Retro Tables + Chairs for Spoonflower!

This week Spoonflower asked their faithful designers to create a design that features tables and chairs.

Retro Tables + Chairs! ©2014 Patty Rybolt Design. All Rights Reserved.

For this prompt I didn't even have to think…I am just drawn to mid-century modern chairs.

I researched photo's of chairs from that era and sketched about 25 different styles before narrowing the field to the final five. The color palette was chosen next... olive, smokey blue and white. When designing fabric, I like the color story to be as important as the images. The olive color really reminds me of a sofa and the appliances my parents had when I was a kid, and the blue was chosen to bring this retro design into today. The white allows you to see the unique shapes of the chairs and to unify their look. If I had put patterns on all of the chairs, it would have looked too busy.
The next step was to arrange the elements into a pleasing pattern and add a pop of color with the tulip flowers in a vase. Finally the dot pattern was added to give some texture to the piece.

Voting starts on Thursday, September 25rd, 2014. Please Vote!

Creepy Kitty! Halloween Damask for Spoonflower!

Creepy Kitty! ©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved.

The Spoonflower design challenge this week didn't start off well. The assignment was to 'come up with damask-inspired prints that incorporate illustrations of cats.' I couldn't think of why they chose 'cats'. Not particularly a cat fan. I procrastinated. My procrastination grew into a trip to Target where they were putting out the Halloween decorations and it inspired me to take that direction with my design.

Creepy Kitty!
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs.

I got home and drew damask-like swirls, spots and dots, and bats, pumpkins, skeletons, ghosts and of course cats! Imported the drawings from my iPad into Photoshop and built my design shape by shape.  It is sized as a fat quarter and placed it into a 1/2 drop repeat.

Voting starts on Thursday, September 18th, 2014. Please Vote!

Marching Band for Spoonflower!

Marching Band for Spoonflower! ©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved. 

The design contest this week at Spoonflower… celebrating marching bands!

I started this design as I normally would, with research on the internet and Pinterest. The most interesting bits that I found were vintage ads for band uniform catalogues. I took note of the details on the vintage uniforms and decided to incorporate them into my design. I wanted to use certain instruments associated with a marching band and drew them and my marchers in my usual loose fashion on my iPad.

Next, I opened the Adobe Ideas file in Photoshop and chose my color palette. Most of the band images online were using the same theme of red and black uniforms, so I chose a palette that was a little different. The blue and yellow worked well together and the green was a natural for the background.

©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs.
All Rights Reserved.

I wanted the colors of the marchers to reflect a real marching band, so diversity was important. I built the characters in Photoshop and then placed each one in proper marching position on a new 4.5x10.5" file, the idea is to set up for a 1/2 brick layout. I added my green in the background and a dot texture for interest. Finally adding the notes to help with the overall pattern design!

Preview on the 1/2 brick pattern is a quarter yards (21" x 18"). Voting starts on Thursday, September 11th, 2014. Please Vote!

Feathers, Jewels & Intricate Chaos!

Wrapping it up!

Jewel Inspired Design.
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs.
All Rights Reserved.

The Summer of 2014 is wrapping up and so are my  summer classes from the Make It In Design Summer School! I love to take classes as often as I can to add some new pieces to my portfolio. Here are my submissions for the third round of assignments!

The Beginner Track took aim at designing a 'jewel-themed' pattern. Using geometric shapes, beads, circles and embellishments.
I started with simple shapes using the suggested palette and built this design in photoshop.

Feather Inspired Design. ©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs.
All Rights Reserved.

The Intermediate Track was to design a decorative 'feather-inspired' pattern using ornate embellishments and the suggested color palette. I started this assignment with many, many drawings of feathers, birds, and rough ink marks. I drew these in black and white on my iPad with the Adobe Ideas App. and then opened them in photoshop. I added the color, built my elements individually and then assembled them into the pattern below. I tried to push the scale of the elements and marks to develop an ornate layered look. 

This design or elements of this composition can be used for clothing, wallpaper, fabric, cushions, etc. 

The Advanced Track required a pattern design with 'intricate' shapes and silhouettes. Inspiration could be tiles, lace and mosaics layered and detailed using only 4 colors and black & white. 

I usually work with simple shapes and that is how I started this pattern. Many simple shapes in multiple layers. I limited my palette by only using 3 colors plus white to keep the wild factor in check. If I play with scale, this type of pattern can be used for garments, scarves, notebooks, wallpaper, rugs, lampshades or really any application! 

Intricate Design. ©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs. 
All Rights Reserved.

Getting Buggy for Spoonflower!

'Buggy' ©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs.
All Rights Reserved.

Last week Spoonflower got Buggy!
Just a simple design last week… I took the week off to take our eldest to college in Boston and this is what I came up with on the road. Beatles, ladybugs and roaches inked with a spot of watercolor! All done on my iPad using the Waterlogue and Adobe Ideas Apps!!

Now available as fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap at Spoonflower.com!

'Buggy' ©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved.