Friday 21 September 2012

Patterns, Peahens and Passionflowers.


This week i've been working on a print that i've had in my head for quite a while. Over the last couple of weeks, the passion flower in my garden has gone crazy with buds, and i have been longing to incorporate them into a print somehow. Originally i wanted to incorporate peacocks into the print, but thought it would be lovely to feature the humble peahen instead, not as showy as the male bird, but still beautiful in it's own right.
The final print is shown below, with an added of pale grey to the rich blue to create  further depth to the foliage.


I consciously designed the print with the idea of creating a repeat for further designs and patterns, not only as a stand alone print. I've been playing around with the image on Photoshop to try and create a few repeats and patterns that may just work for fabric and paper. A lovely way to combine traditional printing with digital tools. 
 








10 comments:

Melanie Wickham said...

Looks beautiful - first mugs, now wallpaper...

sue said...

Oh I do love your mark making ... just beautiful!

Doda Smith said...

gorgeous! I'd love fabric like that!

millefeuilles said...

Absolutely beautiful. I am hankering after your work already and this is only my first visit.

Stephanie

Green Martha said...

This plate is goooorgeous ! As a sewist, I tend to prefer fabrics where you can't see the rectangular shape of the pattern so clearly - maybe a repeat of a flower or something to help connect the motives and fill in the blancks, and I'd use it in a heartbeat !

Flora said...

This is beautiful - love it as a repeat pattern as well. And congratulations on your Country Living Award! How fantastic!

Unknown said...

The actual cut itself is a work of art; let alone the printed result. As Marion says, I prefer not to see so much of the obvious squares showing and really enjoy this design as a stand-alone image.

Brilliant and vibrant work, as always.

P.S. How come your passion flower did so well? Mine made a sparse attempt; realised the summer was not a good one, and gave up.

Mangle Prints said...

Thank you everyone and a big hello to some lovely new followers.

Hi Marion, thank you for the really useful advice. As someone who doesn't sew that often, there is probably a lot to learn about how to make a design work for the fabric. Definately food for thought!
More work needed to get the repeats just right i think, but i'll get there.

Mangle Prints said...

Hi Bella- I have really no idea!! For years it's hardly done anything with only one or two blooms, but this year it's gone mad! Perhaps all the wet weather earlier on in the year helped, that and a healthy dose of neglect! ; )
It's really lovely to see those last couple of florishes in the garden before winter sets in.

Unknown said...

Absolutely beautiful, really interesting to see/read about the process :)