Fabric design process - creation of a 1970s style floral PART ONE

Fabric design process - creation of a 1970s style floral PART ONE

Fabric design banner

I've been meaning to design some 1970s style fabric for a while and today was the day! Actually today was something like the third day - I procrastinated for a couple of days doing shop admin. 

These are done in Photoshop, using a One by Wacom tablet and pen. Tomorrow I will try the same thing in Illustrator and see if I can get a smoother work flow.

First step was to draw some of the classic five petal flowers with circles in the centre. This shape is almost as iconic as a love heart! I wanted a hand drawn look, so instead of building the flowers using duplicated graphic shapes, I have hand drawn each flower. I like the way the petals are irregular.

Fabric design - white unfilled daisies

Next I filled the flowers and added stalks of varying widths. For some reason I couldn't figure out a way to fill the shapes easily with the Paint Bucket tool, and ended up having to colour them in felt tip style. It's odd drawing on a screen and tablet compared to a sheet of paper, because you can't turn it around and draw from different angles. Or perhaps you can? I will check the tablet settings.

Fabric design - filled in flowers

Next step - add colour. I used a blend called 'multiply' to make the colours mix where they overlap. This gives a vintage feel as it mimics the effect of a registration error (which can occur when layers of colour are printed one over another). It is a hallmark of the cheaper fabrics used for doll's clothes.

I tried various different centres for the turquoise flowers. Here are dark centres.

Fabric design - dark centres for the turquoise flowers

And here are tiny white centres. With background colour centres for the daisies.

Fabric design - pink background daisy centres

Hmmm but maybe remove the daisy centres?

So many decisions. At this point I have to put it away as I just can't 'see the wood for the trees'!

Before finishing for the day I added green stalks. I'm not sure about them though.

Fabric design - green stalks

Tomorrow I plan to shift the colours.

Well I was quite pleased with the day's work. I like the way the stalks became a key element to the design and gave it a unique touch. It is easy to copy an existing vintage design but more challenging to start your own from scratch. Well, I hope I can add a bit of value by creating something new.

What would be a good name for this design? Which version do you prefer?

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