Fran's Blog

test for swf

franhatt — Mon, 16 May 2011 15:52:43 +0000

seeing how simple it is to add swf, what fun if this works!

http://review.oilennium.com/software/hydraulics/cogs.swf

Allotment Pattern

franhatt — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:50:25 +0000

Those drawings I did a few weeks back from sketches on the allotment: just made them into a pattern…

I like the community spirit, the hub of creative activity and nurturing. I’d like to see it on a tea towel.

steaming wheel barrows, dangling carrots, observing the sprouts, sheds galore. The delights of the allotment.

Parsley and Chives

franhatt — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:46:33 +0000

Blue wash, for a china pattern

Parsley purple and layered

These illustrations started out as a series of drawings of herbs, this and the bay leaf have made it into pattern form (I used the bay in the canary pattern). I think this one would make a nice china pattern. I might work on the others at some point, there was one of thyme I rather liked.

Simplified Leaves

franhatt — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:15:30 +0000

A simplified version of the canary pattern that I'd like to print as wall paper.

Having a job finding somewhere to screen print it, wish I’d got on with it whilst I was still a student! It might have to be digitally printed but it seems like a shame. I guess I could send it off somewhere, I went into the art school yesterday and they tried to put me off trying to use the facilities, pointed me in the direction of these printing firms…

http://www.rasmart.co.uk/

http://www.forestdigital.co.uk/

http://www.silkbureau.co.uk/

Tangled Hearts

franhatt — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:22:01 +0000

Give Blood or Tangled Hearts

I had this idea a while back but have only just got around to creating the pattern. I was thinking about hearts and attachments… the people I loved and the people they loved who I might not even know, I had a picture in my head of a tangle of love connections. Initially I thought about the tubes turning into hooks and hooking onto other hearts sometimes, because the people you love don’t always love you back but then I thought this could be represented by the colours – the red turning to blue as an indication of the direction of love flowing like deoxegenated blood flowing into the heart and red oxegenated blood flowing out of it.

Allotment life

franhatt — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:06:31 +0000

I’ve been hanging about on my local allotment, drawing, photographing bits and pieces. I’ve worked up a few of the sketches to these illustrator drawings, with a view to either making a story book or a short animation. I’d like to animate it, but I do need to get a good story together first… anyone got any ideas?

pointing at a scarecrow

scarecrow in the gap

filling the bucket from the tap

black birds and piracanthus

franhatt — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 14:53:56 +0000

Black birds gobbling berries

They are being careless today, dropping berries because there are so many to be had. I love the way they vanish from their beaks, now-you-see-it now-you-don’t little flashes of orange. The black birds are the greediest and cheekiest. Wolf them down they do.

cherubs

franhatt — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:36:56 +0000

I was thinking, after looking at some other surface pattern designers(http://www.ofpaperandthread.blogspot.com/
http://www.umbrellaprints.com.au/
http://olivemanna.com/55-stationery
http://printpattern.blogspot.com/2007/11/designer-rachel-cave.html) that perhaps the patterns need to be a bit simpler… not so much detail. So this is the latest, cherubs against a starry sky. I was inspired by a church visited in Lithuania.

celestial cherubs

I just tried another colour combination, wasn’t convinced by the last one, although I think it would look much nicer printed than it does on screen.

new colours

church… can’t remember the name. will try and find out.

more patterns

franhatt — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 12:02:37 +0000

The cherry blossom over water pattern is being printed onto wrapping paper tomorrow – very exciting! I’ve added some coy carp to give it a focus and something cute. I have three other patterns now that I think are also ready for print if these ones go well. The canary pattern is quite appropriate to Norwich, being our football team. The others are quite a random collection of images, which you don’t really see until closer inspection…

blossom with fish

all things pink for not so little girls

fresh colours and high heels

Tribute to Norwich's football team the canaries

Patterns

franhatt — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 01:01:10 +0000

cherry blossom over water

One nice thing about not having any paid work right now… I get to finish off all the projects I started and didn’t finish. I would really like to get some of my patterns printed onto fabric or wallpaper and into shops.

The other thing I’ve been meaning to do for a while – get my films onto my tango website: http://www.metrotango.co.uk/gallery.html