By using the feedback received, ideas were developed digitally. The brief states that either a drawing can be submitted, using a 0.3mm pen, or an illustrator file with a 3px brush ilustration. As the style of work that I want to specialize in is digital design, I opted to develop all the illustrations in Illustrator. The use of vectors allows the client to change the stroke width if needed, so that the entire book of illustrations is the same, in terms of line widths.
As the water lily illustration received the best feedback, it was digitally re-drawn in Illustrator with the required brush size. Because the feedback was so positive, there was no real need to change the illustration in any way. The final vector drawing made can be seen on the right.
As a lot of research was made into the physical science behind relaxing images, more experimentational ideas were made, informed entirely by some of the points found. One aspect that was researched into was natural and man-made fractals. Like natural fractals, man-made fractals are comprised of repeating patterns defined by specific shapes and lines. And like naturally occurring fractals, man-made fractals have a relaxing effect on the mind by complementing areas of our brain which enjoy seeing symmetry. Humans’ attraction to these types of patterns can be seen in common image stylings like mandalas. When researching into these man-made fractals, it was found that symmetry is visually calming and psychologically soothing - it is known to make people feel easier and more comfortable.
Mandalas are symmetrical, circular designs that symbolize the notion that life is never ending. Whilst mandalas have different meanings, their main goal is to serve as a spiritual tool, symbolizing cosmic and psychic order. Mandalas are visually relaxing because they are made up completely of curved lines. Because of the reasons mentioned and research made into how curved lines are calming and how symmetrical designs are relaxing, I opted to produce my own mandala-esque designs. Illustrator was used for efficiency reasons, as it is very time consuming and challenging to draw a completely symmetrical design by hand. By using Illustrator's layer effects, a single drawn vector could be repeated in sixteenths to make a circular pattern. After a lot of experimentation with curved lines, a wide variety of patterns were created. These were taken forward to a different crit group to see which patterns people thought would be the most engaging to colour in.
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