When forming ideas for this scarf, I was thinking about how women are portrayed in media and mythology as divisive creatures who's goals are to lead men to destruction. I began thinking about animals that are feared, but seen are referenced a lot in pop culture. I chose snakes and spiders. 

Aside from their prominence in pop culture, they are also organisms women are commonly compared to because women are seen as cunning, sly, and gossips. Snakes and spiders also have interesting shapes that would be fun to render. So, I started with a quick draft of my scarf design.

I wanted body parts to be on the corners of the scarf, so I chose an eye, mouth, and hand.

I used the curvature tool to create the lines and shapes in my illustration. I wanted rounded shapes to soften the snake and spider. 

When tonal mapping I used the shape builder tool and matched the shades with the ones on my reference images to the best of my ability. During this process I also removed the stroke lines because I wanted the colours to flow into each other.

I based my colour palette off of my rough scarf draft and contrasting colours. I wanted the  subjects to pop against a pastel background. For my optical illusion, I chose BLANK. I did this because I wanted the scarf to be "trippy" as you got closer to the wearer. By incorporating this optical illusion into the subjects of the illustration along with the solid colours. Through this, I believe I achieved a slightly disorientating dynamic look.

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While creating the snake and spider shapes, the song "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" popped into my head. So, I was inspired to incorporate a crystal shape into the design. I found an earring with an oval cut shape and took a picture of it. It caught a bit of my reflection and I thought that would be cool as it is an abstract image of a girl in a diamond. 

I put this into the photoshop and repeated radial patterns. It ended up creating a really cool kaleidoscope effect, adding to the psychedelic aesthetic of my scarf design. 

After that I experimented with water colour. I made my favourite into a swatch and layered it with the kaleidoscope jewel. The layer filter options and opacity sliders allowed me to create different versions of a potential background. 

For the final scarf design, I stuck closely with my original idea. However had trouble deciding on the centre of the piece.

The one I chose featured a depiction of snakes eating themselves as it is a symbol of the cycle of life and death, a cycle women have a defining role in. I put the hand, eye, and lip elements on the corner boarder points of the scarf.

I see a young adult wearing this scarf because bandana head scarfs are popular among that age group and this one evokes a chaotic feeling. I imagine that as people get closer the scarf their perception of it will become less clear. I wanted to feel dizzying and hypnotic. It would feel like the wearer was luring onlookers into a trap, like a spider or snake catching its prey, or how a woman could beguile you into her grasps.