#AND GOOD LYUCK.

[meirimerens]

*breaks into ur askbox through a plaster wall* hi i am genuinely fascinated by how you do patterns/ornaments in your art. I don't have like, the slightest bit of patience to do those, but I'm still hella interested to know how ppl do them. Do you plan them out or is it 'fuck it we ball' type of process? Do you usually go into more symbolic meanings (like with the floral ornaments) or add whatever fits aesthetically? Also are there any particular artists that inspire you when drawing them?

("good luck getting to me i'm behind 7 firewalls" meme voice) good lucky getting to [my blog] i'm behind 7 [layers of bricks]

hiii ok let's get serious now

while it'd be easier to tell me about my #process on a case by case basis (so if you have an image/images in particular you'd like to know how i did the patterns of i could likely be more precise in my response) the Vast Majority of the time truly i am ballin. at most I might sketch out where i want Big Pieces, and where i'll fill out with smaller things However Comma there are motifs that keep coming back. and i'm sorry to tell you this. one of them is The Patience To Do So. in no order whatsoever:

floral motifs. i never go for something that Actively Looks Like A Real Flower on purpose: the language of flowers is very dependant of era and place, and a flower that means [x] in 1910s Russia might not mean the same in 1870s England.

vegetal motifs in general, so leaves, vagyuely ivy-looking stuff, stuff inspired by mushrooms & fungi, etc

animal motifs, typically associated with the characters i'm drawing. i might draw stylized birds, wings, horns, serpents/snakes, scales, etc.

eyes, mouths, wounds, or anything that looks kinda ()-like. it can also. look quite yonic depending on the context so. yeah you could say i draw those motifs.

anatomical motifs, inspired by scientific diagrams of the epidermis, of cells, of different organs and body parts, etc. i rely a lot on [this] (Henry Gray’s Anatomy of the Human Body) because you have a lot of engravings for every body part you could think of.

random motifs: spikes, spirals, dots, waves, curls, blobs, "ladders",...

i do equal parts symbol & vibes. as mentioned above i'll often fit in animals that i associate with the characters i have drawn, add more anatomical stuff depending on the characters,... but a lot of the "filler" squiggles are pure vibes. i use them to connect symbols together. also most of the characters i draw with these types of patterns are in equal parts anatomy of the body and anatomy of the vegetal so truly i'm tailoring it here.

as for artists i'm inspired by those are the two i always mention:

Ernst Haeckel especially his Kunstformen der Natur (<- link to the Gallica digitalization, but if you google search that you'll also see plenty of good images). He was mostly a biologist & his KdN is drawings he did within his research, a bunch and i mean a buuunnnnccchhh of very beautiful drawings of so many lifeforms on earth. i often reuse his drawings of hexacorallia in peterstakh artworks. those types of artworks if you see what i'm seeing.

i'm also incredibly inspired by Solange Knopf's artworks, and routinely joke that i keep being inspired by her art. i loooove how she does it very freeflowing, packed with so much details

again, i'd probably have more to say if you pointed to an image in particular, but for the most part this is it chrewly!

you must learn patience... you must learn to enjoy doing the squiggles... this is the only way... THANK YOU FOR QUASTION