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WELL - dot grid - randomised - freehand

I like to find different ways to work with patterns, and initially, this weeks challenge pattern "well" was drawing a bit of a creative blank for me when I played around a bit on Tuesday. I gave up pretty quickly, and I don't know, made some yogurt or something. Luckily, Wednesday was a different story, when I sat down to look at it again the ideas started to flow - maybe it was the green juice I had first thing that morning. Whatever, I became convinced that randomising the pattern was the way to go. First step - ditch the line grid and look at the shape of the pattern without it. After that it all fell into place.

As promised in my previous post (where you can see some finished samples), here's my step out, which I hope makes sense.

I have shown each of processes side by side so that there is (maybe?!?) some connection, perhaps giving a bit of insight into how the ideas flowed from one to the other. Or maybe I'm just living in a fantasy world of my own making and none of this makes sense to anyone but me - believe me this is not an unlikely scenario - I happens all too often in my world!

Some tips:
  • in various deconstructions this pattern reminded me of a number of others, but for me to get the shape right I envisaged mi2 when drawing the curves on stage one of the dot grid.
  • when working with random dots - be careful that your dots really are random (it is so easy to unconsciously line them all up) I tend to draw here and there over the page to assist this. When drawing the curves, don't always work from one dot to the closest one - try some awkward combinations to make the pattern more interesting.
  •  for both dot grid and freehand - start the second line (the one that forms the completed "petal") at the point where the two curved lines touch
  • freehand pattern - where possible the circles/curved lines are drawn as a single stroke (i.e. I don't draw the circles first then add the curved line) - it is done in one go. This will give you more natural, fun, exuberant curves.

And, finally..........I normally find nothing whatsoever redeeming in the back of my drawing pages, but as my daughter saw this one and told me how much she liked my butterflies, I thought you might like to see it too. This is the reverse of the colour version of freehand wall that I did on the previous post.
That's it!
hx