anika mari

Usually I dive right in and add color to my drawings, but I wanted to get digital scans of the line drawings so I can try out different color combinations. I’m working on a little project for my brother James and his wife Rachel (a few drawings for their daughter’s nursery), and I’m not exactly sure what kind of colors they want to use in the room. I might try my hand at digitally coloring them, but if I have the black and white digital files, I can always print them out and color them with markers, not unlike a coloring book.

I’m still not sure of the direction where I’m taking the drawings. James and Rachel picked out a few drawings of mine that they liked, but it wasn’t clear to me how to make a cohesive group of four images, so I’ve been fleshing out some drawings, and coming up with new ideas.

I worked a little more on the “Heart Flowers” drawing.

I think the little bees are so cute!

I think the stems of the flowers need to be a little longer in proportion to the grass, but I like where it’s heading. The clouds are similar to some of the cloud drawings I’ve been working on (see below), which might work or might not depending on what happens with the other drawings.

From the original clouds drawing, I made the composition more like a landscape, which matches the heart flowers drawing a little better. I used the rain texture from another raincloud drawing.

It seems a little overworked to me, so I next tried a more simplified approach.

I think the rain could be “lightened up” a bit, but I really love the clouds.

With the landscape idea in mind, I tried to figure out another image to draw. The ocean came to mind, and I drew some waves that were inspired by the cloud texture.

The waves on the bottom didn’t leave much room for anything, except for maybe some clouds, which didn’t seem too exciting to me. I thought it would be cute to work in some little fish, so I drew another set of waves, this time toward the top of the paper.

I got in the swing of things after drawing so much, and I came up with a new pattern.

I think it’s really cute, and reminds me of lightning bugs, which would fit in with the nature-theme of the nursery, so maybe there’s a way to work them in? Who knows! Things are still a little scattered, but I’m sure I’ll get there eventually, and I’m having fun doing it!

I’ve been working with pens and markers a lot lately. I drew a blossom (below) that also looks like fluttery wings with a rapidograph pen and used various shades of pink markers to achieve a somewhat translucent effect.

I liked the result and took it a little further by creating another drawing of similar pink blossoms and a drawing of purple blossoms with a slightly different character.

When drawing the purple blossoms, I took notice of the smallest center petals. The overlapping lines of the larger petals created a nice texture that was cut through and contained in an interesting way by the central petals, so I created a version of the blossoms with pen only, leaving the petals white.

I made a few copies of the above image, and cut out the smallest center flowers. Then I arranged them on the scanner bed and tried a few different compositions and backgrounds and came up with the following versions.

In some ways I liked the flowers on a white background because it really put the focus on the texture of the lines, but I also wanted to define the edge of the petals.

Maintaining the same composition of the flowers I tried a gray and then a red background.

I liked the vibrant red background which did the best job at enhancing the effect of the texture of the black lines and the edge of the white petals at the same time. I tried two more compositions on red.

I’m happy with where this is going. I can see painting a canvas in vibrant red acrylic and collaging the flowers on it. I just might do that next.

Now that I’m in my new apartment in Portland, OR, I’ve had the itch to do something creative.  Watercolor seemed like a good medium to explore since my quarters are relatively compact, and I don’t need too much space to paint.

I really wanted to try out my new brushes and paper last night, so even though it was late before I could sit down and paint, I spent an hour on my first watercolor pattern.

Watercolor is one of the few art mediums I’ve never taken a formal class in, so I don’t really know all the “official” techniques.  Never the less, I had a lot of fun painting last night even if I didn’t do it “right”.  I love the feel of the paint brush on the paper, and I enjoy the color variations of watercolor.

I think it turned out reasonably well for my first unplanned attempt.  I’ve been thinking about trying gouache to achieve solid color coverage.  Depending on the pattern, I’d like to combine both traditional water color and gouache for textural contrast.

I’ve been experimenting with pixel patterns and more pixel patterns lately. After completing the last patterns that were traced from an original drawing, I started to think about the various ways that patterns can be created. I’ve been making repeat pattern designs for about a year and a half now. I’ve tried a few different end-results for the patterns including cut outs, the still in-progress wood burning project, and some notecards, but for the most part the process leading up there has been the same:

• draw designs, patterns, ideas in sketch book
• choose one idea and work with it by drawing several versions of the pattern
• if it’s good enough, import it in the computer and trace with illustrator
• then transfer design to make the final product

When I created my first pixel pattern it was a new experience for me that used a different set of steps. I didn’t have any final look in mind, I just opened a small Photoshop file and started making the pattern with little black squares. At the time it reminded me of making cut out paper snowflakes. I was working with only 1/4 of the final shape that would make up the pattern, and when I assembled it, the result was like unfolding the paper, revealing an unexpected and original shape every time. The process was also like sketching in the computer, consolidating the first few step listed above into one, and the end result is something very different than if I’d started out with an actual pen in hand.

Creating a successful pattern with a new technique is what inspired me to try yet another different technique when and idea for a new pattern popped into my head. I could “see” the new pattern in my mind’s eye. I wanted to make a pattern that would be composed of multicolored stripes with organic forms cut out of a solid white overlay. I could have easily taken the familiar route and started sketching some ideas out on graph paper, honing shapes and the composition until I was satisfied, then maybe use markers to try out a few color combinations before scanning a neat sketch and translating the design into a computer format.

The bug of inspiration had bitten, however, so instead I grabbed some scraps of colored paper that I still had from the note cards I made, some white paper and some scissors.

Inspired by the idea of the cut out snowflakes when I was working on the first pixel pattern, I decided to use a variation of the technique to make my “organic white cut out shapes”. I cut up the white paper into rough squares and cut simple shapes from the center corner. In my head I imagined creating beautiful complex many petaled flower shapes, so I was a little disappointed when most of the shapes looked very simple and few-petaled.

Honestly, I was so disappointed in my inability to create the shapes I could see in my head with this cut out method that I almost gave up a couple of times. It was easy and quick enough that I kept on going. I eventually made a few that were a little more interesting looking, and some that were too interesting and way off the mark for the result I was after.

In the end I had a sample of different cut outs that I was satisfied with, simple though they might be.

I arranged the strips of scrap paper together to create a composition of colored stripes, and arranged the cut out shapes over top the colored paper stripes. The finished project includes the white organic cut out shapes and the colored striped background of my original idea, though the final result is quite different from the specific pattern I’d envisioned.

I must admit though, that if I’d used my typical process that starts with the sketchbook, the result probably still would have been different from the initial vision. I find that often happens when I start a design from an idea; the design evolves as I work on it. By trying a new technique using only paper and no pens, the final result was certainly influenced by the nature of the chosen media. It evolved in a different way than it could have if I’d instead started with a pen and paper or paint and canvas or other process.

Despite the early frustration at the limitations I ran into with the cut paper shapes, it was fun to create a pattern in a new way. It’s a good start, and I think this technique is worthy of further exploration.

I tried my first pixel pattern and immediately got the idea to try to use to create a pixel pattern from one I’d designed using pen and paper. Since I’ve been using the cut leaves for a lot of other projects lately, I thought I’d continue the trend.

Just wanting to try it out, I selected one of the squares in the pattern to work from.

I created a new layer on which I could draw over the original, but correct mistakes. I filled in the pixels over the dark area of the pattern. When zoomed in on, there are many variations of gray at the edges of the original image, so to create the pattern only in black and white I used my best judgment to decide where to define the line. Before long I had the job finished.

I tiled it to see how it would work.

Seemed ok to me, but I had wanted to also make another version which would likely have a bolder look, just to try a different technique.

For the first try, I decided which blocks to color in black as I traced, depending on how dark the edge of the line of the original drawing was.

I made the decisions as I went, and sometimes it was rather arbitrary, but I tried to only trace over the parts that were a mid gray or darker.

For the second, bolder version, I colored all the pixels black that were even the slightest bit gray.

In effect this took the decision making out of the process, so if the end result turned out to look better, it would make tracing future patterns more straightforward. However, I’m on the fence about the results.

I’m not sure it looks all that much different from the first version. It’s slightly bolder, but I can’t completely decide which I like better.  When viewed full size the bold slightly wins over the delicate version, but then again, I keep changing my mind one minute to the next. I suppose I’ll have to decide what “rule” to follow for tracing each pattern as I trace it.

I completed a color variation, green on blue, for both the delicate and bold versions.

I think tracing an original drawing was a worthwhile exercise, but I’m not sure if I’d want to use these particular patterns for anything. They are just not quite “it” for me.

I was thinking that the black and white wrought iron pattern sketches that I developed while in Mexico might translate well to a pixel pattern. I’ll have to try that out.