With the barley I felt what really needed to translate over to my barley animal was the sleekness constructed by the way the seeds directionally interlock to create a smooth flourish. Because of this directional component I felt that barley would be a sea creature of some kind, like a darting silver fish that would move in schools. There is a definite collectiveness in the sense that you very rarely get just one barley plant. They move and grow together, a field of barley undulating in the wind in the same way that a school of fish would in the currents of the sea.
Once I started sketching, what in Stanton occured to me was the similarities in structure between the barley and the basic shape of a fishes skeletal system. So, I created a barley fish, it's swimming muscles shaped like the seeds of the barley. The long spines that in the plant extend from these seeds form a type of tail. Perhaps compared to the plant, it doesn't have the inherent pleasantness of the golden colouring. However, I think this would be translated when you had a school of them, alive and moving. It is strange that when an animal it is no where near as friendly as the plant. I think this could be because the plant has so many ingrained connotations of prosperity and well-being that is lost in the translation.
The vipers bugloss is a really unpleasant plant; it's hairy, spikes and stout, as if it were clinging to the ground in a protective and threatening crouch. It is in fact called vipers bugloss because the flower head looks like that of a gaping snake. This threat is what I wanted to bring across to the animal, that is why I went for an insectile base.
I took all the leaves on the stem and pointed them in the same direction to create a greater sense of stoutness and hairiness. The flower needed very little work to make it threatening and the stamen already look like darting tongues. I think his one really captures the plant and the way it made me feel when I first saw it.
I have always had positive feelings towards the plantain. It has a simple elegance of shape that really appeals to me. This simplicity translated across to the animal well because I chose to create a plankton like creature, minuscule in size, designed to float around in the sea, just surviving. The cercular fringe of stamen around the head has always reminded me of a tutu, so it seemed natural that this would become the animals means of transportation and even a way of filter feeding. I extended this fringe in a spiral fashion around the length of the body.
This lack of sentience that translates as a positive thing has got me thinking about why some of theses plants are pleasant and others no so. It seems that if the shapes of the plant suggest animation in anyway beyond what we would expect of a plant, this becomes unsettling because they could pose a possible great. In this sense it seems that my reactions to these plants is informed by an almost instinctive assessment of their threat level.
Much like the barley, a major part of the impression the long headed poppy makes, is it's movement. When blown in the wind the flower sways and dances and the petals flutter. It is unsurprising therefore that I have gone for another sea based animal.
The poppy not only has it's structure and looks to create an impression but also a century worth of historical connotations. Because of these negative associations with the battle of the Somme I have made it a beautiful but dangerousness animal, the jelly fish. The petals form the soft body which is also covered by the floating stamen from the crown of the dome. The poppy heads act as the tenticals as the most identifiable part of the plant.
This exercise has given me a good direction to go in. I now want to break down these plants into their component parts and analyse why they evoke such different emotions. This will be helpful at the mos basic level of design as well as helping me to look at the way that we look at plants and how. They play their part in branding and identities.
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