Southern Cross
Fundamentals of Art and Design, Fall 2022
Medium
Digital Design
Location
NC, USA
Time
Oct 2022
A digital design piece implementing plant-inspired patterns to explore the relationship between order and chaos.
To find out hope and light from endless darkness and chaos, the southern cross shows the direction, even though everything ahead is still unknown.
Reference Subjects
I referenced and took inspiration from Kalanchoe beharensis, a plant also known as elephant's ear kalanchoe or felt bush.
Sketching
I created sketches of my subject with different levels of detailedness for the sake of identifying a pattern from its structure, its organs, etc.
Identify Patterns
I investigated the plant's patterns from its leaf, its stalk, the composition of its leaves, the shape of the leaf, etc. I finally decided to explore the leaf composition given that the plant's leaves are arranged in an organized way, with two leaves lying together and two larger leaves in a pair covering those two, then expanding.
After trying to express the pattern in an abstract manner, I experimented with the composition of the pattern itself.
Final Piece
For the final work, I decided to create something different from simply laying out the pattern repetitively.
In this piece, I created two layers, one of which is fully black and another layer green (the color of the plant), along with a mild background color. While both layers are about the same pattern, there are slight differences in the shape of the pattern. I intentionally made the background patterns less sharp and more round-edged.
Within the two layers, I played with the principle of color by putting two seemingly contrasting color types together (greenish colors and black) for the sake of creating an inharmonious, yet still somewhat working, the composition of colors. Also, by using repetition, I applied the principles of direction and scale to arrange the pattern, especially in the front layer. In the front layer, I simulated how the plant is actually structured with different layers and unique leaf shapes. By spinning some shapes and overlapping some of them, I would like to create an order within the chaos: the southern cross directing the path.
