development

I've been making a lot of textures and cutting out nature shapes but I haven't actually done a lot with them, so I thought I should probably start trying out some of the compositions I've been thinking about. Here are some of the new shapes I made, I realised it made it so much easier to select the shapes on photoshop when the background was black, so I used black paper on the scanner

I also then realised, after making all the shapes for ages, that it is even easier and quicker to just make the shapes using the lasso tool on photoshop using my scanned in textures, so next time that is what I'll be doing. 

I did a tester for my composition for the quote:

'Now the sunlight had lifted clear of the open space and withdrawn from the sky. Darkness poured out, submerging the ways between the trees till they were dim and strange as the bottom of the sea. The candle-buds opened their wide white flowers glimmering under the light that prickled down from the first stars. Their scent spilled out into the air and took possession of the island'

I had more trouble with it than I thought I would, I thought the layering up of the shapes would be easy but I found it hard to get a sense of depth. So I made a background

I then started layering up the other shapes on top but they looked way too bright and out of place so I multiplied the layers so that they included some texture from behind, but also had to delete the shapes of blue behind each plant so that they were actually visible

 I quite like how it is turing out, I think the colours work and there is a sense that the forest is quite dark and ominous which is what I wanted to create. I added some figures

 I'm not sure about the figures, I need to include them but they look a little out of place. I was also planning to make these compositions very simple and 'Matisee-esque' but this has tuned out quite complicated with so many layers. So I might re-do it in a much more simplified way and see how that looks.