Exploring Radial Pattern (Circle Symbolism)

My ideas for my major project were initially to focus around shape, concentrating mainly around shape found in churches and cathedrals, nature and anatomy. I was looking into fashion and how the shapes I was looking at could be applied to fabrics and different materials. I considered this idea for a while and experimented but found myself a little lost and wanted to find another path. I began to look at my work so far and see if I could pick out the key elements that really stood out to me and the parts of my work that worked the best and seemed to have the most focus and meaning to me. I found that more of my drawings and research were focused around radial patterns and circle shapes, so I decided to base my major project on this. 

Signs & Symbols Sourcebook with circle definition example. 

I looked into the idea of circle as symbolism and found myself quite intrigued with the answers I found. Circles are seen as a sacred thing that can mean wholeness, fertility, equality and strength. As the circle is a whole shape with no gaps it can be used to symbolize strength being unbreakable, also it is seen as a protection (protective circle). I have read parts of quite a few books on signs and symbols in the past but I found a brilliant book ‘The Illustrated Signs & Symbols Sourcebook’ by Adele Nozedar, which really brought out the meanings of circles and radial shapes to me which is why I chose to base my work around this subject. In the book the author describes the circle as ‘an expansion of the dot’ and states that it ‘represents the spirit and the cosmos’. The part of the description of the circle symbolism that stood out to me the most was “Where would the man have seen the most important circles? Obviously, in the Sun and the Moon. As the Sun, the circle is masculine, but when it is the Moon, is feminine. Because the passage of time is marked by the journey of the Sun, Moon and stars in orbit around our Earth, the circle is a symbol of the passage of time. In this form, it commonly appears as the wheel.” I was really drawn to this explanation of the sky connecting the idea of the circle representing time so I have based my drawings around parts of the sky like the moon, suns and stars and also drawn some clocks and compasses (to represent time and mapping the sky). I have kept the nature and the anatomy in my proposal but took just come parts of it, only drawing leaves to add decoration to my designs and the eye as it is a circular part of the body and is seen as very sacred and important, as I didn’t want to include too much subject matter in my work. I feel I am learning a lot from reading this book and have developed a keen interest in the idea of symbolism. I have lots of ideas to explore and am now confident in my idea and am satisfied that it has a story behind it to add some passion for me to create my designs. 

Below are some of my drawing work inspired by the sky and radial pattern.