In this recent post, I talked about making the eye-popping, limited edition, colour giclée prints featured in my exhibition, Recollected Patterns: The botany of Walter Hill. Today, I thought I’d run through the thought and making processes behind my new wallpaper and textiles for the home, which also launched at the exhibition.
With the colour giclée prints, I decided to take only one of the black & white designs from the original Collected Patterns series – the Bromeliad – and explore it in colour. For the new wallpaper and textiles, I refined this approach further and decided to refer to the intimate black & white, limited edition embroidery series (that were also part of the original Collected Patterns exhibition) and use only the leaf of the Caladium plant to create a very simple, yet bold all-over repeat pattern.
Establishing the basic repeat was simple, it just requires accuracy. Given I predominately use Adobe Illustrator as my design tool it’s quite easy to create an exacting repeat pattern. I then looked at the scale of the motif with regards to home furnishings and what would work for cushions, drapes, upholstery and feature walls for wallpaper. Determining the best scale for repeat patterns is really important and can mean the difference between the design being overwhelming or too finicky with no real impact.
I worked with Sparkk in Sydney to digitally print the new products and we used both the Pantone colour matching system and their standard colour charts to achieve the final colourways. I chose to work with the same colours I used in the colour giclée prints – the fruity Spring/Summer 2012/2013 colours of watermelon, aquatic blue, bright yellow, tangerine and mint – and the uniform repeat is simple, yet strong enough to carry these vibrant colours. I mentioned in my post Coordinating Prints, that I wanted to see what was achievable in terms of colour matching between different suppliers on different media and I am quite happy with the results.
The wallpaper and textiles are now available in the Collectibles store, along with the colour giclée prints and the original black & white letterpress, giclée prints and machine-embroideries from the Collected Patterns series.
Recollected Patterns: The botany of Walter Hill runs until 28 November 2012 at the Redland Art Gallery, Capalaba.