Pattern Design

The next direction I plan to take Nikasha Designs, in addition to the digital portraits, is pattern design. I've looked at a few tutorials on using Illustrator and Photoshop to assist the pattern-making process, and I made a sample pattern tonight. I'm quite happy with the ease of use for making the pattern. I think I'll be able to do what I've envisioned in my head.

What I did here tonight, is make some quick sketches of my boy Niko. I cut the paper in half each way, and reversed the sides, essentially separating it into quadrants and taping back into a whole. After the paper is taped back together again, I drew him again, filling the new middle of the paper, so that my pattern wouldn't look like a bunch of squares lined up.

After completing the drawing, I scanned him into my computer, and used live-trace in Adobe Illustrator to turn him into a vector drawing. This was a new tool for me, but it is really cool. I brought the vectorized drawing back into Photoshop, and added colors behind it.

In Photoshop, I defined my image as a pattern, then created a larger workspace, and filled it with my pattern. All in all, it was a pretty cool process. I think it will be simpler with a fully computer-created pattern, but I am happy with my first result. Here it is:

Museum Visit

The Minneapolis Institute of Arts and The Walker co-hosted an exhibit this winter on the architect Eero Saarinen. I really wanted to attend it, because of my love of mid-century modern design, and the fact that Saarinen and I both have Finnish roots. For some reason, I thought the exhibit ended mid-December. Yesterday, however, I found out it was still up until today, so I got to see it after all. Architecturally, Saarinen designed a variety of types of buildings, from colleges to corporate campuses to homes to churches. He also designed furniture- chairs and tables, including his famous womb chair. He was also the designer of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. Surprisingly, he managed to do so many big projects before the age of 51, as he died an early death as a result of a brain tumor.



While at the Walker, I also looked in on the Text/Messages exhibit. It is an exhibit of books by artists. For me, there were a few treats- books that I enjoyed much more, however, I have been unable to find images of them online. This exhibit is up until April, so if you are in the Minneapolis area, you have time to see it for yourself. My favorite pieces from the exhibit were by the Belgian artist Mark Luyten. They were pages out of a book, on which he made suddle abstract ink and watercolor paintings. It seems that this is a great diversion from the art he is best known for. There was also a version of Alice and Wonderland, which was illustrated by Salvador Dali. There was a book about artists, in which the majority of the text had been sewn over, leaving selected passages uncovered to result in a new text and meaning by the american artist Jen Bervin. My final favorite was by Sarah Sze, an american artist known for her delicate, elaborate sculptures of mundane materials. It was a typical legal pad, in which the pages had been strategically separated and geometric portions cut out, so that the resulting piece resembled architecture.

Happy New Year

Well, I took a holiday break without mentioning it, but I hope everyone is enjoying the new year. Here are my puppies wishing you happy holidays.