For me, this project represents an important place in my life. My family runs a berry and flower farm in the North Georgia mountains. The farm, for us, is a place of joy and peace. I chose to create a mountain landscape with a sun in the background out of a pattern of berries and a sunflower to represent the farm.
Sketching Process- Step One:
To begin my self portrait as pattern project I created sketches of things personally to me. Some of these sketches related to my families farm, featuring the mountains, berries, and flowers. In addition, I created sketched that showed my history with the water, as a swimmer who also grew up near water, it holds great meaning to me. I took inspiration from a piece I found online called “Strawberry Fields Forever”, that combined a landscape and berry.
Single Portrait- Step Two:
During my second step I began to formulate my ideas into a single portrait.
While working on my assignment I used vectorial tutorials as an outline to create my berries. I used the tutorials as inspiration to experiment with a cartoon style berry. The berries were arranged into a pattern to create mountains, and a sky was added to the background.
I felt as though the vibrant colors and cartoon berries created a bright, joyful feeling that I associate with the farm.
During this step I learned how to use different layering functions and shape tools to create the images I wanted.
Final Portrait- Step Three:
To finalize my project I incorporated pieces from my single portrait and sketches. I decided to add a carton of blueberries to create a front focus in my piece and build a mountain shape and take inspiration from a piece by Terri Hill, that I thought was a great pattern made out of berries. I then built up two additional “mountains” out of raspberries and blackberries.
For the sky setting in the background, I chose to incorporate a sunflower as the sun. This allowed me to associate the flowers with a bright emotion.
I continued to incorporate the cartoon-like appearance in my drawings because of the joyful, light emotion it portrays. Making the colors more pale created a more peaceful feeling for the image, which represents a reason the farm is meaningful to me.
In my final project I was able to incorporate more drawing and use different layout functions I was not aware of before.
Overall, I wanted to create a self portrait as pattern that reflected a piece of my life I associate with a calm happiness.
Bibliography
“How to Draw a Blueberry in Adobe Illustrator.” Vectorial. June 27, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSttPTCpuRc&t=306s
“How to Draw a Blackberry in Adobe Illustrator.” Vectorial. June 28, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4rX1VPMwOk
“How to Draw a Strawberry in Adobe Illustrator.” Vectorial. June 28, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3xcPOQYtho
“Basket o’ Berries.” Terri Hill. Accessed February 6, 2025. https://www.art.com/products/p53767290996-sa-i7164770/terri-hill-basket-o-berries.htm?upi=Q1I38180&PODConfigID=8880742&sOrigID=9313
“Strawberry Fields Forever.” Artist Age. August 2, 2024. https://fineartamerica.com/featured/strawberry-fields-forever-artist-age.html
