Katie Crowther @katiecrowtheryear2 - Tumblr Blog

long way to go

Documenting the process

These are some photographs I took during the process of making my wallpapers, the wallpapers took many, many, many, many hours to complete. The wallpapers are highly detailed to show the complexity and beauty of nature. It was a challenge to work on such a large scale, especially when they were on the wall, working on a different angle.

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Final Piece Photography

This is my final piece, I wanted lots of negative space in the background to make the wallpapers and nature, the focal point. The infinity wall gives a sense of timelessness linking to the ancient world I am depicting in the pieces, the ancient world of nature. The gap in between the wallpapers shows a divide in our relationship with nature, and nature itself, representing how we are destroying nature.

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After seven long months of work, California-based artist Sean Sullivan finished Grand Pale Maw, an expansive drawing that covered the wall of a hallway in

This is an artist working with sharpies and creating large scale works, so it links a lot to my current wallpaper project. I love the detail he adds to his work it makes the mural much more engaging and powerful.

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These 5 sharpie art exercises from Timothy Goodman's book will help get you started on your Sharpie drawing journey.

Using sharpies as the main material to make my wallpapers. This is an ordinary object that is considered boring, much like nature, so I want to change peoples perception of the material and nature.

#timothy goodman #extraordinaryordinary

Forget about the idea that colouring books are for kids. In a busy world, increasingly dominated by time spent in front of screens, grown ups are turning to the soothing art of colouring in. But the books we're talking about are not reminiscent of the freebie colouring sheets handed out at chain restaurants that we remember from our childhoods. These are intricately designed books, some created specifically to help you de-stress and focus the mind.

Colouring in becoming more and more popular with adults

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Returning to Lucille Clerc

Clerc has inspired my nature inspired work as she has a beautiful way of showing natural forms with industrial like materials. She tries to tell a story in her work, and I love her recent work involving video to give her work the illusion it is moving and alive. I am focusing towards her interior work which is large scale, as I want to create a dramatic piece that wont get lost in an exhibition. I want my wallpaper series to be powerful and show the beauty and complexity of nature and try and get people to realise what harm we cause to our planet.

Lucille Clerc was influenced by her home city of Nancy, where art and craft methods have thrived for centuries, she focuses on the wonderful and mysterious world of nature and our effect on it. Lucille uses a simple technique of penciling and brushwork to create highly detailed abstract images. Each of her beautiful hand drawn pieces takes you into a new world of colour, shape and unbelievable detail. I thought this links well to my work as I also love to create detail using traditional techniques, although digital skills are very important for the future and I need to improve my knowledge, I never want to loose my passion for simple crafted methods, I think this project Is a chance to explore and find that balance. Clerc mixes realism with surrealism, the plants and botanical elements that elegantly flow throughout her work look realistic but are immersed in a strange world of industrial materials and gravity defying metropolises. I think this makes something that we consider quite ordinary interesting again. The mix of wild plants and household pipes makes a surprisingly aesthetically pleasing image, I like this juxtaposition as the image is beautiful however to me, it shows a darker meaning, of us ruling over nature and trying to contain or destroy it with our grey cities. This links to my work as I am looking at our relationship with nature.

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Nature Inspired, Art & Interior

“The idea was to explore how nature would look like, in an engineered environment. The installation works as a story, developing on 4 walls over 26 meters of wall paper without repetition. It starts with the cells and a nursery stage where plants grow their roots and it ends in the main area where they are fully grown and full of artificial patterns. When night comes, the projections created by Convivial Studio start to appear. Using mapping, they match my illustrations creating 3d effect and modifying the shapes and patterns of the plants like a surreal garden. They also react to sound and adapt to the time of the day so that whenever you come to see the place, it will always look a little different” (Clerc,2015).

Clerc, L. (2015). Nevergreen Jaguar Shoes Collective. Retrieved from http://lucilleclerc.com/lucilleclerc-jaguarshoes.html.

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Nevergreen from Paul Ferragut on Vimeo.

Mural Inspiration

Lucille Clerc and her large scale installation piece, combining art with interior design to create an amazing show stopping piece.

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Inspiration For Wallpaper: Scale

As I come from one of the most creative cities in the country, Manchester is always an inspiration in some way or another, the diversity and colour of the city is wonderful, and the city has many murals and creative pieces scattered around it. I have always been fascinated with the large murals that people painted on the buildings, around the Northern Quarter there is a massive piece created with spray paint, it depicts two portraits, one of a firey woman and the other of a cold mermaid like woman. The piece is brought to life with everyday objects like colourful bikes screwed to the staircase that gives a sense of scale to this monstrous portraiture. This piece has been in Manchester ever since I can remember, it always has the same impact. So for my self negotiated project where I will be creating a series of wallpapers, scale is key for a dramatic first impression. The purpose of the wallpaper is to show everyday objects can be interesting, as I believe we view nature as an everyday object and sometimes it even seems like we’re bored of it. I also want it to show the beauty of nature by creating an aesthetic piece that links to William Morris’s belief, that we should have only beautiful and useful things in our home, so I want to go against this “fashion” of things being simplistic and machine made for this clinical design people like so much now, I want to bring back a bit of craft and traditional nature inspired art to the exhibition.

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Chosen Photograph Whole Collection

This is the photograph I chose to show the whole collection working together. I used the plinths to give different layers for the products to sit on and give the photograph more room to breath so the image is nice to look at and not overcrowded, as I want the collection to look modern and sophisticated. The white plain backgrounds brings all the attention to the busy and vibrant designs, it puts emphasis on the colours and makes the collection look very lively and playful with a positive feel which links to target market as they are still young and fully of energy.

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Chosen Photographs: Inside Books

I chose two photographs to show the inside of my books as there are a lot of designed pages inside the book but it would be too much to show all of them so I selected the pages I like the most and tried to get a good shot of them. I chose the front cover as this has the flower colouring page and typography next to it to illustrate what the book is for. The text inside the book matches the text that runs through the rest of the collection to tie the elements together. I also chose to spread the book open so it stands on it’s own and shows a few more colouring in pages. This photograph is very angular and has lots of contrasting colours from the brilliant white to the rich black, this looks good when the black and white design is the focal point, the simplicity of the background makes the design stand out which is what this photoshoot was all about.

Context

I was asked to create these books as part of the UK Greeting live brief, I only had to design a cover for one book but I wanted to test my skills of printing and making these products to hopefully help me with my future career goals and placements. I made the inside of the design black and white, this links to my wallpapers I will be creating as they will be monotone because they are colouring in wallpapers. I also made these inside pages of the books interactive and engaging by making them colouring in pages, they have the designs that run throughout the collection but you can design them yourself, this adds a unique selling point to the collection as well as engaging people with nature again which was the purpose of the whole project.

I chose to make colouring in element because throughout my research I have realised how we ignore huge issues such as global warming, endangered species, pollution, deforestation and loss of habitats. I wondered why we did this, and I found a possible answer in Georg Simmel’s theories and essays. He describes how we have a blase attitude towards life which means ignorant and lazy because of our modern cities that have so much information we have to process, there is little room for anything else as we forget we are animals ourselves and not these super beings detached from nature. I interpreted this as why we ignore nature, because we are too overwhelmed by our modern society, so I began to think how I could make people stop, relax and realise our destruction whilst still applying to the UK Greeting brief and considering consumer markets and trends. Colouring in has been a massive trend over the last couple of years, it is the new way to destress and is proven to lower stress levels. This linked well to my collection as it is appropriate for the young audience and adds a creative twist to my designs.

There is also a more symbolic meaning behind colouring in these designs, the notebook is for one person, therefore it is a personal object and is one persons responsibility and property. The colouring in pages are completely up to that one person, they have all the power. This represents how we hold all the power over nature, like the notebook, nature is in our hands and it is up to us, as individuals and a species to protect it. It is our duty to give life back to nature, symbolised by the slow process of colouring in the small parts of nature in the notebook.

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Display Research

These are some photographs that helped inspire me about how to display and photograph my work. The professional images are always bright and clean, this is why I chose a white backdrop and lots of studio lighting. Some composed the stationary in an organised manner whereas other seem to throw it together, I think this is meant to represent the feel and character of the stationary, the simple and sophisticated designs are neatly arranged to appeal to an older audience, where as vibrant cartoon like designs aimed towards a younger audience are loosely laid out giving a sense of life and energy to link to the audience.

Designers also seem to have props to make their designs look like they’re in a real situation, as if this is how organised and perfect your life will be if you buy this stationary collection. I considered adding plants or pencils to my photoshoot but they seemed to make the collection cluttered, instead of add to the botanical effect. My collection is much larger than these in the adverts as they have the ability to pick an choose a select few products whereas I have to display all of my work for this live competition.

I think my design should have a playful feel but also neatly arranged, my audience is young adult females roughly between the ages of 18- 25. This is a tricky market as the designs have to have life and vibrancy for this young market but also a sophisticated feel. This is why I chose to make my photographs simple and bright, so the products have room to breath and the composition isn’t overbearing. However some elements like the notecard are slightly at an angle, and colours are placed together to add contrast and interest to give the collection a laid back and lively feel.

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Chosen Photograph: Book Cover

I chose these photographs because they show the designs of the books and how they link together as a collection. The layout of the pink design surrounded by the red adds contrast and interest, this also shows how the designs are slightly different so people have a choice. I also liked the composition of the bottom photograph, the close up of the corners of the books make an interesting photo and looks more interesting than the straight forward photo’s showing the whole book. I had to involve the whole of the product to show to the UK Greeting’s judges what the products looked like, however I feel like the more creative photo shows how the products advertising photographs would look. The edge of the books also shows an alternative side, the photo is more artistic and avant-garde which links to the young audience I am aiming for.

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Chosen Photograph: Note Cards & Box

This is the final photograph of my boxed note cards, I chose this photograph because I think the layout is more interesting, the shapes of the notecards are very angular and contrast with each other, the flow of the lines creates a rhythm that your eyes move across to view the photograph. I also like the contrast of showing the vibrant busy covers and the plainer insides of the cards that have one subtle flower on. I wanted to show the inside to illustrate how I have considered the inside of the card not just the outside.

The box to the notecards has the most simple and spaced design in the collection, I chose this to calm down the box which contrasts with the explosion of colour and shapes that comes out of the box on the notecards. I liked how this relates to my research into how we try to contain and destroy nature, the calm design with lots of blank space could represent the darkness of our actions, compared to the colour and life when we open to box. The opening of the box is a personal experience done by one person, therefore giving the design which represents nature, a delicate and precious element, there is only one box, much like nature. The nature box is therefore in the hands, quite literally of the one person, representing how we are all responsible of our impact on nature, and as a species, we have nature in our hands.

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Chosen Photograph: Cards & Envelopes

This is the final photograph I chose from my photoshoot of my greeting cards and matching envelopes. I chose this photograph because it shows the colours and design well and also shows the depth of the photo to show the standing envelopes placed behind the matching card.

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Mock Up Of Greeting Collection

This is a mock up I made to visualise the completed greeting collection, I wanted to see what my finished collection would look like and if anything needed to be changed, this was originally going to be sent to the UK Greeting competition but I decided photographs of my products would look much better and show the care and attention that went into making each element. I also thought that the collection would look much more professional if I photographed them, this was I could get different angles and layouts easily.

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Katie Crowther