In this blog space, I will share my creating process, inspirations, daily life, and random thoughts.
How I made the Koala Pattern Design
This is my first blog post, I would like to share my making process pictures with some explanations.
This koala design’s inspiration was actually not that happy one.
It started with news articles about the devastating bush fire in Australia in late 2019 to early 2020.
According to WWF, an estimated 3 billion animals were killed or displaced and up to 7 billion trees destroyed or damaged.
It is very shocking and took a while to get the reality.
But we can also choose to pick up positive information, too.
WWF launched the largest and most innovative wildlife and nature regeneration program in Australia’s history as a response to the bush fire crisis.
“Regenerate Australia’ will kick off with an ambitious goal to double koala numbers on the east coast of the country by 2050, with the hope that the recovery of this species will also benefit many other local species, as well as boost the local economy of regional communities”. (resource: WWF, https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/seed-dispersing-drones-help-rebuild-koala-populations-devastated-by-bushfires)
I wanted to do something with what I am capable of, even if it is small.
That’s how I make designs and sell them online, and donate $1 to WWF for each product purchased.
These are the watercolor illustrations of koalas and eucalyptus plants (koala’s favorite food and home!) before scanned and digitized.
I LOVE watercolor medium as well as printmaking (especially linocut). My friend said the soft, bleeding edge is enhancing the already cute koala’s cuteness.
These are drawn on Arches cold-press 300gsm watercolor paper block, and Winsor and Newton professional watercolor tubes.
These are my absolute favorite tools!
Both Arches and Winsor and Newton are very old manufactures and their consistent qualities of the products are just phenomenal and respectable!
After having enough fun time painting, I scan the images and open the files in Adobe Photoshop.
I forgot to take pictures of this Photoshop process, though, I use Photoshop for editing and cleaning the noise just a bit to make the next Illustrator process easier.
Then, open the cleaned file in Adobe Illustrator and use the Image Trace tool to vectorize the illustrations.
After the imagetracing process, now it’s the time to make repeating pattern for textile!
After playing around with the sizing, spacing, rotations, and colors, those koala designs were born.
I think it usually takes 1-2 weeks for me from an idea to the final design.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading my first blog post.
You must be a nature lover or an enthusiast about design like me.
Like many of you, I like to paint and illustrate the beauty of nature and animals, and this is just one way to do that.
I hope it was enjoyable to read rather than preachy and pitiful!