To the Edge

Section 1 of chapter 8 called for the selection of a printed / decorated fabric as inspiration to design "off the edge".  Selecting a suitable fabric I found the difficult bit as I don't tend to go for motifs and I wanted to challenge myself instead of plumping for my usual muted abstract shapes.
I eventually went for

since it definitely had strong shapes, a vegetation theme to it and....(I couldn't imagine actually using it in anything!)

I cut strips from it and played with designing off the edge onto A3 paper.

8.1

8.1 The first used oil pastels and watercolour pencils, and kept faithful to the original motifs.

8.2

8.2 The second in oil pastels, watercolour pencils and felt pen, used a simplistic form of the striped flowers and ribbon like petals.

8.3

8.3 Used the orchid-like flowers upside down with rubbings over sequin waste, and the veins of the leaves as an overlying pattern.

8.4

8.4 I decided to be a little more abstract with my patterns, rollering paint over leaf shaped stencils and sequin waste to build up colour then adding decorated paper cuttings for petal and stalk effects.

8.5

8.5 I built up a monoprint background with freehand drawn leaf shapes and stripes through the ink on the acetate sheet then added lines of dots and stylised petals with decorated papers.  I'm not sure where the edge of the fabric would lie but it does lend itself to fabric layering of elements if I were to translate this design into fabric.

Now back to some practical edge finishing samples for the next post...