Materials and Process

• Compass
• Colored pencils
• Paper

1. Drawing

Artist's Narrative

The second practicum is a more floral repeating pattern, also arbitrarily cut off, created using a compass. In this pattern I laid circles in a linear manner and used many points of intersection which in turn link the flowers to each other so that the leaves branch out from one center of a flower to another. This helps create a tremendous feeling of unity. Again, as in all my work, I used paper and colored pencils; in this practicum, I felt I balanced the reds, greens, and blues too much. It would have looked better if I had only used two colors, I feel.

I've seen so many floral and circular patterns in the Islamic works I've looked at that I just wanted to see what I could do with a compass and circles. I noticed as well patterns like this are often created to serve as backgrounds for more pictorial work.

Teacher's Comment

The play with circles in this practicum explores the fundamental role of the circle in pattern-making. Three colors allows for symmetry-breaking in the use of color. With only two colors, there would be less ambiguity and playfulness with the design and its repetition to form a pattern.