Quite Contrary Designs

I had arranged to see Mary Shears of Quite Contrary Designs but she had popped out of her studio when I went so I managed to speak to her partner/husband Dave(also a designer).

• colours work well
• designs work well with each other, they look part of a collection
• would sell well as fabric for soft furnishings and products like stationary
• very commercial

He thought that this design would work well with bedding.

Fibre

My second portfolio visit was with Jessica Livsey and she also thought some of the work reminded her of Morrocan and Turkish tiles.

• liked how the road signs had been incorporated into flowers.
• look comtemporary
• patterns very commercial would fit in well with organistaions like Paperchase

The traffic lights in this pattern looked like small buttons to Jessica and looked fresh and contemporary.

Jessica suggested that this image would look good if the flowers were embroidered and appliqued.

&made

This was the first of my 3 portfolio visits for my negotiated brief. Andrea Lord is the owner of &made and she was more than happy to look at my work and give me some feedback. Her immediate reaction to my patterns was that it reminded her of the Moroccan (Majorelle) garden owned by Yves Saint Laurent.

• could see Islamic influences in my patterns even though I used road signs as my theme.
• it was really good how I'd taken an image and explored it in different ways.
• the purple and ochre colours in some of the tiles patterns looked Victorian
• very ordered and controlled
• thought process good
• looks contemporary and commercial
• collection is cohesive

Andrea pointed out that if you concentrate on the creamy shapes and push the blue/green cross shapes back it almost looks like a quilt.

This pattern looks organic but is still controlled and ordered.

She siad this pattern was graphic, complicated but clean.

Some of the designs I made from the road sign looked like snowflakes, so I decided to get them cut out of different materials. I've just added a few of the photos from the results. I played around with the scale of the shapes and they look like really cute buttons when they're about 3cm big.

These are the cute buttons

Priming & Painting

Dickensian Fair

It's nearing Christmas and my friends and I decided to go to the Dickensian Fair in Grassington to get into the Christmas Spirit. The little village shops would be selling Christmas decorations which would give me an indication as to how much they would cost and how they would be packaged etc.

The Fair happens over 3 weekends before Christmas, the villagers dress up in Dickensian garb and put on entertainment and markets. It was well organised with buses taking you from the carpark to the village and back at the end of the day. There was a lovely boutique called Harlequin which sold clothing and interiors. I managed to take a few photos of some of the things that are related to what I'm doing in my project right now.