Terrariums... 'Tiny Gardens Too' for Spoonflower

   Even if you don't have a green thumb, bringing the outdoors in can be fun with a tiny garden. This week at Spoonflower… 'create a design that celebrates terrariums'.

Tiny Gardens Too! ©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs. All Rights Reserved.

    A couple of months ago I did a composition using terrariums for the 'Chinese Paper Cutting' design. The shapes were all cut paper and scanned into photoshop and presented in only red and white. For this week's assignment I did a bit of recycling and used many of those same elements combined with new ones to create this fresh pattern.
   The first decision I made was to once again try to keep it simple. The plants have intricate shapes so I felt that the terrarium containers should have clean lines. I removed the details of the terrariums by just using their outside contour and keeping their shapes a solid white. The idea of keeping the color palette simple made sense too, so I limited the design to 2 colors with black and white.
   I opened a new photoshop file (21x18") and a copy of my original layered file for my existing terrarium design. Then copied and pasted the white containers into my new file and created a pattern with my shapes to repeat seamlessly. I gathered a page of my plant drawings and colored them all the same green and copied + pasted them over my container pattern. Stones were added to the base of the container to 'hold' the plants and then the grasshoppers and caterpillars were placed with some stray lily of the valley buds. The last part was the irregular grid pattern that I added between the background layer and the other elements. This helps the green layer to pull forward and adds texture to the piece.
   Previews designed as a quarter yard (21" x 18"). Voting starts on Thursday, May 8th, 2014 and continues until May 15, 2014. Please Vote!!

Chinese Paper Cutting!

The challenge this week at Spoonflower was designed to help celebrate the Chinese New Year! Designers were asked to submit patterns styled 'like a traditional Chinese paper cutting, using red and white only.'  

This is my design 'Tiny Gardens'!

'tiny gardens' paper cut
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs

#1 'terrarium' sketchbook page
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs

#2 'tea tray' sketchbook page
©2014 Patty Rybolt Designs

Traditionally a paper cutting is used for decoration during important celebrations, it can also bring good luck, prosperity, and good health in the new year. 
Here is the process I used to come up with this design! 

My approach to this design was to come up with images that could naturally be framed by some kind of container like a fish bowl or something so the images could be used in a pattern or could stand alone for other projects. I started with online research which lead me to a few ideas and then concept sketches.  

#1. Terrarium - My sketchbook page of a terrarium or group of terrariums using bottles, jars, and various other containers. I thought the floral and plant stems would add a soft, organic feel to the project. I also intended to add other interesting features like mushrooms, bugs and possibly a gnome as another design element.

#2. A tea tray with flowers… I thought adding a series of trays would be a natural way of having boarders that could be intricate or simple to cut. Elements such as a vase with flowers could add an organic element, and include a tea pot, tea cup, tea, sugar cubes, lemon and a honey pot. Other organic or geometric elements could be added as well to the tea pots and cups.

The first concept seemed like it would work well for a fabric pattern, so I decided on the terrarium idea. I started drawing with black marker on copy paper then folded the paper in half and cut away. When the design was all cut out I opened the paper carefully and it produced a mirror image. (I removed the cut pieces so the negative space could be used as well). 

 

Stage 1 - folded design being cut

paper cut terrarium

 

stage 2 - still cutting..

'paper cut' lily of the valley + leafy plant

In traditional paper cutting the whole design would be cut out of one piece of paper, but for my purposes my design only had to look that way in the finished pattern. I did hand cut all of the pieces that were necessary for the pattern then I scanned them in to photoshop. 

When I had a pattern that was suitable I added the organic elements to the containers. Some of the jars left odd spaces so I added my birds and some flowers, the cut squares were the final element. When coming up with a pattern I tend to place large elements, then medium and save the small for last. With the pattern complete I converted my black and white composition to red and white. Fin!

positive + negative

Previews are shown at the fat quarter fabric size (21" x 18"). Voting begins today January 30th, 2014, and continues until February 6th, 2014! Please Vote!!