Leman Album Designs
The Leman Album is a crucial element to this project due to the designs being created in the Spitalfields area. While the original designs are rather traditional, with them being for silks for the rich, the style of the florals themselves are timeless with geometric and modern compositions being used across many designs. I translated these designs into my own style by using inks and posca markers and an updated, more relevant colour palette to my project.
In this sketchbook I was able to experiment with composition as well as investigating different colour palette compositions as well. The most successful drawings were the ones that had a limited colour palette and simple compositions. They are as they follow:
The front page – I like this design as the inks and the posca marker help to highlight certain details of the design. The small details such as the little lines in the leaves help to add pattern and texture to the piece instead of just keeping it just as a flat drawing. Additionally, I think the thickness of the lines also help to define different parts of the design and help to distinguish certain parts of it.
Blue and orange – I think this design is rather successful due to the use of the complementary colours in the design. I also think the scale of the floral on the right-hand side of the sketchbook also makes the composition work and could potentially be used as a repeat print in its own right.
Blue and Lime Green – I never thought a colour composition like this could work for me, however it has turned out to be one of my favourite palettes to date and could be explored further in my designs. The blue ink was used for the outline of the florals was inspired by the traditional tiles seen in many of the Huguenot houses. This is contrasted by using pink for the accents for the florals as well as a bright lime green for the background.
Pink and green – Pink and green has always been an iconic pairing, but it really works in this drawing. The composition of these pages have a majority of pink across them with the white space being filled by green.
In these drawings, the colour palette was decided by and limited to the colours available in the mediums I was using. The inks were a great decision to use as they are very vibrant and have an almost neon nature to them. However, the Posca markers did not have the same vibrancy as the inks and I think the drawings work the best without the additional Posca marker details.
