For my final project, we were assigned the task of designing and creating an object that follows a simple design aesthetic. My process and finished product can be found below…
Final Project Phase 1: Project Proposal
Subject: Decorated and stylized bowl/pot
Referenced aesthetics: Maximalism, horror vacui, geometric art from mid 8th century greece
I will take the characteristics of the above aesthetics to decorate a bowl or terracotta pot I find. I will be using the overwhelming visuals from maximalism and stick to a “more is more” mentality. There will be very little space in the visuals from the tight patterns. I’ll be taking inspiration from extreme porcelain art and geometric art from the 8th century Grecian era to give myself some direction in terms of what shapes to make. I will be hand drawing the intricate patterns with paint markers. I will also be adding more curve to the base pot or bowl using clay. All colors and designs drawn onto the base will be planned out in blender or in hand sketches. I have not yet decided the color scheme nor the exact patterns, but I’m leaning towards blues and oranges and reds.
Images from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometric_art
https://aesthetics.fandom.com/wiki/Maximalism
Below shows the Maximalist-style base patterning on the terracotta pot. It was done with long-lasting, eco-friendly paint markers and brushes.
Base components of the flowers and other media. All of the flowers are made from recycled paper. The bump in the middle of the blue-white-blue flower is recycled from a popit, and can still pop. For demonstration, I show one flower being glued on, and then the shark “window” in the pattern. The sharks are made from some Christmas gift wrap. I removed the Christmas patterns by color-matching with my paint markers and drawing over them, then added a mild gloss to match the sheen of the wrapping paper. The hat and candy canes were removed (as seen in the second image of the wrapping paper). I ripped it apart to make it look more like a torn window, colored the edges with food dye to remove the white part of the ripped paper, attach it to the dark blue “window frame”, and then glued it onto the pot itself.
Here’s the finished product!
