Following on from the last two Sunday sketches, I’m using hearts again this week. But they’re becoming less and less obvious thanks to minor tweaks to the design.

This week’s sketch uses the same basic heart shape from Sunday sketch #506, with one small difference: I coloured in part of the sashing between the heart shapes. That’s it! But that creates a little bridge between two sides of adjacent hearts, creating those little cashew shapes. Nutty, I know!

I think I prefer when the foursomes are arranged on point (all those notches and quirky secondary shapes pointing this way and that!), but that layout was so similar to Sunday sketch #506 that I thought I’d share a different version to start with. But isn’t this fun??

Back to the standard layout for now. Like in #506, I leaned heavily on the transparency effect when colouring this week’s design. And sometimes I am in two minds about how much to use transparency, but here I felt like it worked too well not to take advantage of it.

A limited palette works too. I’ve just rotated each alternate block so the shapes in each colour point in different directions. This helps to add a bit of movement.

Also, it’s worth remembering that when using transparency, the ‘blend’ colour (the one you use for the shapes that appear to overlap) doesn’t have to make sense. In the first version of this design that I showed above, some of the colours make sense and some don’t. You can see what I mean in this next version, too: two yellows overlapping are never going to create pink or blue, but you still get the feeling when you look at these blocks that there are overlapping bean shapes. Your brain makes sense of the colour even when the colours don’t make sense!

I kinda like this design in a super-simple two-colour palette too. It doesn’t (can’t!) use transparency, but I think your brain still sees overlapping shapes (mine does, anyway). But then again, sometimes it doesn’t.

   

I love the simplicity of these versions, but also (and it might sound weird to say this…) I feel like the blocks are kinda angry with me?? My eye sees those upturned and downturned semi-circles created by pairs of orange peels… which I guess look like angry eyebrows and frowns? I’m not sure what’s happening between my eyes and my brain with these versions, but I’m definitely getting a stern vibe from the cashews. But I still like it! 🙂