marian bantjes.

i'm trying to make posters about her! here's what i started with:

the thing about marian bantjes is, she's extremely varied in her work. given that, there's not necessarily a particular style to try to emulate or reference... so i kind of toddled after some of her methods to see what i could come up with. i have both all-digital and partial-analog work here. the analog includes text made out of vines, and text & image made out of beads. as for the digital, i tried in two to create the kind of complex vector pattern that she has been known to relish, and for the other, i experimented with trying to construct a pattern out of the text itself.

the plants got knocked out of the running early because bantjes is super duper precise in her work, even/especially her analog, and i just couldn't achieve that. my bead rendition of the vanderslice facade wasn't really communicating like i needed it to, and the photo underlay was kind of a failed experiment. but everything lent at least some aspect to the next round, which went a little something like this:

upon marty's recommendation, i tried out a different piece of vanderslice for my beadwork: the blocky concrete border that goes up corners and around windows. bantjes has been known to use a frame or two in her designs, so this was perfect. i tried several ways to ease the burden of that pink pattern on my computer, and in so doing, heightened my precision a great deal, but in doing that, i forfeit some of the whitespace that i had been trying out in the first pink poster. (my poor sweet macbook hates that pattern. illustrator crashed over and over again while i was working, causing much wailing, gnashing of teeth, and re-doing things after it would save 98% and then make me force quit and lose all my changes. i would love to know how marian bantjes does it! probably with an behemoth of a computer.) fortunately, the pink pattern all by itself is no longer in play as a possibility, which is a tiny bit sad in that i wish i could've played with that pattern like i had in my head to do, but it just wasn't very practical.

unfortunately, though, i have still not unearthed a clear direction and will be putting both beads and vectors through their paces one more time before figuring out the look of my final design. i look forward to seeing what comes out!