Repetition

Hmmm, this theme keeps coming up. Repetition was the focus of a surface design symposium this weekend at the Southwest School of Art & Craft. Ilze Aviks, an artist from Colorado, spoke on the topic. There was also a panel discussion with Mary Ruth Smith and Liz Axford moderated by Jane Dunnewold. How serendipitous that my design exercise for today was on repetition.

The assignment was to create a repeat pattern using a simple design. At a loss for an image to use, I scanned my studio for ideas. This stylized leaf was my inspiration:

So I abstracted it a bit and came up with this design:

The first part of the assignment was to create a repeat pattern with the design.

Then, I was to reverse the image so positive becomes negative.

The next step was to create the same pattern, but use color. I chose to use four colors and to make each "block" a different combination of those four colors.

Finally, I decided to repeat the pattern with colors, but make each block the same combination of colors.

As a repeat, it loses it's resemblance to a leaf. And the last version in color reminds me of watermelon! If I had switched the purple and green, it would look even more like a watermelon with a green rind and purple seeds. I'm intrigued by this exercise. I'm thinking of repeating it with the same design, but altering the orientation for each block.