More Stars and Crosses

This set of images came from a notebook of traditional kumon patterns that I collected when I lived in Japan 18 years ago. I have kept them in that binder for this whole time never knowing what I would do with them. Although I have many, many more designs from Japan, these were my favorites.

Stars and Crosses Line Drawings Two

Here are more stars that I found. Most of the images come from the quilting world. There are two drawings that are also awesome crosses. Most of these are pretty complex images which might be good but could also be VERY hard down the line.

Stars and Crosses Line Drawings, Page One

As part of module one, the assignment is to explore design using the motif of either a star or a cross. These are some of my line drawings for stars and crosses. I am more drawn to stars because at first glance they are a more complex shape. However, as you really start looking at them, stars and crosses have a lot in common. The only real difference, TO ME, is a cross will only have four appendages, while a star can have more. I started this exercise with paper and pen brainstorming what a star is defined as and then what a cross is defined with to me. It is amazing how deep you can go when you allow yourself the time.

This is page one. I will post page two later.

Color Wheel Study

One of the first assignment that Sian has you do is create a color wheel. Although she asks to work them with gouache, I could not find my set (I don't use them often), so instead I used my Golden Fluid Acrylics. There is some streaking, but I think it is okay.

We used two different base hues of the primaries to create the wheel. I don't know if I liked it as much, or if it made it harder to get the colors to flow from one to the next. I think that I would have prefered to create several different wheels using the cooler primaries and then one using the warmer primaries. To me the hardest color to duplicate was the turquoise. I had to create several swatches before I felt it was right.

Another thing to think about is how much black is added. The point really wasn't to make a dark color but really to mute the brightness of the pure hue.