COMPANION PRINTS_

Companion prints are almost an add on to a main print, a print to support and compliment, but never compete. It could include the same colours, or a particular motif, but is usually a lot simpler.

I really engaged with  creating a series of companion prints. Because I had a lot of motifs to work with, the ideas flowed to me. What was interesting is the colour choice for one print was the hardest part- although my colour palette was very successful, choosing just two or three colours that go well together was a struggle. Maybe I just loved them all too much! I started with a background colour to work on top of, and built up my prints by layering, printing, cutting and sticking, painting. My first set of 6 20x20cm companion prints were, in my opinion, okay. They had all the vital components, had a lovely range of colours, but they just didn't catch my eye like I hoped they would. There were really successful elements, such as printing with the edge of corrugated card. This gave a beautiful textured line, and could be manipulated into many interesting shapes. I just feel some of the prints were lacking oomph, but it was my first attempt.

I created another 6 companion prints, all developed from the first 6. As the idea of a companion print was to to compliment the main print in a simplistic way (in my case, my 50x50cm print), I decided to incorporate shapes and motifs that were similar in each. This was successful, and you could see that the prints now tied together.  
By the last 6 companion prints, I was confident in the ways I could produce an aesthetically pleasing print. Printing with different objects worked really well, and so did cutting out bold shapes such as florals from coloured paper. I also included common ground from the use of the background in the large print, which created a simple but wonderful companion print to it.

Companion prints- my new favourite. I loved the simplistic nature of them, the way they subtly relate to a larger more complicated print, like little followers. Continuing to practise creating these would be highly beneficial, almost so it becomes second nature to me to be able to pick out common ground form the main print.