Creating a print design with photoshop

I spent the last couple of days coming up with a design for my screen print which will feature around the skirt of the apron dress.

I had already selected the embroidery transfers that I want to use, based on the fact that they needed to be wildflowers that are in bloom during the months of April, May and June.

My first task was to trace the original transfers in black fine line pen onto white paper and scan them onto my laptop. This makes it easier for me to cleanup and work with the motifs on photoshop. I then removed the white backgrounds from each of the motifs and began to manipulate them into a design that I was relative happy with. This took a long time as I want to make the blooms look they were creeping up the dress, but I also needed to take into consideration the colour that each bloom will be painted in so even spread of the colours over the print.

As you can see from the picture above I put the designs into a repeat to see how the print will join up when printed side by side. Here are four slightly different designs. I was playing about with the placement of the bee and butterflies to see which would work best with the repeat.

This was the final design that I decided on with the help of some of my class mates and Fiona. Luckily I finished it and printed out onto A3 before the end of my day in the studio today so that I could get it exposed onto a screen ready for my next day in the studio next tuesday.