My wild Friday nights...

Garden designed by Cecil Pincent

While most students spend their Friday nights partying, I spend mine watching Gardener's World and, most recently, Monty Don's Italian Gardens. This may seem an unusual choice of Friday night entertainment for a 22 year old student but these programs have given me much inspiration for new floral patterns, introducing me to interesting and unusual flower shapes, colours and combinations. Even the scientific elements to the programs have given me unique ideas about developing pattern on paper and fabric.

Monty Don's Italian Gardens has given me an insight into how the formal gardens of Florence were designed, such as Boboli Gardens created during the Medici Dynasty and later, the gardens designed by Cecil Pincent. The techniques used to lay out these beautifully structured, symmetrical gardens can easily be applied to wallpaper pattern.

Planting grid commonly used in formal garden design. Works well in wallpaper pattern design as straight lines can be seen horizontally, vertically and diagonally, making the overall layout visually aesthetic.

Self-similar fractal print (1)

This is my first print test for the self-similar fractal design. Although the theory is there, the more detailed sections were so small that the clarity of print was lost. I do find that the flaws in the print add to the piece- I have always embraced the mistakes made in the creative process as they often produce new ideas, new patterns and also highlight that the pattern is unique and not something easily re-produced. If I had printed digitally I would lose all this.

I have made a conscious decision to use black and white for this print. The pattern is quite ambiguous and the self-similar theory suggests many elements within nature, therefore, I do not want to force an opinion on the viewer as to what the pattern represents, I feel it is more important for the pattern to speak for itself as different people will view it in different ways. As I have mentioned in previous posts, using colour will influence what the pattern may be and in this case I do not want it to be so definite.

Further colour prints

Bronze print on Baghdad Brown Bronze print on Ebony Bronze print on Royal Blue Bronze print on Forest Green

Everything isn't always so Black and White

Gold print on Emerald Gold print on Harvest Black print on Natural Gold print on Claret. As I predominantly work in black and white when producing patterns for wallpapers, I thought it would be interesting and worth-while to see how my fractal wallpaper patterns looked in and on different colours. Due to the ambiguity of the pattern, using colour could affect how it is portrayed. For example, if the pattern was printed onto a green background and/or in green ink, it would imply that the pattern is linked to nature (trees, leaves, branches). However, if the colour red was used then this would have a much more biological appearance (veins, blood). Also, using colour may be helpful when designing more commercial patterns for example, using metallic inks or paper within an interior space can be interestng as they are affected by both artificial and natural light and the architectural contours of the space. I work in black and white as I feel this does not detract from the pattern or force opinion onto the viewer. Yet commercially, where interior design is concerned, colour can be extremely important depending on the architectural space and function of a room.

Mirror, mirror

My initial mirror experiment worked relatively well, however it was rushed and this is obvious in the photographs (the lack of straight edges on the mirrors!) After cutting them down to more workable shape, I made a more solid structure which would bounce the pattern infinitely around the space created by the mirrors. Instead of it looking simply like a papered box, the space appears to be limitless- as does the pattern, and scale becomes ambiguous.

Depending on the angles of the mirrors and position of the pattern, the affect achieved can vary. For example if a mirror is placed at right angles on either end of the pattern facing inwards, this creates an illusion of a corridor. If the mirrors are moved to a more obtuse angle then the 'corridor' appears to bend and the pattern has an off-centre vanishing point. The pattern could be placed on the floor/base and then surrounded by mirrors-this creates an expansive carpeted effect.

What really interests me with this experiment is how it is possible to subvert a confined space using mirrors. Similarly to the way we use mirrors in interior decoration, we can make a space appear larger than it actually is. In this experiment, what looks like a box from the outside suddenly changes to appear infinite when looked into. This idea reflects the basis of the wallpaper pattern. The fractal design, when looked at in detail, gives the impression that it could be repeated infinitely and remain looking almost the same.

Fractal Wallpaper- experiment

Fractal patterns are self-similar, this means that if you zoom into a small section of the pattern, it will look similar (if not the same) as its whole. Self-similar patterns occur frequently in nature, especially in horticulture which is my main influense when designing new patterns and wall coverings.

After designing my initial fractal wallpaper, i was interested in looking further at the self-similarity theory. I want to find a way of repeating my pattern in the same way we see fractals behaving in nature. To do this, I think mirrors palced at right angles to the wallpaper will bounce the pattern in a mirror image; the more mirrors I use, the further the pattern spreads. I think using mirrors for this design is the best choice as the pattern itself is quite geometric, so the angles of the mirrors against the wall will compliment this. Also, as my work is based around interior design, the mirrors are inkeeping with the environment in which I see this particular work.

Capillary Action- Further tests

• Machine embroidered pattern in white thread on white fabric
• Hand sewn, hem-stitched pattern in white thread on white fabric
• Time test- dye soaked from top and bottom of white fabric

Although the embroidered tests appeared to work initially, after a period of time the thread began to reject the ink (due to its synthetic coat) and so the pattern revealed was the opposite to what I was expecting. This still looked effective but I was disheartened by the time and effort it took to create such a small test.

As well as this, the overall process is very tedious and I am rapidly losing interest in this particular element of my work. I feel it has become too focussed on the process and has lost sight of the initial idea. My work is based around interior design, decoration and surface pattern. This project was ideally meant to finalise in a wall hanging which 'grew' over time, however after testing the design ideas I realised how time consuming and expensive it would be to reproduce on a large scale; creating a damp environment and watering system suitable for maintaining the 'growth' of the pattern.

With this in mind I have made the decision to put this project to one side and focus more on developing fractal wallpaper patterns to print.