Now that I had my new Catkins pattern, I was excited to experiment with different colourways and textures. Above shows a speckle texture in indigo and sepia, suggestive of ink drawings or woodcut prints. The four colourways below have been given a linen texture, and they show how the simplest of tweaks to colours and backgrounds radically affect a pattern to the extent it almost looks like a completely different design, even the scale of elements appears to change. This is why experiments like these are so exciting. Having omitted all the little sprigs between the branches of the tree (which suggested willows waving in a riverside breeze) from this pattern, I was happier that the design would print better. My concern was that the spriggy lines were so fine they would run into each other and look a bit mushy with random solid fills. One of the reasons I overlay textures is to get a feel for how a design might print on textiles, in this case I think it was helpful in avoiding pitfalls.
From this point, a different inspiration came along ... To be continued Once I was happy with the pattern and repeat, I began to wonder if my design was a little too crowded. I couldn't help noticing when I was working in layers the pattern looked good with more space surrounding the main elements when the layer with the frond outline details was toggled off; it was fighting for dominance with the bobbly catkins design. I simplified the fronds layer, as shown above. It was now in balance and more relaxed. Then I wondered about removing the fronds altogether, and redesigned the leaf layers, shown above in pink and blue. Very nice! - but then I realised I had created a completely new pattern. so, where to go from here?
To be continued ... I made this drawing in coloured inks in March 2019, with pattern-making in mind: I blogged about its early stages here. The drawing is a little chaotic in this state and I didn't know how to go about using it at the time, but I thought I made a start on basing a design on it a couple of weeks ago. This is the start: the colour scheme was just for clarity, not intended as a final colourway. The half drop was too shallow for such a busy design, the stems stumpy, and I wasn't keen on the lean at this stage. I picked out which was to form the main tree-like motif and redrew the stems to make them more slender and a bit knobbly. I also set it more upright to get rid of the lean, and made improvements to the frondy bits sprouting from the stems. Here is the first stage of the new repeat, quite a pretty motif on its own, but I wanted it to cover the whole surface, so at this stage work had to be done to make it into a continuous flow. This is how the pattern looks now after additional elements were inserted and interwoven with the main motif. I tried it out with a repeating linen texture I have been working on, and it looks very nice. It makes me think of willows with catkins gently swaying in the breeze beside a big old river. However, the story of this pattern doesn't stop here ... To be continued ...
This is the first weekend I have had to myself since mid-July. We have been incredibly busy since then: as an indirect result of the Edinburgh Festivals the day-job went crazy with 650 chairs to recover for the Scottish Assembly Rooms while they weren't in use in addition to all our regular work. Throw into the equation 3 lots of house guests, dog-sitting and cat-sitting to cover various owners' holidays, and different commitments in the evenings and weekends - you get the picture. I did manage to get some pattern-making done simply by stealing 5 minutes here and there, working in the car during lunch-breaks. I had set aside images for my blog but didn't get around to posting them so I back-dated those then made these two catch-up collages. Top row: Zico in the garden with a bolted rocket plant, hurrah! Molly arrived: modular fun with B, and Kirkcaldy beach with Zico Middle row: B's beautiful olive bread and squash soup; pizza making day (hilarious photo which Molly superimposed onto a Kirkcaldy beach pic; pizza looking like a 1970s cookery book photo which I love, Bottom row (pun intended): Rude food - Molly and I had fits of hysteria discovering a pair of buttocks in a butternut squash in Aldi, followed by spotting suggesive lollies (I thought we were going to get thrown out) - and somehow we managed to make some of B's rustic breads into more rude food. So, Wildflower Garden had a makeover with a rearrangement of the colour separations, and together with Crazy Daisies both were given new colourways based on old velvet shades and my favourite Peruvian cardi.
New work is underway, too ... Thanks for visiting, see you next week! |
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Welcome to my illustration and patterns blog.
I illustrate under the pen-name of Binky McKee, McKee being my mother's maiden name. Binky was the name of every single cat my great-grandmother kept - allegedly about 40 of them during her 94 years of life. I changed the website address a few months ago, so some older links on previous posts are broken. If you click one of those and it takes you to a strange page, simply replace the .co.uk after the binkymckee. with weebly.com and it will work again. I hope you enjoy your visit! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I keep lots of scrapbooks and sketchbooks where I develop ideas and design little creatures. Here's a peek inside one ...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As you may know, I am also known as Heather Eliza Walker.
Click the image if you would like to find out more and visit my other website. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
April 2024
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This time, take a peek into my ceramic design sketchbook. I actually made some of the mugs, but I kind of prefer the drawings! The plate designs are painted on paper plates, a most liberating process.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These watercolours are from my pattern sketchbook. I used coloured wax crayons to resist the washes of watercolour, also home-made rubber stamps dipped in bleach then printed on crêpe paper - the bleach takes out the paper dyes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A sketchbook I used for mark-making with unusual objects - corks, seed-heads, feathers, home-made rubber stamps, my fingers and lots of flicky things ...
|