Kaleidoscope Design Challenge

For this week’s Spoonflower design challenge, I chose to create watercolor symmetrical “kaleidoscopes” and frame them in an ogee layout. White space between each motif/ogee line was used to give the design an open, uncrowded feel; to give them room to breathe, if you will. Very pleased with the results!

Here’s my process, more or less:

1. First, I created watercolors of the main motifs, starting with 4 paintings or 8 motifs. (Top Row) The results were encouraging, but I realized that some of the overlapping colors were too different (too far apart on the color wheel), resulting in muddy looking areas. Also, I got a little too intricate with some of the motifs.
2. So, I started over, this time with 7 paintings, or 14 motifs. Better! The 8 that seemed to go together particularly well and also looked the most kaleidoscopic were chosen for the final design.
3. I tried various ogee filler lines – at this point going back and forth with tentative layouts in Clip Studio Paint. As you can see, I tried out lots of little dots and lines as additional filler, but ended up abandoning that idea. The motif at the bottom left is the one I ended up using (minus the bling).

All in all, I created at least 26 of these little (5″ tall by around 3-4″ across) paintings. Mirror repeats were used to develop each kaleidoscope motif as well as the continuous ogee outline. But first, they needed to be scanned and cleaned up extensively in Clip Studio using the clone tool.

It’s amazing how much unlovely stuff becomes apparent once one scans the image and enlarges it even a little. Dust particles, fabric lint, dots of color in the wrong place, uneven edges and fill, smudges, an occasional cat paw print – you get the idea. Not sure how much would actually show up in the final fabric version, but I chose to be on the safe side and get rid of what I could while still maintaining the painterly quality.

And voila, a photo of the actual printed fat quarter version, below. I’m planning to keep this on display in my art room – haven’t thought of the best creative use for it, just yet.

This pattern looks bright and colorful on the various Roostery home decor items, with the white giving it a bit of crispness.

Fabric with this design is on sale now, both at Spoonflower and Roostery. Voting starts tomorrow for the Kaleidoscope Design Challenge.

As usual, thanks for stopping by!

Monica aka lalalamonique