The design theme this week… 'Create a toile de Jouy - style fabric design using a single color on the theme of winter.'
The first part of my research was to look up the definition of Toile de Jouy. These fabrics are described as a 'repeated pattern of a complex pastoral scene', usually printed in red, black or blue.
The concept for this design came from my daughters. They spent an evening with their friends decorating gingerbread houses over Thanksgiving break from university and I used their creations as my inspiration.
I researched and drew sketches of gingerbread houses, trees, deer, etc. When I had my rough sketches I took a picture of them with my iPad and opened them in the Adobe Ideas app and drew cleaner versions of my sketches in black and white. I opened the PDF in Photoshop where I 'built' my icons in layers and in color. I know there has to be an easier way to do this but I like the hand drawn look that I get from doing it this way.
This design required loads of details in order to give it the traditional Toile feel. Details like the roof tiles, icicles, trees, fences, the deer and their blankets, window details, the bicycle, sleigh and the two fancy ladies, took a lot of extra time. I think I spent about 25+ hours from start to finish on this print!
Previews will be sized as quarter yards (21" x 18"). Voting starts today, December 11th, 2014 and continues until December 18th.
Please Vote!!
