Back in May 2017, I painted some chickens as part of my '100 Days of Blue Project', they were very stylised and used a limited colour palette made up of blue, red, yellow and black. I find painting a great way to relax and quite often a good starting point to develop my ideas for new work but little did I know that these feathered characters would be revived twice over the coming years and show me just how much my illustration skills have grown in that time.
My original painting.
I decided to develop this particular piece further and went on to redraw each chicken using a only black pen, then I scanned those drawings into my computer and went on to create the pattern digitally.
You can see that I kept many of the original features and continued to work with a limited colour palette. However, this particular pattern didn't go any further than my computer screen. I just didn't like it that much.
Later on that year in November, my lovely Mum needed a new kitchen blind. She had a picked out a kitchen themed pattern that I had already designed but wanted to make some changes to the colour scheme, remove some of the motifs and we thought it would be fun to add in a couple of chickens!
I really loved how the new pattern came out and how well the chickens fitted in so naturally, I even had some tea towels made to match!
And that was it...or so I thought.
Now here we are in 2020, nearly 3 years later, and in January I began work on what I thought would be a farmyard themed pattern. I drew cows, sheep, a lovely pig and yes, you guessed it...more chickens!
As much as I liked these cute brown hens, they just weren't working as part of a larger pattern. Then I remembered the first design and wondered if I could incorporate some of the original elements.
I think you can see that both of these chickens were done by me, it's still my 'style' just 3 years apart.
I knew at this point I was close to being where I wanted the new pattern to be but it was missing something. I decided to combine the slightly more realistic elements of the brown hens with the character and colour scheme of the pattern above and.....
Here is a sneak peek of my newest pattern! I really love all the details, the personalities of the chickens and the beautiful blue background! I also created a slightly different colourway...
Which one is your favourite?
I'll be creating some limited edition items with these designs so keep an eye on my Facebook page here and join our email list here to find out what surprises I have in store!
I really hope you have enjoyed seeing the evolution of this pattern, as they say, good things take time!