Trying out my pattern recipe for myself

 So following my recipe for pattern with soul,,,my first pattern-making experiment

1. TAKE inspiring pattern

This Laura Ashley pattern means a lot to me. It reminds me of home and being a child. 

2.  PUT it into my special place

This is my special place - my allotment where I have spent lots of time with my boys, playing, growing and exploring

I have put my pattern into my place by projecting it with light onto the materials of my plot - wood, carpet and metal. This helped me look with fresh eyes at a pattern that was too familiar to me.

3. OBSERVE how time, weather and chance transform

and ALLOW the other senses in (smell, taste, touch, hearing)

I drew my pattern onto the surfaces of the allotment - wood and metal. The more I drew, the more I grew to understand the pattern and how it worked best. Drawing in my place meant I got to explore different ways of approaching the pattern, through texture, space and time - and most importantly in relation to other surfaces and dimensions. Allowing time and weather to pass through my pattern and change it, allowed me as a designer to look at the pattern with fresh eyes. 

 4. IMAGINE ways of capturing the pattern at some point of its shifting life cycle

I decided to make a wood cut of a single motif. And then I made these designs for screen-printing tomorrow. I want to screen print positives as well as printing resists for indigo dying on Monday. I will print resists onto the original fabric. Depending on how my sampling go - I will print fabric to re-install into my place.

And begin all over again?

Trying out my recipe with Stinky

My allotment friend Stinky has agreed to help trial my pattern recipe. We're still in the very early, experimental phases - but it's blowing a gale - so lets go and play in her cosy allotment poly-tunnel

1. TAKE an inspiring pattern

These are Stinky's special patterns - especially the sweet chestnuts. We planted these together. These chestnuts are also very like the pattern of her favourite dress.

2. PUT it into Stinky's special place - her plot/garden

3. OBSERVE how weather, time and change the pattern and how other senses (touch, smell, taste, hearing) enter in

Hear - birdsong, gentle patter of rain - especially beautiful in poly tunnel, 450 bus stopping at bus stop, children's voices coming out to play in school playground
Smell - garlic chives (think I standing on some and crushing them?)
Touch - I can feel the warmth of the sun coming through the clouds
See - gleam of wet slate and wood, smudged chalk running and blurring, buds, seedlings - spring creaking through
Taste - I break off a spinach leaf. I can taste soil and leaf and rain


4. IMAGINE ways of capturing this shifting process

I cut and printed these wood blocks inspired by the horse chestnuts. From these I made these designs to print with screens. I also want to make one inspired by the rainbow fungus. I'm going to print them soon and post up the results.

When printing - try onto wet - overprint and try to smudge

5. PLACE print back into place - I want to make Stinky something nice with the fabric. Any ideas?

Recipe for pattern

I've started to make patterns on my allotments. I want to find out what makes a good pattern

Here is one of my best patterns - a co-design between gardener and grass. All the best patterns seem to be a collaboration

chance + place + time = magic

But you have to find a pattern to start with in the first place. I was inspired to try and grow my own pattern using a carpet pattern that meant a lot to me.  My first experiment was with with cress

I used a simple stencil to make these patterns with pigment - I wanted to watch them change with time. Everything alters with time and weather on the allotment.

 

Stinky and Isabelle have shared their own patterns with me - these are inspired by the sweet chestnuts we planted as well as a great dress Stinky wears alot. I'm hoping to make patterns with other allotment friends too

Another way of getting under the skin of pattern is to project it. Karin helped me to make these projections onto carpet, metal and wood.

I've got to find a way of capturing my patterns at some stage of their life-cycle. So I have been printing them as a resist and then dying them with indigo. I'm printing onto found fabric - it has been loved before and adding another unknown pattern story into the mix is thrilling.

So far my recipe for pattern is something like this

1. TAKE a pattern which inspires you
2. PUT it in a place that is special to you - grow it, project it with light, stencil with pigment
3. WATCH your pattern change with the weather, time and chance
4. EXPLORE how smells, tastes, sounds and other feelings enter and transform your pattern
5. IMAGINE ways of capturing your pattern through this shifting cycle

The best patterns are always changing because they are ALIVE

Flying pattern