Somehow I got the idea that I wanted to make a design that was “dripping with malachite.” Recently, I had bought a little nugget of the substance and had been inspired by the greens, the strata, and the way that it looks like paused melting or bubbling.
I set about painting, which was fun.
The home studio
Next, I cleaned up the paintings in the computer and began to flip and rotate them. I was trying to create a scale shape that could be tiered down to give a dripping feeling. I stepped back from the computer.
OH NO!
What had I done? I didn’t want to loose the painting work or give up on the original idea. There just had to be a way to use malachite as inspiration without ending up with an embarrassing piece of hippy porn.
The answer, in this instance, was to pair down. I had been producing all the fodder for the pattern, but it was time to stop amassing and start editing.
I was able to stay true to my initial concept and solve the problem by cutting a scale shape from the art.
A malachite scale
It works!
Interested buyers may view final print by requesting a password & checking out the protected gallery.