Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

My plan originally was going to be based off nature and creating flower type patterns. But my plan changed after watching The Quiltmakers of Gee’s Band and I wanted to look more into my roots. The video taught me that things such as quilts don’t have to be perfect in order to tell a story. This can be based on the materials, colors, symbols and etc being used.

Pattern 1

I’m really fascinated by tribal print because you’re able to use different symbols, lines and shapes to create this complicated but simple pattern. When creating pattern 1 I searched for African symbols that could go into my design. I was able to recreate the “Power of Love” and “Energy” symbol to tie into my pattern. With pattern 1 I drew everything with the paintbrush tool without the help of any stylus. It was hard trying to get everything to look how I wanted it to, but then I remember that it wasn’t meant to look perfect. In regards to the color scheme I was thinking of more earth warm tones because my pattern gave me an organic natural type feel. I had a bit of trouble trying to figure out where the colors should go because a lot of the times the definition of the design would be lost. This is why there’s still some parts that are black. This pattern represents to me as the symbols presented to give off love and good energy to all. You never know what I person is going through, so just expressing those two words can make a difference. To others, I would probably think that they would assume it’s just a regular tribal looking pattern. If they didn’t have any knowledge of what the symbols represented then I couldn’t blame them. But then again a certain shape could look or mean something different to them so you never know what this pattern may represent.

Creative process

Pattern 2

Just by finding information from the first pattern helped me determine my inspiration for the second pattern. Instead of going organic I went geometric which gave me more freedom to make more lines and shapes. A lot of the African jewelry and clothing gave me inspiration for the designs and shapes. The color scheme reminded me of the Wild Thoughts music video. To me, this pattern represents to me as fun and bold especially since the color scheme is kind of random. I feel like others would have the same representation. This pattern didn’t take me that long to create, especially after getting use to the software. Both of these patterns can be used for all different types of things such as clothing, vases, blankets, book covers and so much more.

Photo of Pullman Sunset by Sophie Stoltman

For this pattern project, I was heavily inspired by the Pullman I saw in my everyday life. For one color scheme, I was inspired by a photo I took of a special Pullman sunset. I wanted to see how the wide variation of colors would look in a pattern that was more geometric and structured compared to a gradient sunset found in nature. I based my first pattern from this photo. I titled the final pattern “good vibes” because to me it looks a lot like a pattern from the 70’s because of the layering and repetition paired with the colors I drew from the sun set photo. I started with a geometric looking tear drop shape. I then layered and over lapped and reflected this shape to mimic the photo I took of my succulent plant on my desk, starting with a middle and then layering outward from the center.

Photo by Sophie Stoltman

I struggled with making my pattern look exactly how I wanted with a background color so I incorporated the background shape into the final pattern, I think that this reflected the actual sunset even more than before. I think this pattern would look good as a planner cover or even a funky graphic tee shirt.

When I added a new color scheme to this patter I wanted to pull inspiration from my life at WSU. I wanted to show a colder side to Pullman so I pulled form colors all on the cooler side. The greens and blues that I used reminded me of walking under the stadium to get home from an early class in the early spring when things are just starting to get green again.  I think that this new color scheme demonstrates the Bezold effect because this new pattern and color combination seams more uniform and subtle compared to my “good vibes” pattern. This color scheme makes this pattern more universal and could be used for a fun wallpaper or even a phone case.

The next pattern I created was inspired by all the fuzzy coats that are in trend right now along with the fuzz of a dandelion. I knew I wanted to use a lot of layering to create a fuzzy effect. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a photo that I took of this inspiration but I have seen both of these physical things in Pullman during the changes of the seasons. I used an organic sharp shape that was unsymmetrical and odd looking. I then layered this shape on top of itself multiple times. To make the fuzzy shape contrast I layered the background on as a hexagon shape to contrast the fuzzy look of the other shape. I made this pattern with a warm and light color scheme that reminds me of a summer day and then also in a darker green and brown combination that was inspired by my succulent plant as well. I think the Bezold effect is demonstrated well with the difference of the outlines of the fuzzy shape. I like the idea of these being wallpapers or sleeves of a book.

So my first pattern come from the shape of a flower. The inspiration from this flower comes from the Hawaiian flowers, of course, they are not the same but similar in ways that it may represent tropical. I always enjoy how the Hawaiian flower looks and probably one day I want to go to Hawaii for a vacation trip. For my pattern I did two color schemes for my pattern but I enjoyed the second color scheme much better. I named that particular pattern as Blue Hawaiian because it looks like a Hawaiian shirt but limiting to cool colors like purple, yellow and of course mainly blue. In this pattern it doesn’t contain a background color, if I did add a color then it will look differently but I did overlap the design close together to get this design. In the first color combination I used about 10 colors but I wanted to limit the color variations so I decreased it to only three colors. This design could be used for a shirt design to use for vacations.

Blue Hawaiian

Blue Flower

Rainbow Flower

Flower

My second pattern comes from the shape of a ninja star. The inspiration is from one of my favorite anime shows Naruto and I also have a ninja star fidget spinner. I enjoy the designs of ninja weapons because they are different from normal knives and can be used differently based on your situation. The pattern that it came out hardly shows the design but it creates a pattern which I called it Spikes because it looks like it is forming spikes from the ground. the colors for this was gray and a red shaded color. I think these two colors go very well with each other. even though it doesn’t go well with the idea of ninja, when thinking of ninjas you would associate black and white as the main colors.

Spikes

Ninja Star

Compass

Diamond Star