The Initial Research

Ernest Haeckle

I first looked at Ernst Haeckle because I believed he would be a good starting point in for this project. Haeckle was a biologist and artist who illustrated thousands of biomorphic creatures for diagrams after he'd discovered them. Mostly these were sea creatures, insects and cells. Although he mostly used oil paints to create his illustrations, I copied his works in a range of mediums including pencil crayons, water colours, pen and then digitally by drawing a section of it by hand before scanning in then copy & completing it on Photoshop. I think this research helped me in finding patterns and shapes in nature which I could then develop, I could also use Photoshop techniques later on in the project to create similar images.

Chad Wasser

(chadwasser.com)

Chad Wasser also creates biomophic art of very similar things to Ernst Haeckle for example, sea life. He also creates bacteria, organic forms and petri dish inspired images by combining ink splats with pen. This makes his work abstract and it becomes more of an art piece compared to Haeckle's scientific diagrams.

I used the same process of splatting vibrant ink colours onto paper before going over it with a fine liner, adding on similar marks to Wasser's works.

May Van Millingen

(mayvanmillingen.com)

May Van Millingen has created these biomorphic form illustrations based on old scientific diagrams, perhaps even Ernst Haeckle's. She first draws in fine liner before applying bright, well considered colours digitally. I decided to use her style on some sea creatures that Haeckle has drawn. I first traced his work and then went over in black fine liner, adding in similar detail to Millingen. I then scanned these drawings in and added colour, sampled from her works, on Photoshop. I was really happy with how they turned out and thought they held a similar quality. I decided that some of these could be turned into patterns by repeating the image.

The Brief

My Unit 3 topic in A Level Art was Biomorphic Forms. Biomorphism is really artwork on naturally occurring patterns or shapes related to nature & living organisms. I realised that my work for this unit could go in such a vast amount of directions; from looking at floral shapes or into microscopic images of cells etc. By dissecting fruits, flowers or other plants I'd be able to see internal shapes or the forms - this would be more exiting as these shapes would have seen less than external ones. Images of these dissections may seem like scientific diagrams and I liked the idea of turning science into art by adding creativity. Again, biologists will have made studies of cells and transforming these into visual works could lead to some powerful outcomes. No matter what I look into in this project, I believe there will be a heavy focus on looking at marks/lines and vivid colours in the biomorphic forms. 

In my mind I wanted to create more abstract works rather that accurate drawings of nature as this would be much more interesting. Further research into Biomorphic Forms showed how many fashion designers and architects have used nature's influence on their creations. I could explore fabric outcomes and sculptures in response to this. I intend to focus on the patterns aspect of the unit, I enjoyed transforming drawings into repeat patterns in previous project and often this was done digitally.  I liked how a simple image's scale could be hugely increased and how new shapes were formed.