Final wallpapers for my interiors project

My concept started as 'Repitition within Nature' and at the time I was really interested in sea life. I decided to visit a number of zoo's and aquariums, finding some very inspiring things along the way. Here are some photos of my final collection! 

Screen printing

Today I've been screen printing with my fish onto paper. I love screen printing and I'm going to sample these further on top of digital prints and fabric. The gold foil has worked really well and I think adds a great feel to the fish. I can't wait to start some more and see how I can develop these even further.

Wallpaper and furnishing designs

Here are some photos of some of my recent wallpaper and furnishing samples. I've really enjoyed this project and love the idea of combining digital print with screen print, this is something I am working towards with these designs. I'll be uploading my results soon!

Chelsea Harbour Design Centre

When researching for my current interiors project the best place for inspiration was definitely the chelsea harbour design centre. By looking at current trends and what is already on the market gave me some great ideas for my own work. And because it was design week at the time, I was able to receive lots of samples of my own choice, I would definitely recommend giving this place a visit.

Blue Reef Aquarium, London Zoo and Artis Zoo in Amsterdam

Above is some imagery which I collected from a variety of aquariums. I think the detail, colours and shapes are really interesting in sea life and this inspired me to begin drawing them for me interiors project.

Drawing set for interiors

This is my drawing set for my current project which is interiors. I've decided to draw from sea life, starting with shells and coral then moving onto fish. The end result will be a collection of wallpapers or furnishing fabrics. Once I move onto design development I will then decide which direction I would like to take this.

Amsterdam

This week I just got back from Amsterdam, it's such a beautiful place. Im feeling very inspired and can't wait to start drawing for my next project which is either wallpaper or interiors.

Finished project

Here is an image of my final project all finished apart from now the fashion fabrics have been placed onto header boards. I have thoroughly enjoyed this project because I was really interested in my concept. I think my fashion is stronger than my gift because I work much better on fabric and I feel I could develop more ideas with fabrics. The gift part was enjoyable but if I were to do it again I wouldn need to remember to focus on what my end collection would be and make sure all cards, gift wrap and tags flow together well. 

Embellishment

Below is a close up of one of my five final fashion fabrics. For this one I have added hot fix crystals and then seen on different shaped crystals too. I think the effect is great and I'm really pleased with the outcome. I feel if I were to do this again I could try using pink and purple hot fix crystals in an array of sizes because these might bring out the colours more.

Final Gift Boards

Below are 2 of my final 6 gift final boards and I feel like the black makes a huge difference. I also added the use of dark purple, hot pink and turqoise blue which created a more celebratory feel to the patterns. 

Gift work

Below are some images of my development boards for gift. On reflection I felt like these needed a bit more vibrancy and colour to make certain areas stand out a lot more. I then began to play around with colour and even incorporated black which added a real boldness.

Christmas cards

My handmade Christmas cards have been on sale this winter in Vintage Reloved in Hartlepool. This is a brand new shop which opened early December and if you want some vintage, excellent quality bargains get yourself down! It's just opposite Marco polos in Hartlepool town. I'm going to be stocking the shop with birthday cards in the new year, please make sure you pay them a visit!

Designs for gift

Here are a couple of card designs I've created. The ideas behind this come from patterns I have created from different types of jewellery. I've then added my own colours to these and layered them behind Christmas decorations. I really enjoy this process because you never know what the final outcome is going to be. You can just keep adding and taking away until you're pleased with what you've done.

Gift Research

This week I went to London to collect research for a gift project which I began this week. I found this really helpful and I gained a lot of knowledge about what is already on the market. 

On Thursday Hallmark visited us and spoke to us about their company. I found this really inspiring and it taught me a lot about working in the industry. 

I can't wait to get started with gift and my ideas right now are to create my own patterns and incorporate Christmas images into these somehow. I'll be updating soon with some of my outcomes.

Sampling

Here are a couple of photos of what I have been working on the last couple of days. The digital elements have just been printing and I'll be posting photos of the final outcomes hopefully next week. 

This was a successful piece and I managed to try a lot of different printing techniques such as; pigment, acid, Procion, discharge and hand painting. I then dip dyed this and I think it worked really well.

Here are a couple of samples which include gold metallic binder, pigment binder and illuminated discharge. The deep emerald background sample works well with the violet discharge but I feel this could be developed further with some hand painted areas of pearl binder.

Above is a sample of hold metallic binder with violet illuminated discharge. The discharge is very subtle but in this case works well because the gold is the main part of this design. Next to it is a photocopy of my drawings onto acetate which I have put into a screen and this is used as a digital element within one of my finals. I think I could add some embellishment to this one with hand embroidery.

I feel this sample is again quite subtle, to develop this further I could paint in some discharge to take away the colour from certain areas which would give more definition to my print.

Here I have overplayed a silk organza print with illuminated pigment discharge ontop of a Procion printed sample. The layering works well but I feel this could be more interesting with embellishment.

Finally I decided to scan in my fabric samples to photoshop and began messing around with different colours. This was great to do however when this was digitally printed it didn't print in the same colours as I could see on the computer screen because they were not pantones. However I am going to develop that sample with added print and stitch and it might turn into something completely different.

Geometric

Today I've been having a play with my drawings. I decided to scan my drawing sheets into Photoshop and then I manipulated the colours. After printing these out I started cutting them up into shapes and re arranging them back together. After this I started overlaying other patterns I had created on paper and I found this interesting combination. When taking this into design I think the background would look great digitally printed, with the flowers screen printed using pigment and the black lines of detail to be applied using flocking. 

Design development

I was a bit worried at first when I started development because I couldn't figure out how to put what was in my head onto paper. Eventually after a lot of photocopying, cutting, placement and concentration I think I've finally got there. Here are two of my favourites up to now. However I know these can be developed further so expect another photo soon!