Ceramics

One of the things that i want to do for my final show is to have some of my designs onto actual products. Ceramics is one thing that i was interested in putting my designs on so i thought it would be best to give it a go beforehand just to check out how easy it was. I bought a few plates and a mug from Wilkinsons and transferred my designs. It is just like those tattoo transfers you used to get as a kid! Once it was onto the ceramics it was put into the kiln to get fired and the transfer was stuck and they turned out like this.

I am really pleased with how they look and it is definitely something i want in my final show. Not only would it look good, i think that it will be a nice reminder of my uni work once i leave.

Ink Splat repeats

These are a few of my intial splat repeats, just so i could see how i was going to arrange them. I like the jumbledness of them and i think this is how i will display them and then put them into a repeat. Also i think the black background for above image is too much, perhaps white or a lighter colour would be best.

Googley eyes

Originally i scanned these googley eyes in so that i could use them to put onto little characters, but i really liked how they looked. So i decided to make them into a repeat just like this (check it out later).

Changing Colours

After putting several of my themes into repeats, i found that even though they had different motifs they all looked fairly similar because of the colours of the thumb prints. So using Photoshop i altered the colours so now i had more to work with. By doing this as well i can focus my work further, so it could either be for boys or girls.

Thumb repeats

I found that the best way to link my images was to seperate them into themes. This made sure i didn't repeat the same motif in my designs and i could add extra animals to those that were a little short. The theme for this repeat was woodland creatures.

Initial Thumb prints

These are some of my initial thumb prints which were done on Illustrator. I scanned in thumb prints and cut them out using Photoshop. I then added their features using the pen tool. I am pleased with how they look. Now i will start putting them into repeats.

Adding more beans

These are a few more of the bean characters that i created so that i had more imagery to work with.

Initial Bean repeat

Once I had done several different beans i thought that i could start putting them into a repeat. This is how they all looked in simple rows as a block repeat. Once i had put the beans into repeats it made me realise that i had nowhere near enough to make a whole collection without repeating the same motif. So my next task is to think of a load more characters ...

Painted Scenes

Thinking about how i could put my beans into some kind of context i started to paint scenes for backgrounds. I choose to paint them because after handing in my dissertation and doing quite a bit of work on the computer i felt that i needed to do something a little bit different. Also i thought that by painting the backgrounds it would add some texture as the colour used on Illustrator is so flat. This is a witch and its cat brewing a potion, did you notice the thumb print spiders?