In a nod back to my previous 100 Day challenge, I am also planning on doing some digital textile design that I can use to print more unique fabrics inspired by my Oneshirts. This is where the watercolors of each shirt will come in handy. I started by scanning the painting of the front of Origin and then used the offset filter in Photoshop, plus the cloning tool and some paintbrushes, to make an endless repeat drawn from the painting.
And so this..
became this..
which looks like this when applied across a larger space.
This fabric is not necessarily the one I will pay $18 a yard to print, but it demonstrates the concept. I am upcycling design ideas, not just materials.
Our house in Nebraska was right along the path of the Solar Eclipse in August 2017. We were exactly along the line of the maximum and this meant we had a full minute of Eclipse magic. I designed these fabrics using colors sampled from photos of the eclipse and then riffed off of various impressions.To find my colors, I looked at dozens of images of this specific eclipse in local newspapers and at astronomy enthusiast posts on Instagram. Based on photos, similar to these, I found that the predominate hues captured were violets and burnt orange.
In order to create my fabric patterns, I did not just simply “adjust” any photo of the eclipse, but instead used flare filters and circles in Photoshop to build my own eclipse effect.
I riffed and then tried additional effects.
The goal was to create an endless repeat that would capture the mood of the solar event. I settled on five different styles of solar images, including one that looked like a pearl in a clam shell, one that looked like pansies, one resembling the photos I had seen and one with a rough but sinister feel with a muted maroon background.
I ordered fabric from Spoonflower printed with these five favorite designs. I had one yard created of each of two fabrics and then two fat quarters and a 5×5 sample square created of the other three. I will post about the resulting shirt, including the applique work, tomorrow.
