"Veins and Veils"

Veins and Veils

I am very happy with this one. The source image is a photo of a leaf on an as-yet unidentified weed growing at the edge of our driveway. These suckers are impressive. Each plant has one main stalk that reaches over six feet high, punctuated with said leaves, flowering on top with tiny clusters of, I think, wee yellow blossoms (at the bud stage, currently).

The leaves take a couple of different shapes, depending on the plant (which seems odd), either pointed ovals or this kind of offset janky shape that I quite like. And look, a peek behind the curtain - our garbage cans! It's a spiky, bristly plant, very tenacious, needs next to no water, and will take root almost anywhere. I'm hoping it's called "Devil's Bane" or something like that. Crucially, the leaves display very crisp, very intricate vein structures, light against a dark green background. They are quite fractalish, too, a fact that comes into play from a design perspective.

Pictured here is the actual photo the design is based on. The vein pattern reproduces on smaller, slightly darker scales at least three times. That is, shapes are composed of smaller, similar shapes, which in turn are composed of smaller, similar shapes, with the veins of each iteration becoming thinner and darker. The reason I'm going on about this is that it gives the pattern a depth that jumps out after just a little bit of tinkering. As if we are gazing into a three dimensional space composed of three layers of similar lattices (or veils, thus the title) receding from our view. Here's the design in full so you can see what I mean:

The illusion doesn't work so well in the lighter parts, but that dark, central region - I completely buy it as a three dimensional space. The pattern's layout is intriguing as well, clearly organic but not immediately obvious as to origin. "Are those scales? The shell of a turtle?" Finally, I am head over heels for the shade of dark green that dominates the image. It feels like a very deep, very rich forest green velvet. As in, the deepest, darkest part of forest green there is. It pushes my green button so hard I have to go to the door to make sure it's not pranking teenagers. It is on my life palette! :-)

Leggings and woman's tank top on Zazzle. Everything else is on Society6.