These are silly little exercises, but they appeal to me on so many levels. First, there's the clean graphic quality of interlocking the lines and repeating the patterns. They are so fun when they are like this, just starting out in black and white.
I love seeing "where they go", following along after them as they develop a life of their own, watching how they develop - figuring how far to take them. My favorite part is when I can start adding colors. Bright, saturated colors and tonals naturally "make" these designs sing. On this one, at first, I thought I'd only add the reds and the yellow, keeping the contrast of the black and white. But, in the end, I gave in to the siren song of all the juicy, brilliant, pure colors.
This kind of pattern work was an assignment I used to give my Basic Design kids to acquaint them with line quality, patterning and repetition. Funny how "doodling" has been around FOREVER, but now it has a jazzy new name, followers and adherents. Weird how the world goes 'round. It's always just been doodling, to me.
I am happy with the colors in this finished little sketchbook piece. I don't want to take it out of the book, so I'll have a gicleé print made and, I think, do a floating mount on black. I can see it like that. Maybe the title is "The Caws of Love is Crows". Or maybe not . . . .
I really, really want to try this out as a quilting appliqué, using jewel toned batiks for the colors, and satin stitching in black where all the lines are. How cool would THAT be?
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