Lots of tiny cards ready to be configured into something bigger (made out of tiny cards (stuck to a plinth))

I have an exhibition in London next month.  It's an interesting one that I'm looking forward to as they are allowing me to exhibit work that I wouldn't normally be able to.  Most galleries only want to exhibit framed works they are able to sell and charge lots of commission but the work I want to make is either incredibly vast or incredibly small.  So what drew me to submit for this exhibition was that it was after work that didn't sit well in an ordinary gallery setting... so I submitted a proposal of exhibiting hundreds of tiny trading card sized images I've been making (see below) along with my 2012 Diary from last year.

These pictures are all going to be arranged stuck onto a large plinth.  They will be much better arranged than they are on here.  There are so many different combinations for how they can be arranged so I'll have fun finding the most interesting.  On this entry they are only arranged by how I put them into a scanner but I'm planning to make them much more compositionally placed at the exhibition.  I find that they take on different contexts dependent on their configuration.

Anyway updates are soon forthcoming regarding the exhibition.  I will obviously tweet it nearer the time and post about it on Facebook.  All four people I actually know in London have already been invited.

surface pattern design #3

So for the third week running I'm posting some images of constructions of surface pattern design.

Started with this - thought I could work in the piece of public art I made a while ago to give it an architectural feel rather than just being pure pattern.

And then I built something similar that would work as a branching off point - something to connect to. Everything even architecture needs to connect to something.  Even it is only connecting to itself upside down. You can probably do a lot worse.

And here they are connecting.   Shaped like a tadpole with huge biceps.

But what's this?  It's gone from strong studly tadpole into muscleman poseur amoeba.

I think the problem with my motivation for making surface patterns is I'm not sure what products they would be put on.  This might look brilliant on a pencil or a really good coat.... but at the moment all I think of when I look at this is an acid blotter.  I don't want to go underground.  I'm doing this in the attempt to be a massive sell out. Maybe I should put some owls on it.

surface pattern design #2

So with some jiggery pokery of old images I've been experimenting more with repeat patterns - but trying to make them less typical than usual.  So I seem to be more creating new distinct textures I can later mix in with other textures.  That way I can eventually overlay and intersplice lots of different patterns building up designs that are more and more dense.  The image above is derived entirely from a sold image of art I made but it's been altered so it works less like an artwork and even less like a surface pattern.  But it's a starting point.

I've then stripped away some layers and completely killed the colours making it entirely black and white and then put a thread of colour on the top of it.  A kind of flailing organism floating in the ether of meaningless sell out pattern.

So then I strip away the flailing organism and play it safe with a nice repeat pattern.  This is less typical of the repeat patterns I've done recently so it's reassuring that by playing it safe I've actually come up with something that does look almost unique.  That the previous steps were leading towards something usable.

So overlay a larger version of the image and trim away the edges then colour it in red.  A hot distinct column standing out all pollinated by the surrounding swarm.

Then zoom out and we have made another marvellously generic repeat pattern.  Just to show how easily it can be done.  Looking at this now it may be interesting to put something across the middle going horizontal. Some odd contrast with the rest of the pattern.  Then build on top of that again and see what happens.

I didn't do that though, at the time it didn't occur to me.  Instead I got a little tired of near perfect symmetry so decided to add an element that doesn't fit with the pattern to throw it slightly off centre.  This was achieved only very slightly with an off centre receding archway effect.  

Then I took the off centre archways and built them into ANOTHER repeat pattern with a background derived from an image of an interpretation of biospheres.  This results in another symmetrical pattern that can be repeated ad infinitum.  But which can also be used to enhance other surface pattern ideas.

It's hard to know whether I'm getting the hang of surface pattern design or if surface pattern design is getting ready to hang me.