Influences.

To gather inspiration for the new upcoming project, I started to photograph places in Corfu. I found that I was particularly drawn to the diversity of buildings; old derelict buildings would be situated next brand new builds. I found this contrast interesting. I also enjoyed viewing the side streets of Corfu with all the hustle and bustle; I started drawing these streets using a range of media such as inks and oil bars. 

I developed this by starting to look at the overall patterns and shapes of the buildings rather than the interact details. This reminded me of the illustration designer Mathew Borrett. Mathew Borrett's work is featured in the spring issue of the drawing magazine, featuring his drawing of 'Hiding Places' from his collection "Room Series". This collection features drawings of rooms craved out in a maze like way, showing secret areas and pathways. 

The box like patterns reminds me of the outline shapes of buildings, this lead me to create drawings of buildings in separated box like ways. The mixed media artist Helen Birchall created a layered piece using sheer fabric, embroidery and print, which looked like many different squares layered on top of one another, this inspired me to look at box draws using inks to allow the box drawing to bleed.

 This work I created reminds me of the patterns of skylines, I went on a trip to view the skylines of Manchester sketching them out in my sketchbook I also visited Liverpool and Salford's Media City.
 The uneven jagged edges of the skylines I was drawing linked to the patterns on the shells at the Corfu Shell Museum. These shells had bumpy mountainous lines, which are sharper than the other patterns and skylines I have been looking at however I thought they related well to my current work. I decided to draw these out creating my own patterns using both the skylines and the shells. I also visited the Tate in Liverpool to look at Piet Mondrians famous works  found his 'Nature and Architecture' work the most inspiring and linked to all of my drawings.
 Up to this point I have been using a monotone colour pallet as I was unsure of which colours to develop, however one of the shells at the Shell Museum an Oyster Shell had a beautiful pallet which consist of different shades of green, blue, and a creamy orange. I am going to develop this colour pallet by painting it out and finding different coloured yarns to see if this is the colour pallet I would like to use in my new project. 
After deciding on a temporary colour pallet I started to incorporate this into my work. Looking at the artist Ian Murphy, who draws many different buildings using a range of mixed media such as oils, his painting called Cornerstone was my main inspiration to develop my drawings with colour. I did this by using oil bars to create a background of my chosen colours then drawing the skylines into it. From this I am going to develop more colour pallets.