What's Happening

I love leafing through old photographs and albums.That painted touched up look they had back then, and the stained paper with the scalloped edges. There is something so special about old photographs in this day and age of instant image taking and 'screen culture'.

My parents' wedding photos inspired me so much when I was at studying art at university that I decided to remake their album using handmade paper. Something I have always loved to do was make paper, even as a kid, and throw in all sorts of pretty stuff like glitter and petals.

I release printed photocopied images of the photos and added handwritten text from gift cards they received, as well as other wedding memorabilia my mum kept like news clippings of the notice in the local paper. I watercoloured some areas to achieve that old photograph colour look. I also used collage and paper cutting to add in more details, all to produce a paper keepsake of their special day. I then designed a collage using 'faces of the day' in the shape of a tennant ribbon and release printed it onto some calico for the front and back cover. I embroidered other details and text and then hand bound it together. No special learnt technique here, I just went by feel and made it up as I went along.

It was a great way of exploring part of my family's history through paper craft, a journey into the past and I got a lot of joy out of showing my little girl. 

Some closer details of the binding - I used tulle layers over the paper to capture a wedding veil texture. The embroidery was made up as I went along too - highlighting using stitches.

I hope you enjoyed this window into my parents' wedding in the 1950's - such a great era in fashion and design and one I really love to revisit.

Worry Dolls! These little dolls have so much appeal and power. Tell them your worries, put them under your pillow and overnight they will sort it all out for you. Amen - thank you very much, I'll have one hundred please!

Are you a worrier? I certainly can be, and unfortunately my little girl has the gene to some extent. In an effort to teach her that her worries aren't necessarily a reality and are just thoughts that can be overcome, we ended up with a pack of these beautiful little handmade dolls from the Oxfam shop. Originating in Guatemala, they really are so simple and cute, each dressed in a different version of a colourful linen frock and headress.

Their design really lent itself to drawing and pattern. It was such a joy to draw and colour them in. The pattern is simply a combination of a line drawing, a pencil rendered version and then varying combinations of the dolls lined up in rows. I then dropped them all onto a hand drawn grid to capture that lovely rustic texture of the fibres in the materials. I had a little help with a real linen image which I scanned and  used to fill some of their faces to give it depth - hopefully creating a really happy, colourful and uplifting piece.

This design was also developed further into a small collection of surface designs for one of my MIID summer school classes. It was targetted at the childrens market and came under the theme of 'Tribal geometrics' . It was a whole lot of fun designing this one from start to finish. It definitely cured my worries - well for a little while! 

 Here on the blog I'll try and visit each of the designs in more detail to give those of you who are interested a bit of background as to how it came about and to show you a bit of the 'design process' which is just a fancy shmancy way of describing how I came up with the idea and how it developed!

I adore the design process. Actually, I could easily say that I love it more than the end result which probably sounds a bit weird. It's the bit that gives you the 'OOO's' and 'AHHH's', that exciting feeling of starting with something that really inspires you and then sends you off on a journey of 'what ifs' and 'try thats'. Following me? Well if you've got this far I commend you, my descriptive wording is pretty basic to say the least!

Alrighty - the pretty poppy flower. Such a beauty and if you look really closely, the design details within this flower are amazing. I really am a frustrated botanical artist. I like to pull plants apart and study each of the little features and then draw them. When you press a poppy petal it gets even more papery and fragile and this was the feature which really inspired me to put this pattern together. Collecting and pressing flowers is one of the fondest memories I have as a child and I still love to do it today.  The lines on the petals are so fine and crinkly and the bright orange colour when pressed, turns a lovely faded and worn out antique like colour, a bit like an old antique leather bound book. See the first image of the four below.

So taking these beautiful pressed petals (quite a few of them) I then scanned and photoshopped them to enhance those stunning colours. Next came the watercolour layer to add a bit of that bright orange poppy colour back. And finally, the hand drawn part using a fine pen to create the petal and stem outlines with those beautiful alien like looking centres and stamens. Using all these layers I then 're-built' the flowers putting the new layered petals back one by one. Yes this did take a while!  I used magenta, orange and green highlight colours in illustrator to change the linework, and voila I arranged them all into a repeat pattern. I was super pleased with the result, this new design process of re-building the flowers petal by petal was tedious but well worth the time it took to build up the layers. A whole new type of flower arranging ;)

Welcome to Paprly we are open for business! Here you will find unique surface pattern artwork designed by me and printed right here in Melbourne onto high quality, environmentally conscious paper to use as gift wrapping or really for any paper crafts you might enjoy.

If you follow me here on the blog I will be posting updates and work in progress of new Paprly products and designs. I am also hoping to share lots of paper art, crafts and products from the amazing world of paper out there. Seriously it's huge and jam packed full of amazing and inspiring designers, artists and crafts people. 

Please have a browse of my collection so far and stay tuned for some new products and designs coming very soon :)

cheers,

Mand xo