Tree Rings

I created this image of tree rings for the background because the harsh and calculated circle tool wasn't cutting it for me. I also learnt a bit about what each distance between the rings means, but I won't bore you with that. I know I said I was going with an "atlas green" colour palette, but it doesn't set off the warm tones of the animals, so why the dusty pink? Much more cuddly and natural, don't you think?

I added an outer 'bark layer' to the tree stump by creating a new swatch of my previous cell pattern and filling the outermost circle with it. And being the enclosing circle I also thought this was a neat way to symbolise that all things, no matter how big or small, are made of cells.

I also felt like the animals needed something directly around them to kind of anchor them. From this I developed some really simple moth shapes, repeating the same natural hues already found in the mandala, repeating and rotating them around each animal in a random way. It's a bit better.

But it still looked too flat. Finally I varied the tones in the tree rings from dark to light to dark to light, making sure it wasn't too perfect and still with that organic quality. I like the way the dark central tone now provides a clearer focus for the mandala, while the light outer rings also help to anchor the animals and kind of joins them up in the blank spaces in between.

Cells

Today in class I used my textbook micro-organism images to whip up a cool pattern:

At first I wasn't exactly sure what to do with these cells, but I had spent so much time drawing each dot in exactly the right place with the pencil tool (I hate calculated computer patterns) because I knew it was important to keep every aspect of my mandala as organic as possible, if that is possible in Illustrator.

I figured out how to create new swatches and in doing so I was able to apply the dot pattern to the fill of any shape!

After a long and labour intensive Illustrator session..

Here are all four completed vector animals:
and here they are standing in their mandala formation*:

* note that I wanted to keep the sizes of the animals equal, but also to have a sense of size relative to each other, so I struck a balance between the two. I also placed the owl a bit higher than the fox, because the owl would be up in the tree and the fox on the ground.
I also tried to vary the brown hue, to make each animal a bit different and a bit more of an individual. So the fox is a bit more orange/red than the deer and the bear is a bit greeny and the owl a bit more pink.

Deery Me

Just a quick post to share this deer image I recreated using illustrator. It is made completely of pen tool drawn vector shapes of varying colour and tone to emulate the markings of the deer.

I'm thinking this will be placed in one of the four animal 'entrances' of the mandala.

What do you think?

D for Deer

I was so excited about my library books that I had to have MORE! I looked up D for deers, B for bears and W for woodlands in the 1960 World Book Encyclopedia (it even has a woodgrain embossed cover!!) and found some great resource imagery, check it out:

Also here are some sweet cells from the The Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom.

Discovering The Woods

After thinking it over in my mind I think I've concentrated my ideas down to a simplified eco system, and something I can work into the Mandala.

Firstly I ventured a bit further into the library jungle, and came out equipped with:
Animal Psychology, R. H. Smythe. circa 1961
and

The Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Animal Kingdom, V. J. Stanek. circa 1962

both books complete with old school due date stamps and little yellow slips in jackets!

So I was thinking about the amount of deers featured in my blog already and I can't leave them out of the Mandala. How about other woodland creatures, you know the cute and cliché North American 'the woods' kind of forest, with bears and racoons and owls and foxes and wolves and DEERS! All the things that arent native Australian animals, because how non-exotic is that?

So, some ideas:

centre: sun? microscopic cells? - the building blocks of life and the ecosystem. tree?

four sides: animals-deer, bear, owl, fox?
I can also fuse images of cells and micro-organisms with images of nature, or use these to create background patterns and details.

All the while remembering to use my illustrator skills, so aiming for a vector/paint by numbers style -linking back to Shauna's paintings as seen in the video tour.

Biology

I'm becoming increasingly interested in biology, the natural science. I've been Wiki-ing taxonomy, the animal kingdom, and getting all the way from elephants and deers down to images of micro-organisms, parasites and bacteria (I find microscopic images of cells quite beautiful). Did you know humans have 100,000,000,000 neurons in the brain, and elephants have twice as many as that! A sea sponge has none.

All this science is very interesting but so overwhelming! I think I've gotten a bit off track, and only a little bit closer to developing a theme for my mandala.

I guess it was kind of naughty of me...

not to begin with researching the traditional Tibetan Buddhist Mandala, so here are the main things I've discovered:

* Mandala, meaning circle or completion, is a symbolic representation of the unconscious self or the universe.
* The Mandala is linked to the Buddhist set of teachings which promote a deepened understanding of life.
* Structure symbolises the aerial view of a multilevel palace, alluding to the varying levels of consciousness.
* The centre of the mandala contains the principle deity, surrounded by four entrances all of which is contained in a circle.
* There is a whole language of symbols related to buddhist teachings like the diamond, bell, vajra, dharma wheel and the lotus, but more of that here www.jyh.dk/indengl.htm

Something's Hiding in Here virtual tour

Etsy video series features design duo Shauna Alterio and Stephen Loidolt's home and studio; a super cool loft in Philadelphia! I love the woodland creatures, faux bois and atlas green colour scheme. It gets me to thinking about nature vs. artificial, recreating nature (the image of Shauna and Stephen's artificial fireplace springs to mind) and cheesy kitschy design...

very cute and very cosy!

Mandala brief

Here is the brief for the Mandala project.


FACULTY OF ART AND DESIGN
DIS1103
digital processes for art and design

EXERCISE 1: VECTOR MANDALA
Brief:
In Illustrator create a Tibetan-style mandala using the pen, shape and transform tool. In Tibetan Buddhism, a mandala is an imaginary palace that is contemplated during meditation.
The week 3 lecture will describe the structure and symbolism of the mandala in more detail.

Method:
1. Research the Tibetan mandala.
2. Create the various elements for your mandala in Illustrator. Think about what each of these might represent. (e.g. the self, the earth, the cosmos)
3. Manipulate, transform and copy these elements to replicate the repetition found in mandalas
4. Create your mandala in an A4 sized Illustrator document
5. Submit your exercise in the week 5. Note that this assignment will be a digital submission (.ai file) – your tutor will advise best format for delivery

Objectives:
• basic use of Illustrator
• visual analysis and design of the mandala

Criteria:
1. technical proficiency (5)
2. design of mandala (5)

Deadline: Week 5