The most brilliant artists and writers are capable of creating new worlds that their onlookers can’t turn away from. It is extremely impressive when an illustration does this, because the task of enthralling its onlooker must be done in only a single image–among billions of other single images. I have heard that great writers sometimes sit and actually retype the books of the best authors to understand the author’s rhythm and grammatical technique. The same is done of artists, breaking down a piece of work to understand better what the artist did to create the thrilling effect. Lesley Barnes is an amazing artist. And, so, I did a brief simple GIF of her work below, and in doing so I discovered so much about her technique that my common eye had otherwise missed. For instance, it is obvious that she uses geometrical shapes in her work:
Work of Award Winning Illustrator, Lesley Barnes
But, why are these so absolutely thrilling, so eye catching and unique? One observation I made is that she uses not just geometric figures but repeatedly uses the same figures; So that what may seem busy and exciting is also organized, symmetrical and thus pleasing to the eye. The extraordinary thing is that when looking at her work, it is not immediately apparent that you are really looking at a beautiful pattern perhaps above all else. She has an uncanny ability to turn animals (particularly horses) and people into beautiful inconspicuous geometric patterns.
This is a small view of one of my favorite works of Barnes:
By constructing this GIF, I was able to see how often the small shapes of her pieces repeat in one image, like the hands, for instance.
GIF Using Work of Lesley Barnes
It appears that Lesley Barnes often does illustrations for books– a very fitting task for Barnes; While most patterns are found on boring places like wallpaper, the patterns of Barnes are laced with underlying meaning, perfect to make the onlooker curious about the attached story. In close, I would love to see a very famous brand like Gucci contract Barnes to design a pattern for a handbag or clothing line, because patterns like hers have the potential to turn any subject matter into the object of high trend.
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