Fleur De Lys - Rococo Inspired Design

I realised that although I’ve shared the visualisation boards I created for my last BA submission, I haven’t actually shared many of the designs here. This one was inspired by a popular highly ornamental trend of the 18th and 19th centuries; Rococo. I adore all those swirls and elaborate embellishments and I imagine I’ll be creating more inspired by the same theme. You can view this one in the ‘Pattern’ gallery on my homepage.

I experimented with this design using various processes in the textile print room at college. I’ll share more of those in a future post.

Fleur De Lys Handpainted Watercolour Rococo Baroque inspired Design by Susie Batsford

BA Textiles - Product Visualisation Boards

The last week has been completely nuts in preparation for the great ‘Hand In’ tomorrow! The list of requirements is seemingly endless and each aspect takes sooo long to manifest! I am a virtual stranger to my poor long suffering family. For the last 3 days I’ve been working solidly from 5am to 9pm while my dear supportive husband take’s care of the day to day running of life at home with a busy family. If only he knew just how much I appreciate him… perhaps I’ll think of something fantastic and creative in equal measure to make it up to him!

For our brief, we were each given two words to work with, mine were ‘Opulence’ and ‘Ornamental’. We then had to take those two words and investigate a whole series of design making solutions culminating in two completely different collections. So, here are my final visualisation boards for those two separate collections. Neither board has all my designs on it, but I will have more time to share those with you after tomorrow. Now, wish me luck, I still have a very long list to complete!

Opulence Home Decor Interior BA Surface Design Visualisation Board by Susie Batsford
Ornamental Geometric Stationery Visualisation Board BA Surface Design by Susie Batsford

BA Textiles - Preparing for Year 3 Submission

I haven’t posted much for a few months and that’s quite simply because I’ve been absolutely snowed under with work. Switching from Illustration to Textiles and Surface Design for the Final Year of my degree has been such a massive learning curve, it’s utterly wonderful to learn something new, but at times it has also felt overwhelming. I’m now in my last week before having to submit the entire body of work I’ve created in the last few months. Our module has been all about Innovation and Experimentation. Quite honestly, each and every new process I’ve learnt… and there have been quite a number of them, has for me been experimental in itself. There are so many new skills to learn and get up to speed with, from seemingly simple things such as how to make a collection cohesive to different dye techniques and fabric surfaces and a huge variety of different technical processes. Gradually, very gradually I am getting there, although I still have a huge amount to learn.

For now though, I thought I would leave you with a development on my New Year design which has sparked so many new creative ideas of its own.

Hand Painted Daisy Design Pattern by Susie Batsford

Preparing for Print

Graphite Pencil Sketch of Rural Indian Girl with Pastel Background

Pencil Drawing of Gandhi

Graphite Drawing of Rural Indian Farmer

It's hard to believe that I've spent the whole weekend playing in Photoshop, preparing my images for the printer.  I rather naively thought it would only take a morning.  I'm sure I've been missing a trick and there are far more efficient ways to achieve my desired outcome.  Anyway, here's a selection of some older portrait drawings which I've re-invented onto pastel backgrounds, rather than their original graphite.  I'm going to add them to my gallery so you can view them here too:  http://www.illustratorsimaginarium.co.uk/gallery-2/