At the time he had discussed ideas with me about a man composed of trees, and the tree as it's symbol of permanence, holding the land together, producing the oxygen needed to sustain life and holding the ecosystem in balance. As we talked I also had the idea of a hand, the veins in the wrist extending out to form the branches and trunk of a tree, demonstrating how nature was infact running through the veins of each of us, as well as extending beyond. He liked the sound of this too, but wanted largely to see what I would come up with myself. Initially it was just a visualisation of the concept which stuck with me, however I meditated over it casually over the following weeks until now when I was ready to start developing it further.
Initially I sketched a concept with a fully formed tree extending from the base of the palm, covering some areas of the hang however leaving the fingers poking through. Although my photo doesn't show this, I also considered suggesting tiny birds flying away, dishevelled by the fingers, to toy with ideas of scale and of disruption. I really liked this concept, however I was aware that this print would ultimately be comprised of one, or potentially two colours. Although I think this direct style could be very impressive as a fully rendered, detailed painting, looking at it as a monotone sketch I felt that the concept would be difficult to display effectively and fully in a single tone.
My next attempt was to stylise the branches into twists and turns, continuing and embellishing upon the forms of the veins and translating the tree image into something much easier to represent effectively in a single colour. I also hid the motif of an acorn in the forms of the branches to give additional depth to the design and also open a dialogue of hope and growth within the work. I wanted it to be subtle and hidden however, imagining in my head somebody wearing the t shirt for years before noticing the small detail and re-enriching their appreciation and enjoyment of the piece.
This design more visually exciting than my first sketch, as well as a lot more in keeping with the style of a t shirt graphic. I sent this to my friend whom I visited in Falmouth to get some initial feedback before finalising it and sending it to James, and she really liked it, however noted that the tree appeared slightly asymmetrical and suggested that perhaps the branches were a bit busy and could do with being a bit more minimalist. I agreed with and integrated this feedback, as well as tidying up other areas of the linework and generally making some other minor improvements to the design before finalising it in ink.
I was really happy with the piece so far, and wanted at this stage to quickly prototype the work with a splash of colour on a t shirt mockup, just to give me an idea early on how the design would translate to the product it was intended for. I had taught myself how to use photoshop mockups as part of my work for Moosey, so quickly found a high quality t shirt version and imported my design. I added the most basic, unconsidered splash of green behind to give a demonstration of how colour could look and sent it back over to my friend.
She was even more impressed with the design when seeing it in this finalised, professional format (as is always the case of anyone within consumer society) but again had interesting feedback to offer, suggesting trying it instead as a larger back print. I once again agreed with her feedback, as my design was very top heavy, which can make front designs look crowded around the neck, especially on larger prints. Whereas putting work on the back of a garment generally allows more focus on the upper half of the image, and would be better suited to my top heavy design.
Before making any more prototypes however I wanted to properly digitize my work and produce some fully formed potential colourways to prototype aswell. First I made simple white and black seperations for light and dark example tees.
My next idea was to fill in some of the closed areas within the branches, kind of like a stained glass window effect but also suggesting large furled leaves. Again I trialed this in both light and dark variations, as well as a few brief experiments with other colours, however I felt the green was the most effective in a single shade. Had I been creating this myself as a print, I would have probably created multiple colour layers here to give tonal depth and allow for exotic colours to be used without looking false, however naturality felt an important feature here.
The beauty of photoshop was that it allowed me to speedily test many different subtle differences in design and pattern very quickly, and settle on the strongest examples with speed and efficiency.Finally I created one more dark variant focusing on the hand and acorn instead of the tree. I actually really liked this design best of all and now felt like I had enough material and enough of a fully developed concept to show to James. As the final part of the pitch I also created two final mockups showcasing my two favourite designs from the examples in a realistic and professonal prototype.
He was really pleased with the designs as well as understanding and appreciating the message I was trying to convey, and also seemed up for attempting his first multilayer seperate colour prints! I felt really excited to be getting involved in this project, and particularly boosted along by aligning myself with an enterprise which shared my ideas and interests. Looking over the Mind Garden instagram of past designs by other artists, I also felt like my piece was a good addition to their selection.
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