CHAPTER 4: DRAWING PATTERNS FROM ANIMAL MARKINGS

In this section I have selected a few photographs from those collected for each animal I mentioned in the introduction and then copied them in black and white to study further. Selected parts of the photos have been drawn, some after enlargement on the photocopier.

1. Budgerigar: A clear photograph of the bird is shown at the centre bottom of the page. Another view of the back is shown at the top right. The top of the back and the back of the neck have been enlarged and rephotocopied. The drawings show different aspects of these areas. These effects really remind me of pieces of shibori dyed fabric and I am keen to explore this further in Chapter 6.

2. Tiger: I decided to focus mainly on the heads of the tigers as I was intrigued by how the stripes merged into interesting shapes. Three selected photographs (column in the centre of the page) show enlargements of tiger heads from photographs from the Introduction.
The photograph at the bottom is an enlargement of one patterned area in the centre of the head. The drawings show these striped patterns as well as sections around the nose and upper jaw. I also drew the underside of one paw, simplifying the rounded blobs in the picture. Some of these shapes could be interesting to consider for dyeing or embroidery, especially if you wanted to create a bold effect.

3. Ulysses butterfly: Although these butterflies look beautiful in colour, I found them far less appealing as a subject in black and white. The shapes of the wing segments were interesting, but there was too great a contrast between the outer parts of the wings (black/brown) and the inner blue panels (very even, little shade variation) to create much interest in the drawings. In view of these observations I do not plan to take this subject further in the later design exercises because I think it is more suited to a colour project.


Frilled neck lizard: The photo at the top right of the first page shows the lizard in all its glory with its frill raised. This reveals a lot of interesting flecked contrast as well as the different texture on the head and legs of the animal. There were many intriguing sections to draw and lots of possibilities for translating these patterns into embroidery, such as the scales, the frill itself or the texture due to the arrangement of the scales on the head and legs. The second page shows an enlarged side view of the lizard's head, and above it, a further enlargement of the scales on the skin to the left of the jaw, showing their hexagonal shape. The scales around the mouth are distorted and become more like irregular rectangles so that they can pack into the area. The drawings attempt to show some of the different shapes. All of these have possibilities for further work.