Dress and Mask Combos

During lockdown I sewed some coordinated dress and mask combos; loose cotton shift dresses to accommodate the inevitable weight gain paired with covid ready face coverings. 

The fabrics are my own designs which I get printed to order in the UK by Woven Monkey.

These combos went down particularly well with shop checkout people, bless them, who were pretty much my only outside contacts. One chap in Waitrose complimented my outfit then looked down at his stripy shirt and said “Oh, I’m going to get a mask made to match it!” I really hope he did…

This certainly made dressing for social distancing a bit more fun. 

bespoke, cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, tunic, dress, sustainable fashion, memade, mask, face covering, covid, coronavirus, self portrait bespoke, cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, tunic, dress, sustainable fashion, memade, mask, face covering, covid, coronavirus, flatlay bespoke, cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, tunic, dress, sustainable fashion, memade bespoke, cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, tunic, dress, sustainable fashion, memade, top stitching, detail, flatlay bespoke, carousel, roundabout, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, horse, skeleton, home made, tunic, dress, sustainable fashion, memade, mask, face covering, covid, coronavirus, self portrait bespoke, carousel, roundabout, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, horse, skeleton, home made, sustainable fashion, memade, mask, face covering, covid, coronavirus

Cockerel Dress

cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, dress
cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, dress

For my latest foray into textile design and home sewing I  made myself a cotton dress to wear to my dear friends’ June wedding in London.

As usual I had the fabric digitally printed by Woven Monkey in the UK having made a white, red and pale green version of one of my cockerel variations; as my dad once said I’ve certainly got a lot of mileage out of that cockerel! 

Click here to see how the original cockerel came to be…

cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, dress

I decided to finish the hems with red bias binding to match the cockscombs….

cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, dress

…and luckily enough found a pair of my favourite Fly London sandals in the exact same shade…

cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, dress, fly london sandals

…and finished the ‘look’ with white nails and sunglasses…cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, dress

 

The dress stood up well to the festivities – just a couple of armhole stitches popped during the disco phase!

 

And the wedding was absolutley wonderful.

Illustration Exhibition at the Presentation of the Play ‘Té Verde’

te verde, green tea, play, marcel snyders, arte vejer, exhibition, vejer de la frontera, castle, illustration, book cover, watercolour, pen and watercolour, art, drawing, painting, posterOn a rainy January afternoon my friend Marcel Snyders presented his play ‘Té Verde‘ (Green Tea in English) to an enthusiastic audience in the castle headquarters of Arte Vejer.

I designed the front cover for Té Verde back in October 2017 (you can read about the process here) so Marcel invited me to exhibit some of my art work during the event.

That’s Marcel (below) being interviewed by Paco Ariza Varo from Radio Vejer before Marcel interviewed me….

te verde, green tea, play, marcel snyders, arte vejer, exhibition, vejer de la frontera, castle, illustration, book cover, radio vejer, interview

te verde, green tea, play, marcel snyders, arte vejer, exhibition, vejer de la frontera, castle, illustration, book cover, watercolour, pen and watercolour, art, drawing, painting, fabric design, surface design, digital printing

I decided to keep the exhibition small and simple so I showed a selection of my sketchbooks with my painting materials (to demonstrate the process of illustration) alongside the finished illustrations for:

postcards, the black dawg book, te verde, green tea, play, marcel snyders, arte vejer, exhibition, vejer de la frontera, castle, illustration, book cover, watercolour, pen and watercolour, art, drawing, painting, fabric design, surface design, digital printing

I also displayed some of my fabric designs (my current favourite form of illustration!) and the dresses I made from them, as well as a selection of postcards and a computer slideshow of other artworks.

sketchbook, te verde, green tea, play, marcel snyders, arte vejer, exhibition, vejer de la frontera, castle, illustration, book cover, watercolour, pen and watercolour, art, drawing, painting, fabric design, surface design, digital printing

abraham sevilla serrano, flamenco, musician, te verde, green tea, play, marcel snyders, arte vejer, exhibition, vejer de la frontera, castle,

 

 

The presentation was highly entertaining, Marcel served green tea (té verde) and cakes as people arrived, two actresses from Marcel’s theatre group read the first act of the play, the flamenco musician Abraham Sevilla Serrano improvised a song dedictated to Marcel and the play (right)…

te verde, green tea, play, marcel snyders, arte vejer, exhibition, vejer de la frontera, castle, illustration, book cover, watercolour, pen and watercolour, art, drawing, painting, fabric design, surface design, digital printing

 

 

 

…then Marcel broke out the cava and presented me with my copy of the book

 

 

 

The Spanish version of the play Té Verde is now available to buy on the publisher’s website.

It’s a highly entertaining read…Good luck Marcel!

Silk Scarves

2cv, dragonfly, silk scarf, fabric, silk, textile design, surface illustration, digital collage, sewing, dress making, handmade

I recently sewed these two scarves featuring my dragonfly and 2CV designs digitally printed on super soft silk. What luxury….

Cockerel Skirt

cockerel, fabric, surface illustration, digital collage

 This fabric design evolved from a stencil project I started in 2012,

cockerel, rooster, cock, stencil, acrylic paint, reclaimed wood

since when Mr Cockerel has adorned numerous hard and soft surfaces.

Last year I spent many happy hours in the Photoshop turning the original image (above) into several repeating patterns (below)

rooster, cockerel, pattern, illustration,rooster, cockerel, cock, surface illustration, pattern, repeat, fabric design

rooster, cockerel, cock, surface illustration, pattern, repeat, fabric design

rooster, cockerel, cock, surface illustration, pattern, repeat, fabric design

 the last of which got made into a baby cushion in light cotton canvas.

cockerels, roosters, cocks, cockerel fabric, pattern, textile design, baby, cushion, surface illustration

I’ve been really keen to make myself an item of cockerel clothing ever since, so I ordered custom printed fabric samples in several cottons until I was totally happy with the size and colour of the design, and then got cracking with sewing an A-line skirt.

rooster, cockerel, cock, fabric, cockerel fabric, textile design, surface illustration, digital collage, sewing, dress making, a line skirt, handmade clothes

rooster, cockerel, cock, fabric, cockerel fabric, textile design, surface illustration, digital collage, sewing, dress making, a line skirt, handmade clothes

rooster, cockerel, cock, fabric, cockerel fabric, textile design, surface illustration, digital collage, sewing, dress making, a line skirt, handmade clothes

rooster, cockerel, cock, fabric, cockerel fabric, textile design, surface illustration, digital collage, sewing, dress making, a line skirt, handmade clothes

rooster, cockerel, cock, fabric, cockerel fabric, textile design, surface illustration, digital collage, sewing, dress making, a line skirt, handmade clothes

 It’s had a very enthusiastic reception and I’m cock-a-hoop!

7 Days

7 Days‘ is the title of the fifth and final assignment I completed for my illustration course with the OCA (Open College of the Arts)

The series of 7 patterns (1 for each day of the title) was inspired by a summer boating holiday on the Canal du Midi in the south of France, and also by the wonderful woodblock designs for wallpaper and fabric of Marthe Armitage, the dramatic wallpapers featured in Sherlock the TV series and the films August:Osage County and American Hustle.

The title page shows the location:

digital collage, map of France, canal du midi

I chose 7 themes from the trip and made a motif for each, which I then multiplied to make a pattern:

Day of the 2CV

2CV, digital collage, pattern, car, illustrationDay of the Locks

Canal du Midi, lock, canal boat, digital collage, pattern

Day of the Sunflower

Sunflowers, digital collage, pattern

Day of the Plane Tree

Plane tree, digital collage, illustration, pattern

Day of Patisserie

Patisserie, cake, digital collage, illustration

Day of the Dragonfly

dragonflies, dragonfly, digital collage, pattern, illustration

Day of the Grapevine

grapevine, vinyard, grapevines, digital collage, illustration

 My ultimate aim is to reproduce some if not all of these patterns on wallpaper, fabric and other surfaces.

The method was pretty much the same for each pattern; here’s an outline:

  1. Research photos and sketches made on the spot
  2. Preliminary sketches from the initial research images
  3. Pencil or pen drawing from the sketches
  4. Drawing scanned to Photoshop where the line work was cleaned (by adjusting brightness/contrast, duplicating with the layer blend mode set to multiply and using the eraser tool) and cut out
  5. Colours and textures added in Photoshop layers using scanned handmade collages and marbling, bought papers, flat and graduated digital Photoshop colours and textured colours in Corel Painter12
  6. Duplication of the coloured single unit
  7. Adding a background of flat digital colour or scanned paper
  8. Adding texture to the background

For those who are interested in seeing  the production method for each image in more detail I’ve added them below:

Title page

For the background I made a map of Europe by tracing the outline in pencil onto squared paper

traced-europe-map-kathryn-hockey-artist-illustrator

which I then scanned to Photoshop and inverted

I then collaged the map in Photoshop layers with some bought paper

and marbling I had made using oil paints

and a French flag which I found through an internet search

I distorted the map with the free transform tool and applied my inverted outline of a plane tree and grapevine pattern (methods below), adjusting the layer blending modes, tone, saturation, curves and levels in Photoshop.

I printed the text ‘7 Days a journey in patterns’ from Photoshop , traced it in pencil and scanned the tracing back into Photoshop where I coloured / inverted it


I wanted to show the location of the Canal du Midi, so next I made a collage of another map of France I found through an internet search, applying torn fragments from a French road atlas

working over it in water soluble green crayon and a wash of acrylic paint

before applying a crackle glaze and white acrylic paint to highlight the cracks and scanning it into Photoshop

I traced the outline of the canal in Corel Painter layers from this map I found on the internet and applied it to my cropped collaged map in Photoshop, adjusting the tone and saturation, adding text to mark Toulouse and Sete (the towns at either end of the canal), and creating a border using the brush tool and a scan of aged paper in layers.

I had a practice run at labeling France on a print out my map of Europe (to which I’d applied a crackle glaze and white acrylic paint) with collage and biro

I cut out the collaged label of the lower left version in Photoshop and applied it over my background, including a smaller duplication of the ‘flagged’ France and a smaller duplication with reduced opacity of the Canal du Midi map over the larger ‘flagged’ France map

Finally, in Photoshop, I adjusted the tone and saturation of the background to improve the contrast, added and coloured a boat from the locks pattern (see below) labelled the Canal du Midi on the larger map insert and added an inverted outline of the 2CV drawing (see below).

Patterns:

2CV

Research photo taken in France, I also referred to a photo I found on the internet

Pen drawing

Scanned to Photoshop, line work cleaned and cut out

Coloured in Photoshop

2CV, car, digital collage, illustration

Curves adjusted, image duplicated and scanned paper added in Photoshop layers for background texture

2CV, pattern, car, digital collage, illustration 2CV, car, pattern, digital collage, illustration

Tone adjusted to achieve different coloured versions

Locks

3 sketches made on site to show how the canal boats go ‘up and down hill’ via the lock system

1 of many, many photos I took of the boat in a lock

A series of sketches I made to work out how to show how boats move up and down stream through the lock mechanism in ‘3D’

I traced the final sketch, made a pen drawing and scanned it to Photoshop in 2 parts

The line work is cleaned, duplicated, aligned and cut out in Photoshop

Outline duplicated in Photoshop layers on a scanned paper background with stripes added with the brush tool

Canal locks, digital collage, illustration

Collage and colour applied to the line work in Photoshop layers: leaves with the collaged map of France (see above); water with the brush tool; locks with the photo of concrete shown below

Locks, canal, canal du midi, lock diagram, digital collage, illustration

Finally the single unit is duplicated and stripes of scanned blue paper are added in Photoshop layers. I also added a final outline layer over the top to improve definition. The repeated unit is reminiscent of the form of Tibetan thangka art

Sunflowers

Research photos taken on the spot

Rough sketches for possible pattern layouts, I wanted to show the sunflowers rotating, as if towards the sun

Pencil drawings

Sunflower1-kathryn-hockey-artist-illustrator-web

Drawings scanned to Photoshop, line work cleaned, trimmed and cut out

Sunflower-3-kathryn-hockey-artist-illustrator--web

Pattern trials made by duplicating layers in Photoshop

Sunflowers coloured in Photoshop layers: yellow centres and green parts collaged with different tonal versions of the France collage map (see above); petals with flat and graduated digital colour

Collaged sunflowers duplicated to form single unit of repeat

Single unit duplicated and flipped vertically

Sunflower-blue-kathryn-hockey-artist-illustrator-web

Colour and pattern trials

Sunflower-blue-collage1-kathryn-hockey-artist-illustrator-web

I finally settled on a blue background, to represent the summer sky, adding texture to it via a scanned canvas

Plane Tree

Planted between 1681-1810, plane trees line long lengths of the Canal du Midi and are dying because of a fungus but I decided not to portray the dying trees in favour of ‘aesthetic delectation’.

Sketch made on site

plane-tree-photo-kathryn-hockey-artist-illustrator-web

1 of many research photos taken on site, I also referred to this Natural History Museum photo

Plane-tree-pattern-sketch2kathryn-hockey-artist-illustrator-web

Rough sketches to work out a single repeating unit

Pen drawing of the single unit

Single unit duplicated in Photoshop layers

Pattern line work inverted

Yellow tonal version of my collaged map of France added as a background to the inverted cut out line work. It overpowered the pattern which lacks definition

I redrew the single unit in pencil, adding more detail

Drawing scanned to Photoshop, line work cleaned and cut out

Plane-Tree-collage-kathryn-hockey-artist-illustrator-web

Collaged in Photoshop layers with my France collage map

Line work inverted and tone of collage adjusted, I love these autumnal shades but my pattern needed to be summery green

Layer effects applied to inverted line work

The version I decided to repeat

Pattern variations

Patisserie

Research photos

Pen drawings made from photos

Drawings scanned to Photoshop, line work cut out, inverted, duplicated and coloured in Photoshop and Corel Painter12

Coloured cakes duplicated to make a pattern

cakes, patisserie, digital collage, illustration

 Inverted line work introduced to background to add depth, subtle granular texture added

cakes, patisserie, digital collage, illustration

Closer crop

Dragonfly

Research photo

Partial pen drawing

Drawing scanned to Photoshop, cleaned, part duplicated and flipped horizontally

Playing with tone and saturation settings

Line work inverted

Playing with tone and saturation settings for the inverted version

Inverted line work multiplied

Line work on a scanned paper background

Multiplied

A4 crop

Grapevine

Research photos

Preliminary sketches from photos

Pen drawing

Scanned and duplicated

The single unit was collaged in Photoshop layers with the following material:

marbling I made with oil paints

scanned to Photoshop and tone/saturation adjusted for the grapes

my collaged France map for the vine leaves

textured paper for the ground

textured paper for the vine trunks

The duplicated collage

A closer crop