After a long time without, I have decided to start writing a design journal of sorts again. I’ve been feeling it would be good to have somewhere I could share more long-form thoughts and reflections on projects and work, without the pressure of needing to please an algorithm or worrying about likes or views. This will be a place where you can come to look at photos of my work in progress, completed projects and sometimes things I am interested in/ obsessed by. My goal is to stay clear and focussed, maintaining my ethos of care and consideration while also not being too precious and letting you see the grubby edges of the page.
And so! Here is the beginning of a project I’ve been embarking upon with my family (mainly my mum and my brother David).
My brother David is 39 and he has Down’s Syndrome, though this is the least interesting thing about him. He lives at home with our mum and dad; he loves James Bond (Man with the Golden Gun is his favourite); he loves Robbie Williams and he loves drawing and painting. He does these incredible wee detailed drawings of people. So when mum asked my if I could help her redecorate David’s ‘base’ (his centre of command in my parent’s house), I knew we had to get the wee people involved.
After a couple of offerings of possible design illustrations for the room colour scheme, we came up with a plan. We settled on marmoleum for a flooring refresh, for its hardiness and sustainability credentials. And we chose some rich warm tones from Yes Colours for the west facing room and its cool light. We fell in love with a colour saturated ceiling in Passionate Olive Green, and I can’t wait to get to painting that! More on that in time.
Here’s where the real fun begins! I came up with a pattern of David’s people overlaid on a background of his lovely loose brushmarks, which I have replicated using dye printing. I sampled colours in a scaled down version and got the go- ahead from the boss (Dave). We’re using a lovely warm neutral linen for the base and slightly toned down pops of colour to compliment the walls. When David draws, he does so with his face very close to the page and so his people are about 8cm square. I enlarged them so that they were each a good 30ish cm square for a big, bold impact and so you can clearly see his lovely, lively quality of line.
I hand paint each background shape with procion dyes and print through before setting and washing out, ready for the layer of jolly people in a dusky olive green that will match the ceiling.
I am so happy with the final nine metres, the colours really sing and the wee people are so characterful. The next stage is to dye the curtain lining fabric, which we’ve decided should be a light blue. And then I will begin physically putting the curtains together in time to have them hanging up for a fun family Christmas, Dave’s people smiling down at us!
Any questions at all? Want some help translating your own special images onto fabric for your own project? Just drop me a message in the comments!