Tagged: curves
Sunday sketch #364
This week’s design came out of a design challenge that Tara Glastonbury’s been doing this year to help you kick-start your creativity. Tara’s been posting design briefs on her blog and in her column in Make Modern magazine. In Brief #5, called ‘Getting past a block’, Tara challenged participants to design a queen-size quilt using an analogous colour palette.
I love designing to ‘rules’, so I’ve enjoyed responding to each of Tara’s briefs. It’s a fun way to do something a bit different, and an excuse to post more designs to Instagram 🙂
It took me awhile to settle on an analogous colour palette that I was happy with (colour is always my nemesis!). Tara had also talked about William Morris as a design inspiration, so I started with curves and tried to come up with something floral/leafy.
I pretty much posted the first design I came up (even though I didn’t love it). But then I kept playing around with the idea of full circles bisected by more relaxed curves. Here’s where I got to.
This is a block-based design; you can see where the edges of the block are if I colour it a little differently….
I tried a few different two-colour combinations.
I also did my usual ‘modernising’ step by removing some of the blocks and block elements, introducing a bit of asymmetry, and adding some negative space.
I think I like the other version better, where the colours flow from one block to the next, obscuring their edges.
The design also works horizontally, where it’s a bit reminiscent of a rolling ocean with air bubbles on and under the water’s surface.
I also played a bit with the colouring of the layers, using darks at the bottom and lighter shades at the top. The light filters to the bottom while the air bubbles rise to the surface.
This week’s design could be made into a quilt using curves, curves and more curves. Specifically, half-circles or quarter-circles (drunkard’s path units), plus a more relaxed curve that might require a template. I’ve never sewn curves within curves before, so I’m not sure how easy it would be. I struggle making quarter-circles that are any smaller than about 4″ – they just come out all wonky – so I like the idea of a less curvy curve!
Sunday sketch #356
OK, this week’s sketch is admittedly a bit wacky, but it’s just one variation of a block-based design that I thought was worth sharing.
The block itself is made up of one large and five small drunkard’s path units. On its own, it looks a bit like a UFO or some kind of sea creature (although it also reminds me a bit of the Shine Dome. Or maybe Thing from the Addams family!). But when one block is positioned next to another block, those drunkard’s path units combine to create interlocking crochet-hook-like shapes. Can you see them?
Rotating the blocks creates a different kind of movement, but those interlocking hooks are still there.
I simplified the design to highlight those hook shapes, although I don’t like this version as much; the balance of the small and large drunkard’s path units adds to the design, I think.
I do have a soft spot for two-colour designs where the same motif or shape appears in both colours.
This week’s design could be made using lots of drunkard’s path units – not quarter-circles, but the ones where there’s a bit of a gap between the curve and the edges of the square.
Sunday sketch #338
I was telling someone recently that I’d never designed with an orange peel shape, cos I’ve also never sewn an orange peel shape, and the next time I sat down to sketch something, guess what shape came up?
It’s maybe not being used in the way that you’d normally expect to see an orange peel, but I think it works. It’s certainly fun in this colour palette (one of my all-time favourites). The checkerboard colouring helps to keep it fun too.
The main block in these designs has the orange peel in the middle, bisected by a straight line that also cuts the square block into two rectangles. But colouring some of the block in the same colour as the background lets the orange peels hang off the edge in some cases, or give a nice curvy edge at the top and bottom.
Here’s a simpler version (same design but less ‘busy’ colouring) – this one might be my favourite.
It works in the other direction too. I feel like those orange peels in the middle are giving me the side-eye 🙂
Here’s a more regular layout, where you might be able to see the basic block more clearly. Placing blocks in the middle of the design and then using one of the block colours as the background helps to ‘float’ the shapes a bit.
I also like colouring the edge blocks so that there are no hard vertical lines showing the outside borders of the block – just the curves of the orange peels undulating down the page.
On looking at the blocks now, I can see hourglass shapes too. I should’ve tried a design that echoed that shape. Here’s one with just a large diagonal instead.
These designs could be made into a quilt using templates of some sort (I’d probably just make my own). Once you got the hang of sewing these curvy shapes (and when I say “you”, I mean “I” 🙂 ), I think the quilt would come together pretty quickly.
I’m going to use these shapes in more designs, so keep an eye out for related sketches next week.
