Whilst I haven’t been able to run workshops during the pandemic, I have been using the little time I have between homeschooling and work to experiment with pattern making and all things creative. It keeps me afloat!
One of the challenges of production in participatory design workshops is creating a visually coherent outcome. Bringing all the visual elements together in a cohesive way in co-designing a fabric involves many small decisions, iterations and plenty of visual intuition.
Sometimes the block print patterns we produce in the workshops sit well together and are enough. Sometimes, adding a framework (meta-narrative) to unite the patterns brings it all together.
Inspired by flocks of birds flying away for winter, I have been doing some drawings that I think would look great as a fabric and could act as ‘carriers’ for the block print patterns.
The birds are storks, hand drawn, outlined and painted with gouache. Here below they are form a framework for the block print patterns:
