Definitely time to sew again...

Empire-style dress design drawn for a costume history class in 2016

But not with a patterned fabric used like this batik-style one, although I just made over 2 dozen versions of this design in colorful new incarnations.

I have been falling for wonderful linen fabrics, which come also in the soft greyed colors which are my favorites, as well as brighter colors. And some of my favorite fabric designs go with some of those linen colors.

So, the parts of this picture with the patterns will be solid colors of linen, with a pattern on the front of the bodice.


Maybe one of those 2-Sprig colorings I just made. This version of the design fits more closely together, and has some interesting layouts.

You can see that these textured designs look like embroidery.  So for me, they seem more appropriate for smaller areas like a bodice front.


Time to start making something...

When I was in school the first time, 50 years ago, I used to draw the costume I was going to make during vacation, and prop it up on my desk to look at while I studied for finals. I find this drawing has the same effect. I keep looking at it.
 

Nomad dress ideas

Folkwear #107 Afghani Nomad Dress pattern, using my ideas for Spoonflower "cross-stitch embroidery" fabric designs

 I am thinking of making a Nomad dress from Folkwear pattern #107. Seems like I have always wanted one. But somehow I never noticed this pattern. And here this style is, coming around again.

Back in the day, I would have embroidered  the bodice myself. Today, I am using some of my cross-stitch designs from the '80s to make Spoonflower fabric which I can have printed, and use for parts of the dress.

I'll probably use either fabrics I dye, or lightweight cotton batiks, or both, for most of the dress. Fabric from Spoonflower comes in many weights, but the cross-stitch patterns look best on the linen-cotton canvas, which is heavier than I would use for the whole dress.

To do this version, I need to put those cross-stitch designs on different background colors - I'm thinking of a deep, rich aquamarine which I just tested as a virtual batik. Once I've bought some of the new colors, they will be available for sale too.

Here's a different version, using some of my Decorator Collection coordinates. The bodice and sleeve prints are available for sale now. This one shows the waistband that the pattern has. These vector-drawing patterns can be any size; I'll have to test appropriate sizes for this dress.

Folkwear #107 Nomad dress pattern, another idea using my Decorator collection fabrics at Spoonflower

Sept. 9, 2014 New tjaps today! I captured a couple of my top choices. New virtual embroideries this time, instead of (or in addition to) virtual batiks. Coming soon, with luck. And this time, no chance for the mail carrier to deliver the package to the garbage can so it vanishes!

A new version of the camouflaged cat in tall grass, from June 2012

watercolor and fabric design from early summer 2012

The grass is taller than ever this year (2012)  - I'm not weed-eating until the redtail chicks have flown.

I did this design in watercolor class, with misket as the silkpaint-style resist. It uses only 2 colors of paint, viridian green and a brown.

Then I put the photo or scan into Photoshop and made it repeat. That takes a very long time.

One thing I like about the misket, is it does what it wants to sometimes. Here I was using up an older bottle. That large root was a large blob that just came out, and I drew it out into the organic shape with a toothpick.

That collaboration with a tool with it's own agenda leads to a very spontaneous style. 

For me drawing on the computer is like that, very different from my pen and ink style. (Biological illustration with a crow-quill dip pen and India ink. Fine stippling. My nose 3 inches from the paper. Hours.)

Another new (old) fabric design

 Spoonflower is having a contest for black and white designs, entry deadline May 3. I made this on April 21.

I was looking at my designs wondering which would be good in black & white. I wanted a bold graphic, one without too much expanse of black background, since blacks at Spoonflower don't print really dark, and may fade in the wash.

I wanted a variation in the texture, the size of the black and white areas.

Which ones would do? The ravens? The cat drawings? The new sea turtles virtual batiks? A quilt-style combination of all of them? Hmm, that's earth, air and water, just need fire...

Although this one was drawn as leaves, long ago when I was learning to draw by playing on the computer, once I had redrawn it as a vector drawing, with a black background, it looked like stylized flames too.

I may do those others in black & white too as companion fabrics, but I love the bold graphic effect of this one. And yet it's organic, not quite symmetrical. I would buy this in the fabric store.

And now that I've redrawn it, I can do it in lots of colors, with companion fabrics in those colors.

Of course the newest design one has made is always the most wonderful design in the world....

A house made of books Feb 23, 2011

I drew this back when I was just learning to draw on the computer.

I thought of the idea when I was taking color theory, and we were asked to produce a self-portrait for our final project.

I'll probably redraw it to reproduce on a t-shirt.

But the way it is now, it says almost more about me than I want to say.

When I was learning to draw...

A couple of summers ago, when my Mac was new, I wasn't taking any computer classes, just a drawing class. And I would go home & play on the computer, figuring out how to draw with it. I was just using Appleworks, because that's what I had, and I hadn't taken any vector drawing classes yet, and I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. I was just playing, figuring it out as I went along.

I would make a gradient of colors I'd created, or pulled off a photograph, and fill the background frame with it. The colors set the scene for me, and suggested what I'd be drawing, undersea or desert. And I would just start drawing, and see what happened. I know I was doing it all 'wrong', because I described the process as "collaborating with a wildly squirming line", and it's not supposed to be that way. When the line squirmed into a pleasing shape, I would capture it & pin it down.

I can't redo that process; I don't know what I really did. But the result is very spontaneous in feeling. Well, I had to move fast to grab that line…

The look is very free and imaginative. And very unlike my pen & pencil style, which is biological illustration, pen & ink with fine stippled textures. Very planned & detailed & carefully observed.

Now all of the graphic design teachers went to art school in the old days, and learned their art the old way. And they all agree that it's not possible to be creative on the computer. One has to start with a pencil and paper, and come up with ideas, and work out the best one, then go to the computer only for the final polished version. I read an interview between 2 graphic designers, and one asked the other if he thought there was anyone capable of being creative directly on the computer. And the answer was,"Yes, but they're all under 12 years old".

The more I've learned about how it's supposed to be done, about how to draw a line where I want it to be, the stiffer my drawings become.

But I think, if we come to the computer like a child, without years of bad habits and frustrations, and if it's a Mac, so the graphics are easy and intuitive to use, and most of all, if we just play, that all creativity originates there, in play. Have fun.

Dresses Like Spring

This is the first rainy day of the season, though the nights have been cool and fallish since mid-Sept. This cold spell is at least 2 weeks early, maybe a month. We can usually count on warm weather through mid-Oct, and I don't expect the first frost until Thanksgiving, when I'm standing under the persimmon tree waiting for the 3rd frost to ripen the persimmons.

But, this is the assignment I just did for class, "Dresses like Spring in a Meadow" a fictitious advertising postcard for a totally imaginary dress designer.

The fun thing about this is the way I thought of to illustrate a dress design - draw the outline, and fill it with a photo of a batik fabric. The photos were taken with the dress lengths of fabric thrown over the clothesline. This seems to be an unexpectedly good idea - throw your fabrics over the line and stand back. It's a good way to see what the fabric looks like in daylight, at a realistic distance. I, at least, tend to think of the fabrics in their close-up, inside the sewing room view. This clothesline view gives a preview of what the dress might look like.