Cushion Designs

3 Possible Cushion Designs

A Rare Sight - Mavis in the Print Rooms!

For the last two weeks I have been floundering! I wanted to do some embroidery and use my lovely sparkly threads from the Madeira sponsorship. The plan was to digitally print designs based around science topics like the Big Bang, DNA and a Cosmic shower of particles entering the Earth's atmosphere above the iconic Transporter Bridge. Tricia suggested that it would be better if I stuck to one colour and did some naive hand embroidery so I came up with the designs above. I thought I would prepare some screens and try flocking and foiling part of the design onto black linen. I knew pretty soon that I wasn't happy with the way it was going so I decided to wait until my tutorial to discuss a change of plan. For now I have abandoned the idea, although I quite like the Transporter Bridge and so might return to it later. I will let you see my new ideas for cushions soon.

Fossil Design for Rug

Mood Board for 2011 Competition

Th colours I selected were 2 at top right, 3 in 3rd row
 at right and 1 2nd from the right on bottom row

My design featuring my drawings of  ammonites

I heard in college, from Colleen, about the GoodWeave Rug Design Competition and I thought I would look at the brief as she thought my concept would fit in, as this year it was all about organic shapes.
I discovered that GoodWeave is a international organisation working to end child labour in the rug industry of South Asia. It funds education and rehabilitation for thousands of rescued children.
Fired up by this cause I set about designing a rug to fit in with my Fossil Collection, so that I can submit it as part of my FMP. They provided a mood board and a colour palette from which you could select a maximum of 8 colours. That had to include any shades as another colour so I chose 7 of them to colour my line drawings of ammonites. Then I did a background with some of the colours using another drawing of a trilobite (I couldn't resist doing something in repeat!).
 The lucky winner gets to have their design made up in a 200cmx140cm rug + £300 so fingers crossed!

Co-ordinate No 4

My Line Drawing

Repeat Pattern (6.6x6.6cm)

Multiple Repeats

Room Setting

This is the smallest design in the collection and was formed from 4 of the bi valve Molluscs Ctenostreon proboscidea to accompany the much larger (53x53cm) main Bi valve Mollusc design.

Co-ordinate No 3

A Strange Drawing in Gel Pen on Black Paper

Two Repeats (Each 26.5x26.5cm)

Multiple Repeats

Room Setting

This design is based on the colonies of the Bryozoa Seleriariidae which are encased in calcareous sacs called zooids. This simple design proved vey troublesome as I was basically trying to make something irregular into something that is perfectly regular!! I had similar problems with my Horsetail ferns but don't seem to have learned the lesson. I didn' set out to do a stripe but even this was difficult.

Co-ordinate No 2

My Line Drawings

The Repeat (26.5x26.5cm)

Multiple Repeats

Room Setting

To accompany the Fossil Shell wallpaper, which featured the Gastropod Fasciolana tarbelliana as well as a Bi valve Mollusc, I used two more Gastropods Mitra espicopalis and Harpa ventricosa but this time I arranged them into a group that formed a much smaller motif (approx 13cm) than the main wallpaper.

Co-ordinating Wallpapers

My Original Line Drawing

The Pattern Repeat (6.6x13.2cm)

Multiple Repeats

A Room Setting

As I said in my last posting I planned to do some smaller repeat patterns to co-ordinate with each of the main large scale wallpapers in the Fossil Collection, well this is the first of 4. It features Phacops latifrons which is another of the 15000 Trilobites which has a large bun shaped central area called the globella and an 11 segment thorax. All I did was form a very simple two colour stripe with a fainter ghost image behind.