The Human Form

Painting with Gouache

I used gouache as a way of loosening up and trying to force myself to use colour rather than just sticking to black and white. The plants I was drawing were actually red and green but I felt these colours were very stimulating and overpowering for a product that is meant to relax you. I played around with lighter tones and this started to make a difference. I then moved away from these natural colours altogether and used blue to draw some cacti. Blue is known to be a calming colour.

I scanned my paintings into Photoshop and made a simple pattern out of them, just to see if this kind of thing would work on a product range and I think it would. I asked to make a card from this for a family friend which gave me the confidence that people would be interested in buying something from a product range along these lines.

I had saved some glass jars to play around with the started pack idea but as I thought about it more, I realised I was trying to make my own product from existing products and it was straying too far from illustration. I thought I needed a slightly different approach.

I went to Wilko to the gardening department as I felt like I needed to experience what it is like when you decide you want to grow something. The amount of seed packets what quite overwhelming for someone with no idea about plants, and most of them were for outdoors which is not what my focus is. Potted plants on the other hand are very easy to purchase for a very cheap price. Although they are in basic plant pots with simple labelling, I struggled to see why someone would choose to buy a starter kit when house plants are so readily available. This made me think that maybe I should be focusing more on supporting products rather than selling the actual things needed to grow one. I bought some plants and I'm going to try my best to keep them alive.

I now want to make a product range relating to plants and getting back into nature, even when you are living in an environment where this is not easy. I want the products to give a message about choosing your surroundings, integrating the nature concept into their everyday life to boost their mood. My proposed product range includes promotional concertina book explaining the concept of the products, seed packets (for easy to grow indoor plants), stickers and seed markers to label what the plant is, notebooks, greetings cards, postcards, gift wrap, tote bag/zip pouch, cushion, coasters, proposals for wallpaper designs for feature walls/murals.

Nudes

I was thinking about the message I want to get across and tried to summarise it with a list of words: healing, relaxation, natural, comfort, wellbeing, life... What shows this other than plant life? This started me thinking about the human form. I combined some ink drawings with patterns and shapes, I think the natural inspired ones work well, particularly the ones with the leaves behind them. The brighter colours and shapes are less appropriate to my theme.

The Meaning of Nudes in Art

• Represents innocence and purity.
• Natural geometry, unconstrained energy and emotion.
• The experience of existence.
• Clothing literally and symbolically distances us from nature, a barrier between the body and the rest of the world.
• Reminds us we are human.
• Freedom and release.
• Going back to simpler times, away from the stresses of the modern world.

The Garden of Eden

• The initial place of peace.
• Paradise, a perfect existence.
• Innocence and ultimate happiness.
• Peaceful and effortless life.
• Fruitful and well watered.

Maybe take a modernised approach to this. I don't want my outcomes to have a direct relation to the bible but taking the concept of the garden of eden would help give the message of being yourself in your most natural form and living a peaceful life.