Colour Pattern Texture – Week 5 of my 365 Day Challenge.  I had reached a point last week where everything had got too much and the really helpful feedback of followers on social media caused me to step back and realise that actually I don’t have to do this. It doesn’t matter if I stop for a few days or a week. The only person putting any pressure on me is me. So I began the week with this mental shift, that allowed me to work with the idea, that I didn’t have to. In fact it enabled me to lighten up and play a bit. I also began on a really positive note by ordering a new camera. What can’t be fixed with a bit of retail therapy eh? For those who know anything about cameras, I opted for the Sony RX10iv.  The focus of my photography has shifted away from commercial projects and portraiture and I wanted a camera that was more light weight, which I could take out walking, but that could do similar things to my Canon (RIP). My Canon was feeling heavier and heavier very time I went out and it was hurting my shoulders and back to carry it on long walks, especially as my favourite lens was the super heavy 70-200mm.  I am very excited about the new camera, which has a 600mm lens, closer than anything I have used before and I will be interested to see how it affects the way in which I take pictures. It hasn’t arrived yet so that will be something to look forward to in the coming week.

This week was filled with colour. I decided to switch off from the dark emotional imagery I had been focusing on in previous weeks and begin to get a feel for the work I might create for an upcoming Textile inspired exhibition – (working title Colour & Pattern) at the Lombard Street Gallery. On Day #29 I decide to create a Lightroom catalogue dedicated to all the photographs I have taken of surfaces. It made me happy to see them all in one place and to see just what an array of colour I have collected through photography. These surfaces have been found in doorways, walls and the underside of boats and they make my heart beat faster. I would like to use them in more abstract pattern focused work, although I don’t  know what for this work will take.

Day#30

When I was a knitted textile designer I loved creating irregular patterns in my stitch structures, I think because I felt like I was tricking the process of knitting, which was constructed in rows. I realised that the best way to do this was always to start simply with regular patterns and then once I understood how they worked I would try and disturb them in some way. This was my thought process for this week, although I must admit, I was playing more than thinking. I started off too complicated though and didn’t feel any control over the process. As the week went on, I git more of a handle on it. I love the ways the colours work together however.

Day#31 I was looking at different ways of breaking the images up to create irregular blends of colour and pattern. I was all a bit hap hazard and although there was a process in there, it was not definite enough for my liking. the result was just too confusing.

Day#32 I decided to go back to definite geometric shapes and to limit the number of pictures I used. I wondered if I could create a sense of irregularity through the imagery I used rather than by making the pattern irregular.

Day#33 I created a variation of the pattern above, but not as successful I think. The stripes are too chunky

Day#34 I created another variation very similar to that created on  Day 32. Blue and orange have always been a favourite combination of mine.

Day#35 I really felt that I had begun to understand how to build up patterns using this process. In a very simple way I had learnt that the more i limited everything about what I was doing,the imagery the pattern and the regularity, the more successful the outcome. This is not the outcome I want, but it gives me a great starting point from which to explore further.

I has been really refreshing to play with Colour pattern and texture this week. I remember when my son was four, he would use four lego bricks to build what he called a robot. Once he had come up with this idea, he made loads of them, in all different colour configurations, using the same four bricks, but it gradually allowed him to progess onto much more complex structures as he got older. I believe that every complex idea starts with the most basic understanding of process. This is what I began this week. I realise that colour makes me happy. I also know that I need to leave these patterns for a bit to enable what I have learnt to sink in and to be able to reflect on where to go next, but this has been a very satisfying week.

To read more about what inspired my to set myself this challenge, please read my blog post CREATING ART IN THE CRACKS

To see more of Claire Gill’s finished prints please click here SEASCAPE LIMITED EDITION PRINTS