye Uniball pen
3: 0.8mm Uniball pen
4: 0.6mm Artline felt tipped pen
5: Oil pastel
6: Water soluble painting crayon rubbed in a circular motion and then painted with water
7: Pieces of cut/torn newspaper. Note the pictures of textured surfaces that have been incorporated to help achieve tonal change.
8: Indian ink dots created with a satay stick.
9: Patterned fabrics photocopied and arranged to reflect tonal progression.
10: Example of a black and white patterned fabric where changes of tone have been achieved by varying the distance between lines. This was a gift from Robin Kaltenbach,a member of my embroidery group in Australia.





Addendum
After assessment by my tutur I was encouraged to make a few tonal columns using wet media. Here are some examples using ink blobs dripped from a syringe and allowed to run down the page.