VPH Design Part Four: My Surface Pattern Design Guide.
Session two was great. I got valuable feedback and started sketching more designs of cupcakes, ice cream, and adding embellishments to come up with a collection. I referred to my mood board, but was frustrated with not being able to create easily. My direction was to loosen up and think differently.
I was on the verge of tears before our next appointment. I hadn’t made good progress, wasn’t having fun, and was feeling defeated. We decided the best thing to do was to postpone meeting until the next week to give myself a chance to process what was going on. I was feeling very blocked and ready to give up.
Then, I grabbed some paper and started painting with pastel and water. I didn’t think; I let myself select the color that I felt most drawn to in that moment and began. I started with a wall. Tall. Brown. Blocking me. Why are you so tall? What are you keeping me from seeing?
The next piece of paper started with a pinky orange background and spikey knarly plant life. Poking me. Cutting me. Cutting me off. What are you guarding?
In three separate sessions over that next week, I painted two different scenes. I decided to take photos to track the changes and see how they developed. I kept working them, adding color, scrubbing, and I started to see outdoor landscapes in them. Something occurred to me, when watercolor painting, I have always created ethereal, colorful backgrounds. Always. Sometimes I would add words, sometimes I would paint fantasy flowers and plants. But, I noticed I always, always, start with the sky. And sometimes that sky ends up being under the sea.
With my cut paper art, I make architecture; houses and buildings. Sometimes still existing, sometimes recreating demolished buildings from photographs. Now, with this new adventure in Surface Design, here I was trying to only paint. The wall I had put up between paint and paper mediums wasn’t going to stand anymore. I couldn’t keep them apart. I had to demolish this self imposed wall; I had to tear it down. Why did I think I couldn’t put cut paper on my paintings? I don’t know, but I cried. I cried like a little kid who has been told No over and over, but still really wanted the thing, or to do the thing and could not, or was not allowed to. I cried because I get to do this thing now, this thing of putting paint and cut paper together for my art. And I cried for the lost time. And then something new started to happen. I started to twirl my paper.
Next post; paper quilling appears in my life.