Pattern One: Beetles
For this first pattern I took a little bit of liberty with the animal prompt. Beetles are insects, but I figured the prompt is mostly there for inspiration. I photographed a display case full of preserved beetles/bugs at this museum in Seattle, the photo on it’s own is rather cool. I cut out six of the beetles and the scorpion from the image, and arranged them in a circular form. Then I patterned them, with the orientation rotating, over a background I drew. I used a paintbrush with texture, which makes the background appear almost sandy. And in addition I drew up some thorny branches to add some more substance.
Tiling the Pattern:
The tiling of this pattern wasn’t as seamless as I had hoped, the beetles were difficult to have line up properly. However, I think it still remains interesting and with a clear motif, even if it could use a little more work.
Pattern Two: Rayon
For my second pattern I chose to take inspiration from the synthetic. I immediately thought of synthetic fibers, and remembered how awesome they look under a microscope. I sampled this image of rayon under a microscope for online. I patterned the image using the cross weave option with overlapping pixels and I added in color and brightness randomization. This resulted in this almost patchwork like print of the original photo, in varying colors and brightness. I then deleted sections from the print and placed a white to teal gradient behind the deleted sections. The final result takes this very smooth synthetic and contrasts it against a very geometric pattern.
Tiling the pattern:
I was pretty satisfied with how this pattern tiled, I rotated the original pattern so the center cut outs of white lined up and an overall geometric pattern appeared.
The fibers and color scheme in the second pattern go together extremely well. The way the fibers overlap and the shadows in the backgrounds of the tiles gives your piece really interesting depth. Also, the light green gradient behind the tiles adds another cool perception of depth to your pattern.
The texture of the background in the first pattern is very strong and it has nice contrast with the dark vines. I like the idea for the patten but it seems very busy. I’m not sure that the bugs overlapping with the branches works too well because many of them get lost. If you could have figured out how to tile the pattern without the insects getting cut off, it would have been stronger.
Both patterns are very strong thematically, and while not required or maybe even intentional, it’s fun that they sort of complement each other. The beetles pattern has a prickly desert feel, while the second is cool and refreshing. Very well composed pieces.