Over a month ago I started to develop a scarf collection based on geometric patterns found in Roman mosaics, and wrote about it in this previous blog post. For this week's entry, I'd like to give an update on that ongoing project.
In that last post I shared my mood board, sketches, and my intention for the project. Since then, I started arranging my drawings in photoshop, pictured below. In the image in the center, I had the idea of adding the lion into a hexagon. I liked the way it looked but this threw me off a bit. In the initial ideation for the project I had no intention of adding animals in, apart from the idea of adding leopard print to contrast the structure of the geometric patterns. I also didn't want to reuse any old drawings for this, as I had done in some previous projects, and, on top of that, I wasn't feeling good about the color palette.
So, I walked away from it and put my focus on other projects (such as the "Pleasant Thoughts" paint series). Now, I'm returning to the idea after doing a couple more ideation drawings, one in particular making me want to jump right back into this idea (Instagram post below).
The pattern in the center was traced out of my mini grid sketchbook on tracing paper. I then taped it to the center of a piece of watercolor paper that I had painted a coppery-red. I began adding the fringe but then noticed how good the pattern looked next to my nail design. From there, I decided to add that same leopard-print-like pattern as a border and finished up the fringe.
This combination of the delicate organized dots in the center pattern and the leopard print reminded me of my original plan for the collection inspired by Roman mosaics, which then made me want to improve on it.
On a different day, I was giving a quick lesson over video chat to my friend on how to make repeat patterns in photoshop. I scrambled up some old drawings to use as motifs which included three leopards I had drawn for the Meridionali Roma Upholstery Collection.
The pattern, shown above, was made with no purpose other than for a demonstration but it made me want to do another collection with leopards. I thought it would look nice with this project, as I had since changed my mind about adding an animal motif after playing with the lion's head in the pattern I discussed earlier. And so I started drawing...
I wanted to have plenty of leopards so that, when I put them in a pattern, it'll be less trackable but also to add more interest and variety. And so I drew five. It might not be super obvious on first glance because they're all in side view but they are all in different stances- some looking forward, some to the side, and some have their mouths open (perhaps growling). This variety will help me to create interest.
Because I decided to add leopards to this scarf collection, I was reminded of another scarf collection with leopards that I did for fun over Summer 2019.
I designed the three scarves pictured above on a whim with some old sketches. They were meant to be screen printed using 4 colors. I had intended to do this as soon as I got back to school that September but it never happened, and thank god for that actually, because I don't think these were thought out enough. I do think that they are a good jumping off point for the scarves I hope to design now, except I'd like to add a lot more motifs and dimension to the designs. I am starting to rethink the intention for this collection a little bit. Perhaps not just designing scarves but also prints for apparel and other accessories. I was also playing around with the idea of designing this for the home instead too (like for upholstery, wallpaper, pillows, etc.) I really want to make it a well rounded and well thought out collection (with at least 2 colorways) that I can possibly pull from later to make projects for my Etsy shop (coming soon).
So that's where this has been going so far. I'm still trying to sketch out some ideas. I'll try to do another entry on the process for this collection at some point just to give another update. Thanks for reading!
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