Pasta Anyone? Designing a Bolt Fabric Kitchen Set

I love having a clean, bright, and inspiring space to start a new project. As I launched into my new project of designing bolt fabric, I setup my sun room work area to be comfortable and inviting. I gathered these items to create my work space: a vase of garden flowers delivered by my friend Dena, a collection of paint brushes old and new, my pens and pencils, ruler and eraser,  sketch pads, and my watercolors. I am surrounded by things I love and which inspire me: stained glass by my sister-in-law Ann, hand painted Italian ceramics, and various paintings. Oh, and thanks to Lilla Roger’s advice, I also made sure I had a nice cup of coffee! The cup, a hand made piece by potter Toby Rosenberg is another of my favorites. Most important, there is *nothing* on the table to remind me of other projects!

The project at hand consists of designing kitchen themed fabric using pasta shapes and bowls.  I wanted to explore different techniques until I found something that I would love to buy myself.  I will share both the process and a couple of styles I worked on. The path to the end design is never a straight path for me. There is a lot of exploration of shapes, drawing techniques, coloring techniques, patterns, colors, and digital editing.

My first step was to draw a lot of little icons which I would later use on the repeat patterns. Here is how this all started:

all-icons-bw-01

Not super exciting, huh? Well, I managed to draw a bunch of little pasta shapes, hand letter the names, draw little bowls and dishes with patterns on them, and for fun, I threw in some tomato, basil, and mushrooms. In retrospect, I should have drawn a garlic too!pasta-shapes-01

After the initial drawings, I had to decide which way to color the icons. I opted for watercolor, the medium I am most comfortable with, and painted all the little shapes.pyrex-color-01

I was pretty happy with the icons and ready to start putting it all together onto a repeat pattern for fabric.

After many iterations pondering whether I should leave the pots straight or tilt them, how tight should I make the design, what color looks best for the background, etc, etc… I finally ended up with this design and a couple of coordinating pieces shown at the bottom. The coordinates were created using the little designs on the dishes!

repeat-pattern-pasta-kitchen-web-r2-01

So, I’m done, right? Well, not quite. After letting this sit for a while, I decided to take the original black and white icons and start over. This time, not with watercolors, but using Illustrator. Below are the finished pieces. I got rid of the black outlines and made them white instead. I had fun picking the colors for this one. Of course, they look entirely different on a colored background, so wait for the final designs!

all-objects-colorized-web-01

 

The final compositions were a lot of fun to create. I actually started with one of the coordinates first. I picked a bright red background which shows off the pasta shapes nicely. I decided to use the hand lettering of each pasta type below the image and placed it over a teal stripe. I then added the vertical tan stripes which I wove through the green stripes. Wouldn’t this make a great kitchen towel?

lisa_larsen_retropasta_sample3-01

Finally, I got around to designing the main piece for this collection. This one took a bit of iteration. I quickly settled on the brown background which gave the whole piece a bit of a retro look. Originally, I did not have the hand lettering in the main piece. I thought it looked a bit busy and generic. I then added the lettering. Better, but still not what I was looking for. In the end, I added the little colored ovals behind the white lettering and shifted them a bit so they would not be perfectly centered.

lisa_larsen_retropasta_sample2-01

Wouldn’t this make a great pot holder? Now for the coordinating fabrics which can be used for the border or backing on these fabulous pot holders. Using the little designs from the bowls, I created this repeat pattern. This time, I used a teal background (also in the main fabric) which I think goes beautifully with the brown background of the main design.

lisa_larsen_retropasta_sample4-01

I was on a roll, and I was feeling the retro in the colors, so I designed one more coordinate, this time a geometric pattern using the same color palette.

lisa_larsen_retropasta_sample1-01

So, there it is! I finished a set of repeat patterns for bolt fabric with both a current and retro feel. I hope you enjoyed having a peek into the day of a designer (actually…. it was a couple of weeks)!

lisa_larsen_retropasta_boltfabric-01

 

You can follow me on this blog or on social media at:  instagram (lisalarsenart) and facebook (lisalarsenart). I will post again when these fabrics are available.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lisa