Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Designing - from Doodle to Angel




People sometimes ask me about my designing process.  If I'm making something realistic, like a horse or a flamingo, I go to Google Images for pictures to help visualize shapes and proportions.  Sometimes searching for drawings instead of photos helps.

If I'm doing something more abstract, then I start by drawing the image in my mind.  Just two problems there -- my mental images are often a bit vague .... and I can't draw. My drawings are usually more of a rough doodle.

So here is my sketch for an angel, one little bit on a page of doodles:



Pretty sad, huh?

                                                        


For the skirt, I was envisionning something similar to this quilt square I did a few years ago, but with one of the tall flowers in the middle. Once I picked up my shuttles, it took maybe ten minutes to realize those flowers were much too big.  So then came lots of experimentation with smaller motifs.  Lots and lots of little motifs, until they looked right and fit together.


 

Once I had the center bits done, then came the outline to make the angel shape. This was actually easier than the center.  Before starting, I gave a bit of thought to where to begin, and what direction to go in, to make the whole outline in one pass without cuts and ties.

So there you have her, Grace, one of the angels in my book "A Flight of Angels."

8 comments:

  1. Wonderful angel!! :) Love the floral skirt!! :)

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  2. Thanks for sharing your design process! I can't draw either, certainly a hindrance to designing patterns!

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  3. Love the floral Angel, she has such a pretty skirt and the design progress was an interesting read.
    Margaret

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  4. I like to hear about design inspirations and processes, thanks. Splendid angel resulted!

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  5. Very enjoyable read . Creativity comes in so many different forms, and takes a different path each time !
    Love the angel - very elegant and happy :-)

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  6. Very beautiful flowers!:)

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  7. Amazing thought processes and progression, and wonderful result! A very pleasing variety of shapes and colors, and perfectly balanced!

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  8. Good thing you are such a brilliant designer and tatter....you wouldn't make it as a sketch artist (JK!) Actually I think you are better than me though.

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