Colorful Legging

Painting & Ideation

A fresh sheet of paper is like a clean memory. When you paint, sometimes you get lucky and your brush strokes land exactly where you want, and other times there is no going back; that’s when the real challenge kicks in, where you have to use all your creativity to view what’s in front of you through a different lens and work with what you have.

For this print, I let the paint and water guide my brush; I let the paint bleed its way through puddles of water and stain my paper. As the paint dries, I am left with beautiful strokes that trigger my imagination about what it resembles. For this example, I found myself in a sea of purple flowers.

Textile Design

It’s easier said than done. It all started with a splatter of paint but how do you translate it into a seamless pattern that could be repeated?

When you make a painting by hand, there is a lot of fixing that needs to be done when you digitize your image, before it is sent out for printing. For this example, I spent hours digitally painting and repeating certain elements to create a seamless pattern. The key to digitally fixing watercolor prints is to not overdo it or you will lose the organic brushstrokes.

Technical Pattern Making

Now that we have our textile designed, it’s time to see it on a real-life product. My design team along with the sewing team at Pattern Studio worked together and made a pattern for a pair of athletic legging.

Marketing and Photography

Lastly and most importantly is bringing the product to the market and advertise it the right way. We were lucky to have some sunshine at Buntzen Lake and have one of our fitness models show what it would look like in action.