Work In Progress

When I still had the time to design textiles, I produced this elaborate fox design.  It duly got sent off to my agent, but never sold.

This turned out to be a GOOD THING.

Whilst being interviewed for my job at U-Handbag, one of the girls went crazy for the design and suggested I do something with it myself, as she was sure it would be really popular.  As it clearly wasn't doing anyone any good tucked away in a portfolio in London, I duly got it back and turned it into cards, prints and purses.

That girl was right.

Now I want to design more animals in the same style, but finding the time has been a problem.  At last I've finally made a (slow) start on another British animal - a lovely hare - and have taken to putting screen shots of it in progress on my Facebook page.  I've never recorded work in progress in this way before, but it's interesting to see how the design changes and evolves on its way to completion.

Here's the story so far.

1. The hare shape is drawn freehand, scanned in, and then redrawn and refined as a flat, graphic shape in Illustrator.  Floral pattern details are drawn separately and then added to the hare's body.

2. The colours are decided upon.  I aim to make them representative of the hare's natural colouring and markings, but with some license!  Areas of pattern are starting to take shape.

3. This is the hare after a decent amount of time spent on it one evening.  At this stage, I really want to feel that the design is working, and that has required some changes in patterns and layout.  Having a background colour helps (with some alternative choices on the left!), though this may change when the hare is completely finished. This happened with the fox, which originally had a dark olive background.

UPDATE: 3rd August

4. Still fiddling with colours and patterns and having trouble balancing the blacks.

5. The hare is finished, printed out and ironed onto fabric.  However, I think the darks look too dark and the hare's hindquarters are too big and rounded.  Some more tweaking is required.

6.  The hare's bottom has been re-drawn and made less rounded and the dark colours have been made lighter, with the black being taken out all together as it's too contrasty.

7.  The hare is finished!

8.  Printed out, cut out and ironed on - now for the big reveal!

9.  The hare is applied to lots of different fabrics to make into purses.