From Sketchbook to Scarf

Tags

blue, charmeuse, digital fabric printing, georgette, ink, scarf design, sewing, silk, watercolor

my ink and watercolor sketchbook page

After purchasing a new 11″ x 14″ hard cover sketchbook for a workshop with Susan Shie May 2017, I decided to try drawing some mandala designs. I was also trying out a new pen from the workshop supply list, Uni-ball Signo 207 Bold. It’s a retractable gel pen which dries to a waterproof ink line. The line of the Bold size pen is wider and the ink takes longer to dry than the pens I usually use, but held up nicely to painting with watercolor after drying.

one end of my rectangle scarf design

I worked with a scan of my page in Photoshop, selecting and copying motifs to create a long 11″ x 58″ rectangle scarf design. I flipped the main mandala motif vertically and combined 4 together in a row alternating the flipped versions. I then selected and copied smaller motifs to fill in the areas between.

digital printing with fiber reactive dyes on silk

On the digital fabric printer at work, I test printed a sample on silk charmeuse. The colors appear dull right off the printer before steaming. After the dye is laid down by the wide format ink jet printer, the fabric is rolled in steamer paper and steamed under pressure. That’s when the fiber reactive dyes bond to the silk and the color  becomes more vivid.

I made a few adjustments to my file based on the test print, then printed the full size scarf on silk crepe georgette. Since the georgette fabric was more than twice as wide as my design, I printed it together with another of my scarf designs lengthwise on the fabric.

my silk georgette scarf designs after steaming

I finished the scarf with a hand rolled hem.

©2018 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

See the other scarf design I printed at the same time in this post.

Lady Beetles Scarf

Jazz Blossoms Art Deco Pattern

Tags

Adobe Illustrator, Ai, art deco, design, graphic, pattern, pattern motif, Photoshop, spoonflower, tulips

Using Adobe Illustrator, I created the motifs for this design. Then I assembled them into an initial pattern layout.

I exported the initial layout as a .png file and opened it in Photoshop. I applied the offset filter to wrap around 1/2 the vertical and 1/2 the horizontal distances. This moved the empty black areas to the center for editing.

I chose this method because the center of my design had the spacing just as I liked it but needed the outer edges revised. After applying the offset filter, my outer edges will now align perfectly with each other when I tile out the pattern in repeat.

Next I selected each quadrant, cut and Edit > Paste Special > Paste in Place, to get each on its own layer. I used layer masks to hide the excess black areas of the top 2 quadrants. Then I selected the top 2 quadrants and moved them together straight down to meet up and align with the bottom 2.

Then I cropped the tile to the new top edge.

I used a layer mask to hide the excess black area of the lower right quadrant. Then selected both right side quadrants and moved them to the left to overlap and align, closing up the extra black space.

I cropped to the new right edge. Now I had a repeatable tile with the excess black removed.

To test the revised design, I entered the pattern tile in Photoshop’s pattern library. Edit > Define Pattern and selected this new pattern tile. Then in a new larger document Edit > Fill > Contents: Pattern and Custom Pattern: select the new pattern. An alternate to test filling in a new document is to add a pattern fill layer to the same document and scale the pattern down.

Looking at the test repeat of the tile, I could see that the repeat was working, but there were a number of changes I wanted to make.

If you compare this test to the final design below, you’ll see that I removed one each of the duplicate vertical rows of medium size motifs, changed the centers of the largest diamond motifs, and rotated the tile 90 degrees for a more horizontal emphasis.

©2018 Alice Frenz all rights reserved.

My Jazz Blossoms Art Deco design is available for sale on Spoonflower and Roostery

 

Lady Beetles Scarf

Tags

design, digital fabric printing, georgette, ink, ladybugs, scarf, sewing, silk, sunflowers, watercolor

my scarf design on silk crepe georgette

I created this scarf design from my ink and watercolor sketchbook page. I used Photoshop to duplicate motifs and arrange them for a 22″ x 70″ scarf.

 

detail view of my design artwork ready to print

I first printed the design on silk charmeuse to test the colors. The scan of my sketch book pages turned out to be Epson RGB instead of sRGB. I learned that “convert color profile” is the right way to change the colors to sRGB for our fabric printer. The colors didn’t come out as I expected when I used “assign color profile”.

before entering the steamer, the fabric is removed from the paper backing

I printed the final scarf on silk crepe georgette. The georgette allows more dye to pass through the fabric and shows the design on the back side more than the other silks we print. And some dye penetrates all the way through to the paper backing.

 

©2018 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

 

Read more about my ink and watercolor sketchbook art I used for this scarf in this post.

Illustrated Pride Flag

Tags

creative, decorative, flag, flowers, hand lettering, healing, ideas, illustration, ink, LGBTQ, life, nature, peace, pride, rainbow, spirit, sunlight

I spent Monday wrapped in thought and prayers for all touched by the Pulse Nightclub shooting last year. Remembering so many times members of the LGBTQ community and their supporters have touched my life, inspired creativity and shared pride in personal expression, I took to my sketchbook, trying to express emotion and meaning for each of the stripes in the Rainbow Pride Flag.

Uniball Signo 207 Bold ink pen on 11″ x 17″ Borden & Riley sketchbook

Below is a colored pencil study on a smaller size copy to show my concept for the colors. I hope to eventually create a larger version and add watercolor.

Color study in Prismacolor pencil on an 8.5″ x 11″ print.

Being out-of-town and away from my scanner, I used my favorite scanner app, Scanner Pro by Readdle Inc. to capture an image of my inked page so I could print a copy for making a color study.

I make it a regular habit to capture every sketchbook page with Scanner Pro as I finish working on it, no matter where I am. This way I always have a library of sketched ideas with me on my iPhone as a resource I can refer to in further development of my ideas.

Emma Scarf Design

Tags

ink, mandala, motif, Photoshop, scarf, scarf design, watercolor

©2017 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

Read more about how I created this scarf design from my sketchbook page in this post.

Appalachian Spirit Animals

Tags

appalachian, design, illustration, mouse, owl, pattern, raccoon

Custom brushes in Photoshop were used to create this repeat design. I draw the animal and tree shapes with Pit india ink on Strathmore drawing paper. To keep the informal, hand drawn look, I made very few edits to them before creating their Photoshop brushes.

 

©2017 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

Psychedelic Succulents Design

Tags

Adobe Illustrator, colorful, design, motifs, Op Art, Peter Max, psychedelic, succulents, textile design

For this textile pattern design, I was working towards a design inspired by Peter Max posters from the 1960s and 70s and also the current popularity of succulent plants. I decided that for at least this version, I wanted to go with the energy of bright colors and the rainbow/color spectrum feel of Peter Max’s work.  And I just kept thinking about Orlando and the rainbow colors of the Pride flag.

I think the plant and flower shapes that aren’t succulents, as well as the color, makes the succulent concept not come across and it simply feels floral. Perhaps I’ll try a more predominantly soft green palette for one of the colorways.

©2016 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

 

Here are 2 great exhibitions of Psychedelic Art to see this summer:

 

 

You can see the work of Peter Max
at the Tampa Museum of Art
through Sept 11, 2016

 

 

 

 

You can see the artwork of Jerry Garcia
at the Psylodelic Gallery
in southeast Ohio
through July 31st.

 

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Psychedelic Succulent Motifs

Tags

active wear, floral, mood board, motifs, pattern, psychedelic, succulents, textile design, trend

This mood and motif board is for my Op and Pop trend observation and corresponding leaf and flower motifs. I photographed succulents in my garden and drew the leaf and flower motifs in India ink pen in my sketchbook. I then selected my favorites, scanned them, cropped and retouched in Photoshop, then assembled my board layout in Photoshop.

My idea is to combine the current popularity of succulents with a poster style reminiscent of Peter Max, in bright psychedelic colors. I also would like to incorporate some Op Art curving stripes into my final pattern inspired by the work of Op artists such as Bridget Riley.

To me, the current popularity of succulents, Mason jars, and hand letter reminds me of the 60’s and ’70s popularity of mushrooms and snails motifs, organic typography, and the psychedelic neon color posters everyone hung on their walls. I think it’s something about their curvy shapes and casual beauty. Though I don’t recall snails and mushrooms being a decorating theme at any weddings I attended back then…

I had so much fun putting this board together! I hope you enjoy it.

©2016 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

 

See my colorful Psychedelic Succulent design
created using these motifs here.

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Motifs for Boho Borders

Tags

active wear, Adobe Illustrator, Boho, floral, mood board, motifs, women's

I’m working on motifs for women’s active wear for a trend I found in the Vogue runway fashions for Fall 2016. I’m calling the trend Boho borders. I found designs that interested me in their pieced together look of multiple ornamental borders.

I’m trying to build the sense of zigzag stripes and diamond shapes composed of the small flower buds and leaf shapes I created. I will probably combine these motifs with curved or angled abstract stripes, and linear textures to increase the feeling of empowerment and energy for the active wear market.

I first drew the flower bud and leaf shapes in pen and ink. Then I manipulated scans of my drawings with Kaleidomatic by Stuffmatic to generate ideas for different arrangements and combinations of the smaller shapes.

Then I redrew the motifs I liked best in Adobe Illustrator as vector shapes. This allowed me to compose most of the motifs by reflecting and rotating copies of the vector shapes. I also composed the mood board in Adobe Illustrator.

I have some very different flower and leaf motifs for the other trends I found and hope to get them organized to post tomorrow.  It was such a great treat to take time out to spend with the flowers and leaves in my gardens working on my sketchbook.

©2016 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

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Pattern Design on the iPad

Tags

app, camera, design, ipad, iphone, Kaleidomatic, kaleidoscope, pattern, repeat, tile

This design only needed a small amount of editing in Photoshop to create a final version I was please with. Most of the design was create through experimentation with Kaleidoscope apps on my ipad.

While playing with the app Kaleidoscope Camera by Binary Noise Ltd. on my iPad, I discovered that the play of daylight and shadow on the dimensional fabric of my solid colored peach comforter and dark red pillows created interesting shapes.

I played with many different compositions, saving those I liked to my iPad camera roll. Next I opened them with the app Kaleidomatic by Stuffmatic and played with them in more complex compositions. You can find instructions for using this app at Kaleidomatic.com. The following are instructions for how I used it.

Open Kaleidomatic and touch the button in the lower left corner to open a design saved on your camera roll. These designs were first created using the app Kaleidoscope Camera with my iPad’s camera.

Touch two fingers to the screen then move and twist them to change the pattern. Pinching will zoom out. Spreading your fingers apart will zoom in.

If you touch with two fingers and first hold them steady on the screen before moving them, a box will appear showing the placement of the kaleidoscope piece in relationship to your photo. The box will stay visible as you move your two fingers around to change the pattern, but will disappear when you lift them off the screen.

Sometimes I find I want to see what’s happening in the box. Other times I just start playing without it.

Change the shape and arrangement of the reflections with the scroll wheel at the bottom of the screen. Shown here are “Grapefruit” and “Meadow”.

When you are ready to save a design, touch the arrow in the lower right corner to go to the save settings.

Select to save as a tile, and change the color scheme if desired.

“Plain” keeps the colors unchanged. I liked how this design looked “Burned” so I saved once as “Plain” to keep the original colors, and once as “Burned”.

Touch the lower right corner button to go to the final save screen.

Turn “High Quality” on. Press the green button to save to your iPad camera roll. A progress bar will appear across the top of the screen. When complete, the app turns back to the kaleidoscope design screen.

Here’s the final saved tile from the design above. The saved tiles I’ve tested in straight repeat with Photoshop and on Spoonflower appear to be very accurate.

Since I don’t have to spend time perfecting the repeat, I have more time to make edits for design aesthetics. I use Photoshop for editing, then test the revised tile again in repeat until I’m pleased with the design.

©2016 Alice Frenz all rights reserved

 

Read more about using apps for pattern design in these posts:

Kaleidos Pic app by Fluocode

Kooleido app for iPhone