You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘surface pattern design’ tag.
It’s been hard to ease back into a working pace this week because:
1) I have a post holiday, slow vibe,
2) My daughter Lucy has taken over my studio to do a print project of her own – which I love! – the project and accommodating her 😉
3) I’ve been shoved up in the corner under the roof while this happens :)))
The first print design I made back in Spring 2019 as part of my Residency at Winterbourne HG is also the last I have to show you here.
I had been quietly sketching in the Walled Garden when a mouse felt brave enough to leave one bed, cross the grass and dive into another just to my side.
That mouse made it into the print as did the flowers and birds that I observed around the site at the time.
It’s been test printed up in a number of colour-ways by heat-press transfer printing and screen-printed by hand after I’d exposed a screen but ultimately the details are so fine that it’s only got digital printing in it’s future.
It nearly got birthed as wrapping paper for the shop but in the end the margins for production on it weren’t viable – such is the life of a designer; making by hand is the most satisfying and sometimes also the least! But it remains a firm favourite of mine and I hope one day it can show the world it’s charm.
Historically an C18th Toile du Jouy is a pattern depicting some kind of a complex country/farming scene, usually a single colour (pink, coral, black, blue) printed onto cream or white linen.
I wanted to capture something of the life of Winterbourne House & Gardens- it’s workers and visitors and so I opted to translate some photos and sketches into a modern-day Toile du Jouy.
I appropriated the icons of the house and gardens such as the chinese-style bridge, the four-bed walled garden, one of the many greenhouse, the house itself of course and people I witnessed reading, working and enjoying the grounds, to link all the little islands of places in the fabric design.
I got the biggest surprise for Christmas when I opened a big box and found this, my own design, printed up on gorgeous heavy weight linen. My HB had made up a pretty believable story in order to get hold of the files to this design and I didn’t suspect for a moment that he was in cahoots with my S-I-L whose idea it was to get it printed.
It has got my thinking hard about future possibilities…
The Alhambra wouldn’t have lived up to expectations if there weren’t a few tiles to inspire some pattern designing.
And as you can see I wasn’t disappointed in the least.
Miles and miles of them. These are the survivors of a hard edit!
Endless colour and pattern inspiration. 
I have just begun to scratch the surface of the design inspiration they prompt.
Here’s a little peek at some pattern WIP which has to remain a little bit secret 😉
A little winters pattern inspired by this book.
Some things are worth waiting for and this is definitely one of the them – I am actually now able to hold The Pattern Base book in my excited little hands!
The Pattern Base book is by Kristi O’Meara and edited by Audrey Victoria Keiffer – cofounders of the Chicago-based design studio and online archive The Patternbase.
It is a curation of 378 pages, showcasing a collection of 681 designs from 150 contemporary textile, surface, fashion, and print designers from around the world.
Illustrative, abstract, geometric, floral, digital and constructed textile patterns are all represented here and all the work is by up and coming designers.
I submitted my surface pattern designs way back in 2012 when this was a kick-starter idea and I had no idea that I would be fortunate enough to get two double page spreads but there I am on pages 228 and 229 🙆
I had been working on a group of paintings at the time featuring vintage china and cutlery and had developed some elements into these two pattens.
These went onto be selected to represent in the Illustrative category – brilliant!
It’s not everyday you get into print so I’m having a solo studio party today! 😉🎉🍸
{December Reflections :: take a photograph every day in December as a way to pay attention to what’s around you and reflect on the year that’s closing.}
Day 4. Red. Poppies or Anemones – my favourite flower.
And also the colour of the flyer for this coming Saturdays market at the Ruskin Glass Center.
More Kaffe today! It seems there is a hunger out there for it as so many of you have *liked* the previous post or left a comment – thanks, I love them :). Who I am to deprive you of more of these wonderful things I had to share.
Inside the American Museum in Britain are these gorgeous pieces which are the colour separations that the printer would have used to print the Kaffe Fassett fabric lengths.
They show the hand painted original design in repeat and then all the colours which would have made up the different colour ways.
I was très excited when I spotted them hanging up around the museum because I love this kind of behind the scene technical stuff.
Some of the photos are very yellow and full of reflection – sorry, there was not a lot of light or space.
And look at all those glorious colours! It’s hard to believe that in 20 years we have gone from hand painting every design idea and colour way to being able to put drawings into repeat and play with colours all at the touch of a mouse.
Back in the day I had a work placement in a company who sat me in a (large) cupboard (no windows and a lot of boxes) and had me paint in their drawings with specific colours – all day for a week – or two – I forget now, it seemed a long time.
A Google search shows they no longer trade so that’s all the retribution I’ll get for the cupboard ‘love’.
I could have poured over these for hours tracing which colour went where and plotting the pattern repeat.
I like to think the master’s hand had touched them all but I’m sure he will have had assistants help paint these in (just not in a cupboard I hope!)
Let me know if you loved them as much as I did 🙂
Paint Drops Keep Falling 
