Research
For Assignment part 1 (Patterning and Abstractions), the first step I took was collecting ten natural forms and ten human-made forms and drawing abstractions from the collected forms. I searched and copied 20 images and pasted them in the Sketchbook application. Then I drew four abstractions from each form. Drawing four abstractions out of one picture was a little complicated but a great way to use my own creativity and imagination.
Unfortunately, I ended up drawing only four human-made forms because the time was running out. The instructor said it was okay, so I moved on to the next step. Then I took lessons from the instructor on how to make curvilinear lines on the Illustrator application, which would be our primary tool for this assignment.
Exercise
The next thing I had to do was choose two of these abstractions (one from nature and one from human-made). I decided on a contour of the railroad and a contour of the petal (floral leaf) to create a pattern using both of them.
The reason I chose these two abstractions was that I believed that I could create a strong movement using these two. I put the floral leaf in the center and four of the railroad’s contours around the floral leaf. As I expected, it seemed like gravity created by the petal pulled our attention to the center of the composition, and railroads made the movement (gravity) stronger by supporting the center composition.
I then created a pattern using this combined composition to create one of the design principles, harmony. I placed the nine of the composition together, and they well harmonized each other and had a visual satisfaction due to combining the same compositions. After creating this pattern, I attempted to create another pattern of harmony. I rearranged the position of the railroads and the petal to see how it would make harmony. However, I did not come out as I expected, so I decided to stick with my first pattern.
Iterations
I began to move on to Iterations, which was to create grids for my mandalas. At first, I decided to use harmony for my mandala and made grids based on that design principle.
Before I started working on my mandala, I did not know that we were supposed to use the two abstractions from the exercise; I thought I was allowed to use random shapes and forms. I used basic shapes (circles, triangles, and squares) and gave curves to some of the shapes for visual satisfaction. Once I made any shapes, I used a tool on the Illustrator app called “grid,” and this tool provided me with my shapes repeating in a circular frame. Exploring the app with a bunch of tools was the most interesting part of this assignment, and seeing the outcome of mandalas boosted my enthusiasm for the project.
However, after doing a one-on-one review with the instructor, I realized that I was not able to use random shapes to create the mandalas. I was supposed to use the natural and human-made abstractions from the exercise. I was a little frustrated and could no longer work on the above mandalas I created. However, the wrong mandalas I made gave me a better understanding of mandalas and a good experience.
Creating a mandala using only two abstractions was not an easy task at all, as I ended up producing a bad-looking mandala (photo below).
I kept exploring the tools on the app and found out the more shapes I used, the more visual satisfaction it would make. Now that I learned how to make a mandala more aesthetically, I need to apply my design principle (harmony) firmly into the composition. I used railroads and put them around the round composition to make it look like the sun so that I could apply a color scheme, primarily red and orange, to my mandala.
However, I realized that I was not able to apply color in my mandala. I was initially going to put color in negative spaces and thought Illustrator had a tool for that. Unfortunately, I could not find the tool and was unable to color any of the shapes because they were not closed shapes. I also learned that using at least five abstractions was a requirement, so I had to create three completely different more mandalas. At this point, I was so frustrated and nervous that I could not finish this project on time while other students were almost done with theirs who were only one step behind finishing the project. However, recognizing that it was my own fault to make all these mistakes, I started working on creating new ones even if it took plenty of time and effort. For five abstractions, I used the railroad and the petal I originally used and also used the contour of the bridge (from the exercise), a plant with a snail, and a shell (from another search).
Production
I finally created three mandalas using five abstractions. The first two mandalas are based on the harmony principle, and the last one is based on the movement principle. I just put color application just to see how they look, and fortunately, they looked the same as I thought they would be. I decided to go with the third one with the movement because the movement appeared more robust than the harmony in the first two mandalas.
Then It was time to do a color application using Adobe Color and color charts. I originally made my mandala look as if it were the sun or the whirlpool in the ocean. Because red-yellow-orange represents the sun and blue represents the ocean, I decided to use these colors for my color scheme.
I used Split Complementary for the first color scheme and Analogous for the second color scheme. I carefully applied these colors to the two mandalas. The principle was movement, so I colored the outer parts lighter and the inner parts darker to produce a stronger movement. I also gave some shades to each shape to create a bit of three-dimensional effect and helped viewers see the movement more clearly. Then I added a shading background to provide them with some depths. I used a stroke for my second mandala (one with a blue color scheme) to shape clear outlines and did not use a stroke for my first one because I believed the stroke disturbed the viewers to see an apparent movement.
