Spoonflower book Bird theme fabric fun!

I recently was having an auld gawk at the Spoonflower Blog (luv it by the way) When I noticed they had put out a call to textile designers to submit Bird themed projects. You could submit a print you have already done or create a print for the theme using, found objects, drawing, digital, photo manipulation, collage, basicly the skys the limit!  I was just about to head away to a friends wedding in France(so lovely!!), so with the brief in mind I kept an eye out for bird like imagery, objects, collage bits. While on the plane over there was a gorgeous photo of a restaurant where they had loads of vintage lamps hanging down from the ceiling, I thought they looked just like cages/ feeders and I ripped the magazine and robbed the page (sorry next passenger, and restaurant too eek).   I did loads of drawings and drew a few dodge looking birds until I finally managed to get 2 decent looking fowl.  I have used loads of lamps in my work before it was nice to have such a selection it would have taken me days to draw them, yet alone find 17 different ones woop woop for collage!

I used to do a lot of collage while I was in college to try and convey my ideas about installations, paintings, I loved mixing collage with hand drawn things I would photocopy and then cut up.  I often use to paint on top of it all sometime I had something amazing and then I would wreck it by piling even more crap on top (I'm a maximalist right)  The amazing thing about using collage and found object is the freedom to pillage about, nothing is sacred, you can use whatever you want and openly acknowledge it.   With the advantage of a camera and Photoshop the cutting and photocopying has now become easy peasy!

I love found objects and my house is full of tack tack bric a brac and kitsch pictures.  I was inspired to try and make like a geisha garden by these two little geisha figurines and I also had a vintage tacky geisha wall picture, I was delighted to discover that I had loads of little bird images in old books, a vintage tile with love birds on it needless to say I had loads of fun. Its amazing when your using images which you didnt draw and your not precious about the cool things you can create!  I will be getting the fabrics printed ( I think there is 7 of them) and I will have them up here they are so cute!!!

 I also used an old embroidery I made years ago which has no purpose and is quite garish but I just cant seem to be rid of it, it has now excelled as a crazy looking succulent cacti.

Fingers crossed I get a call back eek, just had a look in the terms and it says they will tell people in March 2014, so I will be suffering for months!