This design started weeks earlier when I played with sculptural and visual patterns using curled paper, ripped paper, glue, pencil, and ink.
I then combined three textures to make a single composition: the inky beans, the ripped paper strips, and the paper curls. My initial plan was to include only the inky beans on a base of illustration board with the paper curls in stark white, glued across the board in a flowing wave. The idea was to capture the curly bean shape in both the visual and the tactile texture.
I was not satisfied, however, with the result, as seen below in the center photo, second row, so I decided to add significant bulk and intrigue with several layers of ripped paper strips. The initial white curls did not marry well with their background, so I painted the inky beans on the curls and I created sheets of inky beans for the strips.
For my diptych, I wanted to keep working with my inky bean ripped strips, and I wanted to explore a gradient of gray to create more visual depth. I painted 6 different gray washes across 12 sheets of 75 lb-paper (and I added two more sheets at the end when I saw I was running out). Over the washes I painted the bean patterns.
I then hand-ripped each strip, keeping the collections divided by wash color in little baggies. I went on to glue the strips onto their respective black and white illustration boards, ensuring a gradual transitions between the six gray washes.
The ultimate, central shape I sought to create is one seen everywhere in creation: the egg, the seed, the vulva. The swirl of ripped strips sitting around this shape of creation represents the cycle within the chaos.
