Last week we released a new series of designs we have been working on. Our new Under Water World collection with over 25 different prints is now available as fabric and wallpaper and we would love to show you a little sneak peak, a little behind the scenes of making this collection.
Yeah yeah, I know, you know. I love traveling and I adore being in and on the water. When I travel I try to make boat trips and look for places to go snorkeling and have a little peak into the colorful world of sea creatures and coral. I have seen quite some amazing things with my face in the water and my ass catching a nice sun burn. Tiny colorful fish, beautiful coral reefs, sharks, yeah, not my fave! And I love the textures and shapes. So very inspirational. Unfortunately I could never capture the beauty of all this n my prints but for these new ocean series I tried to make some joyful colorful designs.
We originally designed these series for our own production and shop in The Hague. But since we were partnering with someone that decided to step out of this process we are now releasing the entire series at Spoonflower as well. Our own production is on hold at the moments and these prints are too cute not to share right? For the print making process I started out making some a quick list of all sea life I have witnessed while traveling to tropical places. There were so many creatures but there were a few which I thought were most fascinating. The Octopus, turtles, the sea horse and the colorful corals. These were the base, the foundation of these new series.
Corals
From here I started making some sketches. For the first stage of sketching I use a fine pen with black ink, usually a sharpie or a micron. For this series I used both since I did not only draw outlines but texture as well. I started off making a whole bunch of different illustrations, a variety of corals, leaves, plants. And after filling several pages of my sketchbook with drawings I try to select the most interesting shapes. For the corals I choose three completely different shapes that make a wonderful series of abstracts by there own. I turned these into three different designs. These three designs all have a different quirky shape and texture, eventually these are put into the Under Water World color scheme so the prints are easy to mix and match with each other, or with some of the creatures. But not at this stage. I just focus on shape and how to get a strong repeat with basic elements. After that we started with the creatures.
Under Water Creatures
After sketching a whole bunch of ocean creatures we had to make our pick. We decided to skip the fish designs since we already have some cool dolphins, sharks and whales up in our Spoonflower shop. So after eliminating these three main characters stood out. The octopus, turtles and sea horse.
The Octopus, which I keep calling Jelly, stubborn as I am, since the characters are a little mix of both, has two variaties. The small ones; that are all slightly different and make a great print for kids fashion items and home textiles for the nursery. And then the large ones; for the older kids, these illustrations have a nice texture filling with dots and stripes and is also available as home pillow. Making the shape larger gives the illustration more character. The image looses a little of the cuteness that makes is more suitable for a slightly older audience. I wanted to make one illustration suitable for both babies and slightly older kids. But I could not figure it out. So instead of choosing one, there are two versions of these awesome creatures. Hope you like them.
The Ocean consists of so many amazing and colorful creatures. But most interesting are the shapes and textures down there. The Sea Horse has always fascinated me. Such a curious face and funny shape. We added some sea horse designs to the collection. I just couldn’t resist. I love the shape of these creatures. So beautiful! We could not leave them out. To complete these series we made one design with all corals and creatures combined. We are so curious to figure out which of these designs will pop up in our feed first. We are so curious to seeing what our customers will make from this fabric!
Home decorations & Paper art
Finishing up a series of prints means I can use them for all sorts of products. Our new series of designs has also been translated into a bunch of colorful posters and wrapping paper. For now these will only be available via our shop in The hague. We also added some pillow patterns to our Spoonflower portfolio so you can make your own cool jelly or sea horse pillow. I am looking forward seeing these babies pop up in nurseries and kids interiors! Hopefully you like our new summer series as much as I do. Click on the link to check out all our new designs over at Spoonflower. Select your favorite fabric or try out a swatch for some unique wallpaper.
SHOP NEW UNDER WATER COLLECTION
