I am really pleased to have had two of my most recent works on paper selected to be included in the Print Cromerexhibition this summer, with the Private View on 19th July. This new body of work has been developed as part of my academic practice at Norwich University of the Arts where I have been exploring pattern structures and repeat blocks. I have explored new pattern iterations by rotating the screens to add additional colours of the same artwork, thereby building greater complexity from limited design information. In an age where digital design and the use of Artificial Intelligence provides limitless opportunities, I want to explore the fundamentals of pattern creation to generate new possibilities that are led by the designer, ensuring the creative path is transparent.
The theme of the exhibition is PLAY, and as a result the palette I created feels full of summer carnivals and fairgrounds. The overprinting of inks with differing levels of transparency provides a building of depth and subtlety of harmonious colour.
I created a number of one, two, three and four-colour prints initially, that featured the screen rotation in adding the colours. I then cut strips of the prints and with further rotation of the strips, interwove them into one base print that had been sliced to enable the slotting. I enjoyed bringing back an element of paper engineering from my book art practice into these new pieces.
In designing each piece, I considered the placement of motifs and relationships of colour. The collection provides variation within a collective identity and belonging. Some pieces feature only triangular motifs, while most incorporate the circular and rectangular elements too. My research utilises design thinking by Lewis Foreman Day, and his distribution of elements. This approach results in scattered focal motifs that work across repeating patterns. Although this is not a feature of my new work, I recognise the placement considerations are also useful in this work too.
A number of these pieces will be for sale during the show.
I’m excited to be finally bringing this collection of surface designs to market in collaboration with the Window Film Company. The inspiration for the patterns has stemmed from my fascination with geometric designs, taking the basic ingredients of triangles, circles and squares as my starting point.
I’ve been exploring geometric pattern structures in relation to design principles established by Lewis F. Day at the turn of the Twentieth century, exploring the equal distribution of motifs within a repeating tile to alter the visual rhythm within two-dimensional surface designs. I have also explored expectation and disruption within the repeat tiles. On establishing an apparent small-scale repeat, I play with unexpected shifts in the placement of motifs to disrupt the rhythm, challenging the sense of order. This work belongs to my ongoing practical pattern research as Associate Professor in Design at Norwich University of the Arts.
The six designs each have their own identity and yet belong together like siblings in a family, with shared features of geometric motifs and formal compositions throughout this collection. Some of the designs started their life as self-initiated physiotherapy back in 2020 / 21 following abdominal surgery and my subsequent recovery. The design challenge, to make small-scale lino blocks of repeating patterns to print by hand, provided me with small physical and mental tasks to focus on between the naps. I had hoped some of the designs would one day be leaving my studio, and I’m pleased and proud to share them now.
Designing for window film requires consideration of motif, shape and pattern construction without the aid of colour, requiring an absolute focus on negative and positive shapes. I enjoy working within design limitations in relation to production requirements and technical specifications, believing the challenges become design opportunities. I spent some time testing the various scale of patterns across the collection, including a micro pattern (Step), through to a much larger scaled pattern (Triangulate), considering window sizes in both domestic and commercial spaces in relation to the motif sizes.
I’ve worked with the very patient Steve at the Window Film Company for all my designs available on film, including the large-scale bespoke design for Birmingham Airport back in 2017. Previous designs from my Construct collection available from the Window Film Company won a House Beautiful award in 2018 too!
Steve worked with me to sample some of the early versions of these designs generated as digital scans from lino prints initially, but I didn’t like the visual quality in the translation of the prints. The original artworks for this collection were generated using collage and screen printing alongside the lino prints as I prefer designing with a physical relationship to image creation. After further consideration I opted to create each of the designs as vector-based files for production, providing sharp graphic quality to the patterns.
Mike at Window Film Co. was also fundamental in getting this collection established, off the computer, on to window film and ready for sale. Our conversations focused on understanding my design identity in relation to previous work. He ensured the designs felt authentic to me, while building on the existing designs I already license to the company.
It’s always exciting to receive a delivery of samples, and I’ve had a few of those over the last few months. The final product is very different to a digital file, so it is important to inspect the artwork as film installed on the window, checking the scale of repeat as well as any discrepancies in the artwork – you must have sharp eyes for detail! With final decisions made and sampling approved, as well as the small matter of naming the designs, we have been able to sign off the artwork, and launch the six designs in the collection: Circulate, Diamonds, Shift, Triangulate, Step, Pairings
A dear old school friend of mine has turned 50 and to celebrate her birthday I designed and printed a small book to celebrate some of the many memories we have shared over the years. The book had 50 pages that referenced everything from an all day breakfast, to a game of Sorry, to her love of the band A-Ha! I also included some references to design classics I knew she’d love, including Mr Tickle, Marimekko’s Unikko design, andAlexander Girard doll and a Barbara Hepworth sculpture. She’s an architect so there are building details and she’s a lover of handbags so there are a few of those, and plenty of printed pattern!
It was suggested to me by my wise husband that I use the reduction lino-cutting technique – I hadn’t used it for some years, so it took a while to get my head around what I needed to keep and what I needed to cut away after each layer. I opted for three layers: yellow, blue then red, but also customised a square to be green for a Lego tree, and a specific blue for the Cornishware pottery – I made the extra effort – she’s a special friend!
Although it was a very tricky project carried out across the busiest few weeks of this year I really enjoyed the challenge of the reduction lino and am sure I’ll go back to the process in the not too distant future.
Part of my academic role at Norwich University of the Arts is dedicated to my research practice, exploring new knowledge in pattern and print design. Following on from the publication of my book I’ve been keen to get out in to industry and expand my practical experience of print production methods that could enable new ways of designing repeating patterns for paper and cloth. These visits also provide excellent opportunities for me to develop ideas for curriculum changes in the undergraduate course I lead, BA (Hons) Textile Design at Norwich University of the Arts, to ensure our graduates are competitive in securing roles on graduation.
A couple of years ago I spoke to Director of Ivo Textiles Limited, Suzie Zatka-Haas following her visit to our stand at New Designers, a graduate showcase held annually in London. She was keen to understand the best way to promote opportunities in the company to graduates and we discussed the right terms and definitions to ensure textiles students were attracted to the roles. We also discussed the skills they value at Ivo’s and how we can ensure students understand the potential roles open to them, (we have had a Norwich graduate work at Ivo’s for the last few years). We are both passionate about printed cloth and Suzie invited me to visit the factory when I could fit it in around my teaching schedule.
Fast-forward two years and I managed to secure some funding to spend two days onsite at Ivo’s to understand more about the technical constraints of the different printing processes they offer to clients. Suzie was brilliant in making this happen, being open to allowing me in to the factory to learn more. This felt very exciting but I wasn’t fully sure what I’d be able to help with although I offered to assist with anything. I was armed with my printing apron and old clothes—following advice from Suzie!—as well as my sketchbook of design ideas for my current research project in case I had time to talk it through with anyone.
The day before my visit I’d spent the afternoon with Marthe Armitage (blog post here) in her much smaller set-up so I knew this was going to be a contrast. Walking on to a large industrial estate in west London with huge lorries thundering by, the only clue of what was going on inside number 3 were some screen frames leaning up against the outside wall awaiting collection. I was greeted at Reception and my name had made it on to the board for the day.
Once the health and safety briefing was over I was led through the factory, trying to take it all in: sights, sounds and smells, and I was re-introduced to Maisie, one of Ivo’s designers that I’d met at New Designers last year. She was to be my host for my stay and ensure I didn’t do anything silly, like wander off and put my hands in the machines. I’m incredibly grateful to Maisie for her time and interest in what I am doing. We discussed university training, the Ivo design studio set-up and then I shared with her my project. It is so useful to talk it through with different people as they all bring ways of looking and new questions.
A full tour of the factory was next. There is a vast supply of cloth and screens in every space imaginable, alongside huge machines, some in action and some not, as the job list requires. The colouration department was a room of inks and colour swatches, and the colourist making and matching colour for all the processes. The colourist has been working for considerable time at Ivo’s, like so many there, they are absolute experts in what they do.
I saw the Flatbed printer working on my first day. Large flat screens raise and lower mechanically and the fabric is on the belt below, which moves along after every print is made for each colour to be printed with the subsequent screens. The belt is very long, with many metres passing by before all the colours are printed and the fabric heads off to be baked for the colour to be set at the far end of the table. I was busy taking notes and asking questions. That day a client was onsite to quality-control the printing before signing it off for production.
There is a large archive of artwork from decades ago, spanning the thousands of jobs that have been made here. Original acetates and drawings are rolled up in drawers holding the stories of design. I wasn’t able to photograph the examples – client confidentiality is important here, but it was exciting to see some key players of the 1960s featured. Maisie told me the incredible story of how Ivo’s came to be, and I met Michael, who’s family story it is, leading the company with Suzie.
Gali printing is a further printing process used at Ivo’s (the two tables with yellow frames in the picture above, right). The print tables are fifty metres long! The screens are set up in frames and are mechanically moved up and down, with a mechanised squeegee passing over the inked screen, before lifting up and moving down to the next place to print. It is carefully operated and requires skill and a keen eye to ensure everything is happening correctly with good quality each time. The screens are then changed for each colour and the same processes run again – the gali print operator will walk several miles in creating a ten colour design!
The process I was most intrigued to see was the Rotary printer. Unlike the flat screens, the artwork is prepared on a mesh that is on a cylinder (image below left). The circumference of the cylinder is the repeat size, creating a seamless repeat with fast production. A different cylinder is required for each colour, just as a flat screen per colour is required, but unlike flat bed / gali and hand printing, the squeegee sits inside the cylinder, and with the use of a magnet is pulled down to apply the pressure and add ink to the cloth through the mesh as it turns. Seeing these machines printing many colours at once is fascinating, unfortunately I couldn’t take pictures as it was printing for a client.
On my first day at Ivo’s I also saw a length being hand screen printed, but again, no pictures. It was a very slick operation that is clearly well-rehearsed!
Following the tour we returned to the design studio and I was introduced to some of the different design tasks the designers are involved in. A new graduate had recently started, Caris, so it was good to see her settling in well and enjoying her first professional experience, guided by Maisie. Putting original artwork in to repeat can take several weeks with meticulous digital design work using AVA software. Maisie upped the excitement by suggesting we could work on one of my designs that afternoon and have a day printing with Podge the Printer, a legend for those in the know – wow! Maisie prepped the artwork, with me taking notes and soon the screen positives were ready to be exposed.
Arriving on the second day, my screens were ready, Podge had prepped the table laying lots of fabric down for me to print on to. Podge is a character – we hit it off! At first he wasn’t quite sure what my research was about, but soon he was getting in to the spirit of it and suggesting options. He said it made a change to have someone exploring options rather than simply being in production mode. We chose some large screens from the archive to add a few tricks he had up his sleeve. Buckets of colour were mine to use. I had a lesson in printing the Podge way and he made sure I held the squeegee at the correct angle with hands over the top – he kept monitoring me so I had to stay on it! He also showed me the S-blade method of printing flat colour without the screen – surprisingly satisfying.
Factory lunch is a set 30 minutes and soon we were back in action. Each time I wanted to change colour, the screen was taken away to be washed / dried ready. I’m not used to having such (any) great service and support when I print in my own studio! It was a really productive day with many metres of fabric printed with several layers of colour, testing my research ideas. Podge’s son who spends lots of time on the Gali came to lend a hand at printing the larger screens, enabling me to try other prints over the top.
With the deadline to get my fabric set we had to stop printing, I watched as the fabric went through the baker and it came out very hot, but ready for home. I was exhausted, it was hot in the factory and I’d been busy on my feet since 8am. One of the last jobs was to ask Podge to write in the special copy of my book on pattern, as he was included in an image supplied by Fanny Shorter who prints here.
At the end of the day I caught back up with Suzie and thanked her for the opportunity she enabled me to have at Ivo’s. The factory has to run smoothly, meeting industry deadlines and costings for clients so to be open for me to learn from them and explore my research with their expertise was an absolute privilege – they were very generous. I headed home with a bag full of printed cloth and I ached all over from such a physical day, but with a head full of the experience I won’t forget in a hurry … Thank you all at Ivo’s!
It’s been a while since posting here, but I’ve been busy enjoying summer adventures and developing exciting pattern research alongside getting the academic year underway. I’ve also moved in to a new studio space so I’ll share that in due course.
My pattern research focusing on the repeat print block and how it can be used to generate multiple variations to evolve pattern options continues, with sampling with screen and lino printing. I thought I’d share the more structural outcomes here, linking back to my book art practice. I enjoy discovering links that connect the broader practice I’ve developed over the last twenty five years.
As I folded the sheets of printed pattern the forms appeared to suggest a built environment so I explored the idea a little in how I photographed the pieces. Testing scale and contexts is a vital part in developing a pattern, and I enjoy the possibilities.
In my design practice spanning over almost twenty years I’ve been really keen to test my design skills in relation to different products and this has resulted in me working with some really great companies. I’ve learned lots and have got to test my pattern making skills for the different applications I’m working in relation to, learning from industry partners with their experience and expertise.
I’m really proud of my Construct collection as I set out to combine my interest in constucted cloth (weave in this instance) to inspire a print language, with the final surface designs being applied to hard surfaces. I was inspired by Augustus Pugin’s phrase “truth to materials”, in defiance against fake digitally printed wood-effect interior surfaces and I was interested in presenting a subversive outcome. My designs are not copies or imitations, they are a creative response to the material. I made tools to draw with; forks dipped in ink, relating to the threads of cloth and then manipulated the scans of the drawings in Photoshop to generate the repeat patterns.
When the opportunity came to work with The Window Film Company I was really impressed with their willingness to sample a range of designs and to discuss what worked. We explored the scale of the designs and sampled a number of patterns, resolved the repeating artwork to create the final collection. The products are brilliant, the window film is so easy to install and looks great. The idea of placing the woven textile inspired patterns on the window relates to the idea of hanging curtains. The graphic patterns are soft and calm, and yet provide privacy at the window. I then went on to develop my Threads collection to extend this idea further but employed lino cutting as the visual process, also available at The Window Film Company.
I was delighted to learn back in September that we had been shortlisted in the Best home improvement category at the House Beautiful awards 2017, for both mine, and the designs by Layla Faye, and they were going to be held in central London in November. Last week I went along with some of the The Window Film Company team to the awards and we are delighted to have won gold! It was a complete surprise as the category had some stiff competition, but we are so pleased to have this work recognised.
In the words of Micky Calcott, Director of The Window Film Company, “We’re thrilled to have won gold at such a prestigious and well respected awards ceremony. We work hard to provide customers with products that are practical, but also inspiration and stylish. We’re incredibly proud of our designer ranges and are delighted that our Kate Farley collection has been recognised as delivering something that customers want, enjoy and appreciate.”
My designs have been created with lots of consideration to hand-generated imagery, and in relation to the material it is printed on. The patterns appear straight forward but have involved many decisions along the way, testing the combination of marks and the rhythms that are created, as well as the repeat structures and the positive / negative details. I know the customers don’t have to know the entire creative process to like the designs, but I’m delighted to have the opportunity to reflect on this collection. Winning with this great company is something I’m really proud of. Thank you to Micky and the team, as well as to House Beautiful!
Following the success of my four posters for London Transport Museum, currently on the network of London underground stations, I have been asked by Michael, the commissioner, to edition the designs as screen prints. I jumped at the opportunity, and embraced the task!
This has been an interesting challenge because although the artwork for the posters was made using paper cutouts, one great joy of digital print production means you don’t have to separate each colour to print; CMYK does it’s thing. However, screen printing requires far more consideration of separate colour on each of the layers as well as registration – the accuracy of each colour layer when printing. Overprinting can result in muddy colours if not fully considered. For the editions of prints I made some artwork adjustments on Adobe Illustrator enabling me to create the positive artwork for each of the four colours in each print, ready to expose photographically on the screens. You can see in my composite image, top right, the black print on acetates which are the screen positives, that I used to expose the images.
I love mixing colours to match my references and I take pride in not using colours straight from the pot, but to always see the nuance of hues. I make colours darker using purples and greens, rarely black. I used the final posters to get the right colours, and daylight is always essential. Ink and paper surfaces always give different qualities to contend with too. The final colours are certainly rather bright! Screen printing on paper is also very different to screen printing on fabric, so you have to get your head around the differences including remembering to flood your screen (pulling a layer of ink across) between each print, and using the vacuum on the print bed (to hold the paper firm).
However tired I am, when I am printing I am absorbed in the process – rarely noticing hours passing, and missing the need to feed. This is a good thing as my week as been ridiculously busy on all sides. Printing requires systematic thinking, and at least one clean hand. Preparing screens, mixing colours and registering each colour on the acetate first all needs to be organised. I love it when I’m in the rhythm of editioning.
A deadline to hand the first print from each edition to the commissioner this weekend focused the mind, and when trimmed, signed and wrapped I was really proud of the prints. I was even more pleased when I met up with Michael to give them to him. He appeared to be joyfully moved by the results – holding one print up to the fellow coffee drinkers in pride… phew! They are off to be framed and auctioned at a London Transport Museum event at the Victoria and Albert Museum later this week.
This whole project has taken so many months (years) to come good, but throughout the process I have felt trusted by Michael to do what I do best. He has great confidence in his choice of designers spanning the years, and allows us to get on with the job without interfering with the outcome. His twenty plus years of commissioning poster designers has led him to influence the direction of graphic artwork on London underground, creating the archive for the future through the choice of creative hands and minds, but not by telling the designers what to do. It takes trust and judgement on his part, but in turn I think I’ve created my best work yet. In the many conversations over these years I’ve had with Michael he listens, he wants to hear my opinion on things; we have good discussions – he knows about a lot of things. He also often gets carried away with future ideas and possibilities – I like that, we should all get excited by ideas. Thanks Michael!
Every designer is likely to have a goal or two, a particular ambition to aim for. Last week I reached one of mine… I have designed posters for London Underground. They are up on the system as I write. I’ve been bursting to share the prospect that this may happen for several years, and now it’s real!
The underground poster archive at London Transport Museum is full of great examples of graphic design, with work by my heroes such as Edward McKnight Kauffer and Abram Games. These designers have inspired me in my quest to explore visual communication through print and pattern for as long as I can remember and now my design work is on the network hopefully catching the eyes of commuters in London, as theirs did.
I was pleased to be given the brief of ‘Parks and Gardens’ and was keen to move the visual qualities on from my Plot to Plate collection of kitchen gardens and parterres, although you may recognise in poster 3, ‘Community Gardens’ some of my motifs from that time. I have continued to play with elevations and perspective, while giving a polite nod to one of the other poster giants, Tom Purvis, whose poster I’ve had on a wall in our home for more than a decade, enjoying it every day. His series for LNER, ‘East Coast Joys’ appears to be made from cut out paper, the picture is made from flat colour in bold shapes. Having used this method for my commission for the Barbican last year I was keen to explore this again. You can see in my first cutout sequence I did begin to connect each poster to the next, as Tom Purvis had in his 6 LNER posters but I found this limited the scope for each poster composition in this instance.
I began by gathering lots of imagery by making drawings and taking photographs and considered four different approaches to parks in London, one for each of the posters, from traditional activities such as rowing, to pitch & putt and the formal model boating lake. I wanted to create nostalgic content combined with a contemporary aesthetic. I remembered a hot day rowing on the Serpentine with a friend, I thought of many visits to Brockwell Park and all the different aspects of the ‘rooms’ it has within it. Greenwich was also an obvious one, Clapham Common and Hampstead Heath too. The posters represent lots of different aspects of parks, not four specific ones, and only one suggests a particular skyline looking across at the city.
Once the initial ideas were set I began to cut out the posters as general compositions, as well as single details / motifs to add. I combine both traditional drawing skills and digital manipulation in my practice, and this is how I worked here, scanning in paper drawings (cutouts) and subsequently working in Adobe Illustrator for final compositions / print artwork. I was able to make changes as required, including colour and motif placement options.
As a designer I’ve always loved working across different surfaces and products, working with the industry experts in order to learn the best approaches and pitfalls of each context. Posters are large, but someone may look at it for less than a second… it needs to grab attention without being noisy. Large areas of pale colour might encourage graffiti… edges are as important as the centre, and so on. For people who have known my work for many years the look of the posters might not surprise, but my more recent work has been much more graphic, and understated so maybe some of you may not see these as so clearly of my handwriting. Let me know what you think!
Once I was told the posters were going up I had to go and find one. Luckily I was in London for the Design Festival so with wide-open eyes I took to the system and eventually found my first one at Embankment. I’m not sure I can put in to words what that felt like – I wanted to point and shout they were mine! The ticket barrier chap kindly took a picture of me alongside ‘playing a round’. Later that day I came across two more at Euston, and friends have let me know their sightings too!
Design projects can take a long time to get to fruition, it is not unusual for years to pass. This can be frustrating when you want to shout out and tell everyone what you’ve been doing in the studio each week. I am always mindful of what I can share on social media, respecting my clients who might want to have control over a specific product launch. Now the posters are up I’m delighted and proud to shout about it… let me know if you see one on your travels!
My go-to process is print, therefore the majority of my commercial projects have included print outcomes, whether that is a commissioned limited edition print, wallpaper or my patterns available on Formica’s laminate. I design as a printer; thinking of layers of colour / texture / pattern, that build in stages.
I knew early on that paint brushes are not really my friends, not unless they have to be, not compared to a print roller. When I was introduced to printing I vividly remember learning mono-printing in particular. I fell in love with the excitement of the hidden surface. I love the detachment, the indirect nature of printmaking, whether it be a lino block or litho plate, they offer a space away from the actual mark making that creates the image.
I’ve been spending the last few weeks writing lots of words with my academic hat on about my design practice in relation to my teaching practice, and this has made me think about how I learn, as well as how I teach. My design practice experience is so integrated in my teaching practice, they work so well together. I can be in a business meeting learning about an industrial print consideration I didn’t know about for a specific product and immediately I’m thinking of how I can feed that knowledge in to a module on the BA programme I lead. In my mind it makes perfect sense for academics to be practitioners too, albeit with lots of juggling!
I love to learn, whether a process, a way to see in order to draw, or a new context to place work, I am excited about finding things out. It was this mindset that got me making rugs, to challenge my skills, and to test myself with another process that works with pattern, but with very different thinking. There has been much written about the need to play, but as designers it is so important that we take time to explore, to develop our thinking. This keeps ideas moving, and the sense of creativity at the forefront. I’m also fascinated how my patterns work across surfaces / materials, requiring consideration of colour matching, scale of motifs, line weight etc. and this expertise is learned as I work with manufacturers of different materials and products, and visit trade shows across the design sectors. Don’t get me started on brands that just print their patterns on every surface that sits still for long enough… my students hear this rant often enough!
I shall continue to explore, learn, design and teach… just after I’ve finished writing this next batch of academic words…
Images from my ‘Threads’ collection (L-R:) Latch-hook rug, original lino print: Twill, and the same design on window film from The Window Film Company.
I’ve written many times over the years on this blog about the themes that underpin my work, the approaches I take to develop new work, and the things that inspire me. Here I look again at the process of evolving ideas and visual language, to introduce my latest series of prints.
As I develop ideas, often in series of works on paper before any design solutions are considered, I explore the visual language of the subject through drawings, photography and printmaking. The aesthetic nature of the new work evolves and is tested in relation to compositions and rhythms. My knowledge of pattern design, in particular in relation to textiles, feeds this investigation. The motifs, the linking forms, the negative and positive shapes and the quality of line can suggest relationships with historical styles, international influence and contemporary trends. As a designer I use this knowledge to sometimes avoid, and sometimes align to this language, communicating a context far beyond the printed paper I create.
On a cycling and camping tour around Denmark back in 2004 we came across a small book shelf in the campsite shelter containing a range of books. I can’t read Danish. We picked out a few, judging them purely on the graphic design of the spine, and I found a science book of beautiful diagrams of plant structures. I have a photograph somewhere, but the impression those diagrams made on me does not require me to see that page again. I remember the look of those diagrams, and they have fed in to this collection many years from then.
Mid C20th pattern is also something I am interested in, and for this new body of work, particularly the development of stylised florals and diagrammatic interpretation of plants. Lucienne Day was particularly expert at creating designs in that manner, with simple black lines, herself inspired by Miro, Kandinsky and Klee. This is why it’s important to be aware of what has gone before. Not to imitate the past, but to take courage from previous developments in drawing, stylising and pattern making, so we don’t recreate the past, but so we push forward with our own journeys, liberated by not inventing the wheel. I was amused to discover the current exhibition at the brilliant Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester is Lucienne Day: A sense of Growth – it seemed uncanny!
My photograph collection, both in print and digital form, contains many pictures of reeds; Danish reeds, Norfolk reeds, anywhere else reeds. I also have many records of grasses, and have always been attracted to the structure of such plants. These are often the unloved weeds that may be irrelevant and overlooked by many, but I come back from walks with handfuls of lines, some with seed heads, some without, but always lines of grass, as if nature had fun drawing them. Different stems, leaves and weights of line, and some suggesting very distinct natural habitats. I’ve always been more interested in line quality than texture, and my work over the last two decades demonstrates that very clearly.
So that was a long-winded way of saying that this new series of works has been a long time coming, but makes perfect sense to me. I didn’t set out to create drawings of grasses, in fact I started screen printing flowers, but this evolved as part of the create process that is play. Colour came and went too, so as not to detract from the lines. There are some similarities with my threads printed editions and I have had the prints next to each other today – I think they make an interesting dialogue. This is the journey of idea development, by mixing drawing, thinking, printing, reflecting, contextualising, and doing it all again. By the way, this bit of the creative process is one that is very difficult to teach design students, more so with less and less studio time, and a full to bursting curriculum, but knowing your own creative process is halfway to success in my world. Take risks (it’s not rocket science we say) and work at playing.
I digress. These few prints are only the start of this series, I already have new work evolving, but other projects are jostling for my time in the studio, so for now, I introduce you to Grasslines… and now you know a bit about how they came to be.
Kate Farley - drawn to design 