Retro Recreation

To record my summer I wanted to look to my surroundings for inspiration, with who and what was around me in this time. I started by drawing portraits of my family and friends and also the places I was spending my time in.

 

 

The displays of plants, pots and crockery have a mid century vibe to them with the geometric patterns and bright colours. This gave me the idea to recreate elements of my home with 60s and 70s furniture with lots of plants and patterns. I painted some of these in gouache to get an idea of colour schemes and how to colour the pieces.  

Looking at the patterns from the crockery and inspired by 60s floral designs, I created these print ideas. I wanted to use warm colours to create cohesive designs. Mid century designs are very geometric and usually repeating and simple.

Researching 60s furniture lead me to notice the pattern of styles that were used in design of that era including the use of coloured plastic, wooden accents and features like short, tapered legs and graphic shapes to the furniture.

For the colour scheme I took shades from my living room and overlayed them with orange so that they all have a vintage vibe and would all link well together in the final piece.

 I have always loved the displays in my house due to the bright colours and retro influence of its appearance. The idea of it being a mid century inspired piece came from the colours and prints around me but also my love of vintage culture, fashion and design. This came about when I was younger and was introduced to 60s music which caused me to look into other aspects of that era.

This composition was chosen to resemble my living room but then reimagined through a vintage lens. The focal point veers towards the centre of the room to where the TV is as I wanted the piece to have a cosy and family feel to reflect back to the current time where we are all spending more time at home. The colour palette is a combination of inspiration from the real room and also common colours of the 60s with warm greens, oranges, yellows and reds. Print and pattern was an important aspect of this work as that fuelled my original idea of using mid century as an inspiration with the floral and striped designs.

For this work I wanted to observe what was around me as this was where I was spending most of my time over the summer. I wouldn’t usually look to my home as inspiration as I would rather source my inspiration from places outside of my usual surroundings but I thought that looking to what's around me was the best reflection of this time.