zooming in

Vogue Australia, May, 2008

This print design was one of my initial inspirations and I really liked the subtle colour transition used for the background so I decided to change tact in creating my background designs and try cropping and zooming in on different areas of my photos to try create natural colour gradients...

 I cropped this photo down to a section on the main petal where there is a colour transition from orange to purple to red.

 I then enlarged this section and flipped it on the vertical axis.(I realised afterwards that this selection actually featured an ant sitting there which I loved as it added to the natural authenticity of the print.)

I really like the natural transition of colours created in this image and think it has great possibility to be turned into something more...

I then repeated these effects [crop, enlarge, flip] on another section of the flowers petals to create this darker colour transition. I think this background has more depth and I could really envisage an interesting detailed design on top so I started pieces together some of my original flower motifs...

These are are the 3 flower motifs I started designing with

I started by adding a sketch filter to the images, and then began duplicating, rotating and resizing each flower creating a montage of sorts...

 

 This was then overlayed onto my gradient background

 I then attempted to put the simple montage into a toss repeat. 
I rotated the canvas as I thought vertical lines would be more slimming for a textile garment...

I was quite pleased with this outcome but again I did not love it, I feel it lacks interest and is a bit too boring I decided I wouldnt want to wear a garment made using this print

I thought I may as well see what the toss montage would look like on my original colour gradient and played around with different rotations, mirrors and filters...

 I think number 1 is my favourite and could possibly be further developed into my final design!

background layerin

I thought I would trying to combine and build up my individual motifs and repeats to see if I could get some interesting background possibilities... 

I overlayed my busy 6-point star half drop with my fist symmetrical motif but combining the designs in colour was too much and just looked gross. so before abandoning mission I  playing a bit with adjustments, filters and then thresholds which did two things;

1. had some potential to eventually turn into an interesting background

2. showed how unaligned the two layers were and made me realise I needed to re-do them using guides and rulers...

This time I aligned them and this definitely improved the overall aesthetics of the print.

This time I changed the levels, darkening the the whole design which I think improved it further although it still was not really working for me

This next one was another attempt at trying to create some sort of background print. I put my original flower motif I really liked into a smaller repeat. 

I then made multiple repeats and layered them on top of each other, plaing with the opacity and fill until all repeats were visible. 

I'm not sure if it is just the nature of layering tiny detailed repeats but I don't really think this resulted in a cohesive pattern and it is a little tiring to look at.

attempt 3

I thought it was time to try some different techniques and push myself a little further into the abyss of photoshop...

I chose this image because I thought the silhouette was quite striking and could create some interesting patterns

 I added a cut out filter over the image to help define the the silhouette ease of cutting out

Using the magnetic lasso tool I carefully cut the flower out 

 I cropped and flipped the bird of paradise image 4 times reflecting the image over the axis

I then cropped an interesting section of the above motif and cropped it into a circle because I didn't think the flower petals crossing over was really working and my friend so kindly pointed out the centre section look like female genitalia. :s

 I defined my circles as a pattern and put it into repeat

I then overlayed a duplicate layer and added a sketch filter. Making both layers visible (with the coloured layer on top) and using the magic tool, I selected colours and removed sections allowing the sketch to show through.

Finished product! I think it looks great and I can really imagine it applied to fabric for textile garments. I think that it is still a little simple to be my final print and also it does not really resonate with me as being inspired by a bird of paradise. 

triangles and halfdrops

I thought I'd play around with this photo a bit more, and try be more creative trying out some different types of symmetrical motifs...

This time I decided to try and create a shape out of my flower motif and I thought triangles are quite contemporary and seem to be appearing often in textiles prints at the moment. 

I found using the rulers and guides (with snap turned on) really helpful in creating a perfect triangle.

I love this design! I fiddled with adjustments a bit to make the colours a little more vibrant and I think it is excellent. The design is still highly identifiably as a bird of paradise flower although the centre triangle gives the motif a really modern edge. 

Because I loved the above design so much I thought it would look amazing in repeat... little did I know.

Maybe because I did such a simple repeat and added such an ugly filter (mosaic) I think the beauty of the original motif is lost and it turns into a really boring, uniformed print.

 hmmmm, what to do now?

I duplicated the original layers then played with the layers and filters to create deeper colours. While I was duplicating the layers I thought I would see what it would look like if I then rotated one of the layers.. due to the perfect symmetry of the original centre triangle the rotation created a really sharp 6-point star and added volume to leaves in the design. 

After carefully following numerous tutorials I finally managed to create a half drop!!!! 

Although I am stoked I managed to create a successful half drop I'm not too sure about the 6-point star centre that's going on. At first when it was just a singular motif I thought it looked kind of cool although after seeing it in repeat  and from a distance (as a garment it will not always be viewed from up close) I think it looses the simple clarity of lines and the becomes average looking.

I think overall the intricate detail in the original flower motif is lost when repeated en mass and it all becomes too busy and almost tiring to look at.

Reflection

I think I have decided that I really don't like plain repeats and that I would like my final textile design to have more to it, such as an interesting background or maybe I could create some sort of intricate design out of each of the flower motifs I have created...

decision making

Decision making is most definitely not my forte.

Choosing which theme (beach or garden flowers) I was going to design with was hard enough little lone to start deciding how I want to go about making my print.

I chose to run with the bird of paradise inspiration because they remind me of my childhood (we used to have the most glorious bird of paradise plant in out front yard) and also because I could really envisage the unique shapes and colours coming together to create a textile print.

I found it really difficult to start my print design process on photoshop because I had no idea how to even begin creating the print designs I had sketched up or what tools I was going to use because my photoshop skills are somewhat limited and I found myself just playing with new tools I discovered instead of actually creating my textile print.

Even thought its was fun discovering new tools, I decided that a more practical approach to completing my assignment would be to start applying the different skills we have learnt in class to some of the photographs I had taken.

Here we go...

I thought this photo was both simple and beautiful and a good one to start so I used the magic tool to get rid of the majority of the background, then I painstakingly zoomed in and rubbed out the remaining until I had a nice clear cut out.

 then I tried flipping and rotating the  cut out to create a symmetrical motif.

I tried out a few different filters and adjustments but I think neon glow and adjusting the thresholds were my favourite two, both creating really interesting lines and textures

 

I quite liked this little design although I think as a repeat it could get a bit busy and distracting so I might keep it in mind to add too a design I am yet to create...

doodling around

Idea development begins...

This is a rough sketch using black chalk of the Birds of Paradise I photographed

Another close up sketch using charcoal done on site

I did these watercolours funnily enough for an assignment I did for a different subject, design thinking. I have Birds of Paradise on the brain!

I found the above print design in a Gourmet Traveler magazine a few weeks ago whilst completing an assignment for a different subject and had torn it out just because I liked it. I stumbled across it the other day and the beautiful patterns really inspired me to start thinking about my ever looming textile print... these are some possible Bird of Paradise layouts inspired by the above Del Kathryn Barton print.

 

These are two possible print layouts I very roughly did on the bus using an ink liner.  

searching for concept inspiration

I initially turned to my garden to source inspiration from nature but was reminded of two facts.

1. Our garden is significantly lacking in interesting plant life

2. Winters a comin' so any lovely little flowers we may have in there are now hiding from the cold and don't want to be inspiration for me.

So

the next place I turned to for inspiration was the beach, and although I definitely would not consider myself as a 'beach babe' I do spend quite a lot of time down there be it an early morning swim or a stroll along the bike track, which is sand on one side and gorgeous wildlife on the other.

One morning in the holidays when mum and I were going for a walk along the bike track I grabbed my camera in hopes of finding some form of nature which inspired me and that I could envisage turning into one of the awesome prints featured in my last post.

bird of paradise

I stumbled across (literally had to crawl through some scrub to get to these beauties)  this little cluster of 'Bird of Paradise' flowers. They immediately caught my attention with their vibrant orange and their incredible bird like silhouettes which naturally made them shine out amongst the other scrubby native plants as textile print candidates.

the boat sheds

 

 

 

At the end of the bike track there are these decapitated old boast sheds which I discovered are actually really interesting to photograph with all their rusty, shell encrusted bits and pieces. I think my favorite subject to photograph would have to be the pippy stick. It was a piece of timber about 2 meters long which had little miniature pippys clustered all the way along the sides, kind of reminding me of a delicate string of beads.