Pattern Making

Why?

I have always used sketchbooks as a starting point to larger works, as a diary and organiser of ideas. When anxious, distracted, overwhelmed, I doodle. Sometimes this appears as squiggles, chequers, swirls, drips, sometimes with intertwining text, an organic and often mindless process. When questioning why these materialise, I see them as a continuous line of thought, similar to my overheard conversations or monologue, the line ongoing and changing.

Elongated and Cactus-like

This patterns fills the pages well, consuming the space and creating a satisfying interconnectedness of line.

Continuous Swirls

This doddle is most common in my work, it is what comes most organically and on reflection, seems to reflect the appearance of brain matter - the intricate swirls of soft tissue. When involved with confessional language this presents itself as an exposure of the inner self.

Fractured and Incomplete

How do these differ? They apear wisps of ideas or changing between thoughts, restless and unfinished drawings.

Adding physicality to the lines

As well as layering language and pattern together, I want the lines to have a physicality to them in order to add depth and complexity. These are two experimentations, first drawing each side of line to expand it, then adding colour and shading to make it more 3-dimensional. That led to these quick studies where I painted these swirls immediatly onto the page with thick paint:

Painting onto the paper caused the page to distort, adding a further element of depth. I like this appearance of immediacy and imperfection, whilst still filling the space with neat swirls. This lead to painting over my previous self portraits,

(See Pattern Making)