Thursday 20th September - Pathways

The first thing that I did was print off photos from the museum in Blackburn. I had to pay a second visit as when we went the first time, I didnt have my camera and the camera on my phone isn't very good.
I did some artists research after this. I started by looking at an artist called Sonya Suhariyan.

 

 

To be precise, she is an illustrator. Her illustrations initially start as hand drawings, and then are finished up in Photoshop for a few final details.
I wasn't really interested in this field, but when I saw her work, I wanted to give it a go. I stumbled upon her whilst I was flicking through one of Jo's books. In her illustrations, she includes lots of floral designs and patterns, and this links in perfectly with my theme for the museum project, but I don't want it to just stop there. I want this theme to flow through into other units, because I think that this way, I can explore different ideas and techniques. I can have one starting point e.g. an image and then I can take it into different areas such as printmaking, visual communications, textiles etc.
Whilst I was looking at Suhariyan's work, I happened to stumble upon the work of Catalina Estrada, who is also an illustrator. Catalina brings all the colors and power of Latin-American folklore and refines it with a subtle touch of European sophistication. Her ability for creating fascinating illusive worlds, full of colors, nature, and enchanting characters, bursts in all of her works.

 

When I first started researching artists, I didn't think I would be researching illustrators or be looking into design, but I just happened to stumble upon these artists, and I'm glad I did!
So, after and still looking at Catalina's work, I have noticed that she uses a lot of repeated and geometric patterns in her work. Perhaps the next thing that I need to research is this. Whilst I'm on the topic of geometric patterns, I saw some at the Blackburn museum and also at the Walker gallery. At the Blackburn museum/gallery, I saw the patterns in the Hart Gallery, which consists of books, and the books that I saw them in were the Quran, which were written and illustrated in liquid gold, so they are really precious. I want to tie all these things together, and by looking at these artist's work, it will help me to achieve this.
I feel that perhaps I may be moving away from the original idea that I started off from which was repeated patterns and sacred texts from holy books. When I was looking through some illustration books, and I saw this artist's work, I felt drawn towards it and the urge to do something about it was empowering. I think I probably will do some illustration. This will also help with my drawing skills as I would like to develop these as I think that they are limited as I haven't really done drawing where I felt that I have enjoyed it or the end result was pleasing.