It's safe to say we're more than a little it excited to share this new commission for Anthropologie!
As a dream client of Bec's, we couldn't be prouder to see how amazing her artwork looks on this gorgeous kid's bedding collection.
We thought we'd take this opportunity to ask Bec a little bit about her working process on this project...
Hi Bec, we absolutely love this collection! How did this particular project come about?
Thank you! For Spring/Summer 18, Paper and Cloth has been working on an 'Abu Dhabi' inspired trend - think ornate buildings, decorated animals and rich, opulent colours. After looking through the Portfolio at Surtex, Anthropologie commissioned me for the artwork based on my handwriting for this trend.
What was the inspiration behind this design?
This collection was influenced by the souks, buildings, patterns and characters of Abu Dhabi and the Middle East. I am a magpie for any delicate and intricate details in design and so I felt inspired to take all the beautiful imagery and colours from this area and create artwork that was totally fun and quirky yet still contemporary.
This involved taking reference from the modern and angular characters of Charley Harper and combining them with the intricate shapes of old Middle Eastern architecture and tiles.
How did you go about creating the artwork?
I always start with a good moodboard! This collections board included character references for pose and shape, rich colour palettes and images of architecture and tiles.
As a true doodler, my signature style of illustration is always completely hand drawn with fine liners and brush pens. I had a rough sketch of shapes and patterns in pencil, before using my Lightbox to trace over assets with a fine liner pen. The pens are primarily a 0.05 or 0.1mm, allowing me to ink up super dinky details and elements.
Once scanned in, I then played around with layout and colours in Illustrator, layering up doodled line work over textured characters and shapes. Hand drawing illustrations allows me to really capture as much of the detail as possible.
What was your favourite part of working on this project?
Well Anthropologie has always been my DREAM client so that's tough because my favourite part was honestly the entire process from brief to literally seeing the products online!
It was really lovely that as they liked the handwriting of my portfolio and the way I had interpreted this trend initially, I had quite a lot of creative freedom with the brief!
We hope you love this collection as much as we all do!
(Product images copyright of Anthropologie)
