White Hibiscus and the Blue

Originally fabric I have used in some past pieces of artwork. I scanned in some of the largest parts of it before actually working with the material, simply because the pattern is gorgeous.
I've just started noticing the way the leaves swirl in on themselves. 

The slight pink at the top middle is where I spilt some dylon dye. 

This is just one of them, the quality is quite poor to save up on room. I always worry about running out, and having to go through all the scans and photos on my Google Picasa account.
Resort to Photobucket maybe?

Clothing Labels: Maximalism and Floral

 

Falmer Heritage
Label @ Matalan

 



Lovely floral motifs which I find are rare on clothing label tags. Really pretty in red with the dark green swirls, all finished off with the grunge effect, giving the label an aged appearance.

Matalan's quality and price are an amazing combination, more often or not their clothing items are made from better cloth (and better stitched), with prices that are almost akin to Primark.

 

 

Denim Co.

Label @ Primark

 

Details on this one are simple, Greece like in motif and the colour is modern and indeed the very image of Primark with its ever colourful items of clothing, items that can be used as layers, leggings, bags and hats and so forth. A thin grey ribbon adds a neat finishing touch on top of the thin semi sheer fabric.

Primark's key to success is maximum sales at lower prices and importantly reacting to the fashion world and its trends of the moment.

Floral lace scans in b&w

Some lace scans. Originally the lace came form a t-shirt like top I bought from a charity shop in town. The floral pattern on the top can be found on a previous post titled Chintz roses; odd colours of pink, red and purple-blue.

I haven't yet got a chance to use these pieces in any painting or work, but I used the rose print top part in my degree show exhibition as an appropriation of the typical floral patterns now commonly seen on the streetwalk and catwalk. A pattern that has been brought back out of the cupboards and dusted off, then given a pat down with modernisation - as has lace or lace imitation fabrics of course.

Thinking of doing a lace feature of prints/scans/photos for September.

So please by all means send in photos/scans of lace or bits of lace form anything via e-mail to patternandsurface@gmail.com  

 

Swirls, twists and silver

This is a small piece of a wallpaper sample I got from B&Q a while back, known as Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen Cote Couture Wallpaper. 

I picked it solely because of its use of pattern, the damask type of patterns found on fabric where two types or thread are use to create a pattern within the very surface of the fabric.

 

The choice of tone and metallic colour is particularly interesting as it seems to refer to how in traditional damask fabrics, often one thread would be shiny whilst the other would be dull, presenting a pattern that would be shiny, standing out against the dull coloured surface. . 

The damask is made up of floral shapes, petals, leaves - shapes often called paisley motifs as well as vines and other kinds of twists. The paisley itself has particular reference to the Greek motif of a tear drop

The wallpaper itself is not the best kind in terms of practicality, it rips and gets scuff marks quite easily; not the most hard wearing of wallpapers. 

More details about the wallpaper at B&Qs website.      

Newspaper Snip: Flowers and leaves

From the front cover of:
The Independent, Independent Traveller insert (Saturday 5th January) [Front page photo]

Lilac and White - 6 Petaled Flower

This print is very Arts and Crafts movement and William Morris like - that is why I picked it.
The print itself is very 'English' and a neat looking print that sticks to simple line work, creating negative and positive areas. The light purple adds a soothing feeling and look to the print. 

The fabric itself is a nice light to medium weight cotton. Surprisingly the white trousers of this shalwar kameez are still white.

Vintage Clip-Ons (Accessories)

Vintage earrings and clip ons found at the Vintage fair in Newcastle:

A very delayed post but it is here.
Back at the vintage Fair in May I noticed how commonplace vintage clip ons were, clearly a type of thing that was popular at this time as in shops now there tends to just be earrings or studs that fit an ear piercing.

I know incredibly little about vintage wares, but these really interested me:

Above a great selection of all kinds of clip ons, most of which seemed shape derrived from this flower like shape with between 5-8 points, some in shapes of hexagons, heptagons and octagons - creating beautiful shiny bloomage.
A few close ups of my favourites:.

This pair form a star like shape, tapered of with points creating the octagon shape. The choice of blues is particularly interesting, one being pale and the other light - maybe they were meant to appear to be stars?

The brooch is particularly interesting with its glaze over the center that creates a boiled sweet like appearance and that beautiful border.

Below the slightly off white lines remind me of icing and the shapes themselves seem to imitate netting or lace of some kind. These would be my favourite simply with this reference to fabric.  

The abundance in usage of beads in the photos is pretty sweet, it has been rare for me to see such beautiful arrays of earrings with such a high standard of design and look using beads to construct and define.

Blue and white and often

Have you ever noticed how commonplace the blue and white pairing is?
It is on plates, with the Willow Pattern is the most recognisable representation of such mixing of colour and tone.
It works brilliantly on fabric of course.

I like how on this chiffon like fabric the print can build up,
creating layers separated by a thin veil of white, where under layers can still be seen.

And of course, lots of leaves.

Vintage Lace Box

Photos from the Newcastle Vintage Fair
at the Royal Station Hotel next to Newcastle Central Station, May 2012,
organised by Jayne Turner and Mandy Pattullo

A nice box of lace,
what more would you want to see?
If only I had photographed that nice light pink bit of lace?

A very typical looking flower with beautiful geometry that makes its form and fills it.
Have you ever noticed the similarity lace has to mhendi/henna?

This one above reminds me of a water lilly plant,

simply with its surounding leaves decorativly curling around the plant,
creating a decorative float around it.

Wedding sweets, pink and green

Yum yum.
Especially the mix of the grapefuit like pink

and that nice cool green.
The flower shapes I think are stylised chrysanthemums flowers,
very nice pattern work.

And lets be honest,
everyone likes ribbons.

For those who don't know what houses weddings sweets can be anything,
often using interesting folding techniques or fabric.

MS Bing

I like Bing now.

Dtae captured: 6th February 2012

Don’t get me wrong I hate how when you sign out of Hotmail your taken to a lumpy collage mess of  gossip and news, known as the MSN page.
But Microsoft’s search engine, given its make over once a day with a beautiful photo of something, anything – be it a plants, a building, some kind of macro photo, or even a short cute video of a group of seals chillin with their mates, is well worth the aggravation of changing from googling to…well binging. But I still google. Its a hard habit to kick.

Dtae captured: 11th November 2011

Any way a selection of screenshot saves in which pattern poses a great threat to me using google. I mean next to cuteoverload.com Bing’s cover page can cheer me up. Its great. And those little glowing squares of facts are just a perfect addition. 

Dtae captured: 9th December 2011

Connect the dots…

Or join the dots, as I fondly recall, were actually, 

as opposed to word searches which were honestly like some kind of form of kiddy torture.
If you’ve been bad, a word search, and if good, a join the dots.

Or at least the was my first impression.
It was a bag found in one of the cheap bag cages at the back of the shop, I didn’t buy the bag obviously, I mean it didn’t look very sturdy, but the surface print was just so interesting I had to have a good look. Snuck in a few photos too. 

The forms are fairly abstract but clearly butterfly like in shape, and some looking like flowers or petals, made out of this strange cross hatching and black simplified petal shapes.

A closing note this interesting scale like pattern
made from petal like shapes with this 

cross hatching that is reminiscent of netting and structures of grids.