Repeating Patterns (M6 Chpt 5)

 I looked at encaustic floor tiles in my last chapter and decided to continue with this theme for chapter 5, this may not have been the best idea as I think it interfered with my creative thought process. However.....

I worked with four different patterns: a) a diagonally meeting tile, b) a tile corner pattern, c) a tessellated pattern, d) two elements of a tile. 

Repeat 1

This is a very simple repeating pattern but the crossing point gave the tile interest:

1) Using an irregular grid, painting in brusho powder. This gave a faintly arabic effect:

2) Using a square grid with pastels and pencil

3) Keeping the pattern but using colour and resist: sorry no working pictures

Pattern 2

This was the corner piece of a medieval encaustic tile.

I painted a sheet of newspaper in black gesso and made numerous repeats of this detail:

The original pattern:

And playing with pattern ideas:

Pattern 3)

Tesselation

I used this pattern first in conjunction with the patterns above, to create a double layer of repeating patterns:

Laying the grid over some of the ideas for activity 2:

I decided to work with  pattern below:

The design transferred and cleaned up:

I forgot to take working pictures: the piece was worked in crayon, brusho and lumitec fine gold paints, dropped into wet brusho:

Second and third pieces for this were worked in black ink on white paper. Firstly alternating squares and secondly rectangles of varying width:

Fourth pattern

Tile details:

I worked two ideas for this piece. Firstly painting on book pages:

Creating a circular pattern. I started this with the notion of a circular stained glass window going round my head. I changed tack after the first go and re thought the idea:

Claire Gordon

26/07/21

Taking a Closer Look (M6 Chpt 4)

 I was worried about finding suitable drawing matter for architectural detail - not sure why really, as I realised fairly quickly there was no end of possibilities. Where possible I have kept to medieval details as my overall subject is medieval King's Lynn. I have completed four pieces or work for this chapter, really owing to time constraints as I would have liked to try out more things and techniques. However the chapter is now done.

Three of the detail pieces use techniques I used before and one tries out a new technique I found by chance in one of Beany and Littlejohn's lovely little pamphlets (expect more where that came from).

Subject one:

Medieval Statue/relief carving Head: Observational and completed coloured piece, in crayon, watercolour and ink. This was a fairy challenging piece to start with and was a logical start given ink had been the subject of the previous chapter.

Subject Two

Column head / decoration. Observational drawing then worked in oil pastel and 6b pencil:

Subject three

Late Medieval embossed leather wallpaper - not of the easiest of things to reproduce especially as I chose watercolour, colouring pencil and pencil. I completed half of this image coloured. However the observational drawing went very well:

Subject 4

Worn medieval encaustic floor tile: I chose a chequered tile for this piece and so an observational drawing isn't really that important. However I used a technique used by Beany and Littlejohn, and used wax crayon distressed with a scalpel and then colour washed with brusho. I think I can fairly honestly say this is the first time I've found a good use for those powders. I'll definitely have another go with this technique.

Claire Gordon

08/07/2021