Journey Through a Hummingbird's Garden

I have been analysing inspiring printed textile designs as a way of gaining an understanding of the language of printed imagery to enrich my own design process. I was inspired with a print design by Clare Perkins entitled ‘Journey Through a Hummingbird’s Garden’. The title itself seems to suggest narrative. The image has a sense of flow, with curving hand drawn lines suggesting paths, roads and trains of thought; the eye is lead on a journey around the image. This is punctuated with repeated imagery of hummingbirds, trees and figures, all helping to tell the story of a of the journey through the garden. The soft haze of colours in the background creates a dreamy cloud-like quality; and the mixture of fine details, washes and contrasting blocks of colour, combine to create a sense of layering and depth in the image. This design is classed as a conversational pattern. “conversational patterns… contain images of objects or situations. In these designs the artist’s inspirations are not always immediately apparent until examined closely… some patterns... tell a story without words or promote a point of view.” (Cole 2007: 9)

Reference:
Cole, D. 2007. Patterns. Laurence King Publising Ltd.