Transcripts
1. Intro: Some pattern decides to just stay popular for forever and even become classics, lasting for centuries, and they have that wow factor that makes them so special and decorative. But they can also seem to be really complex and difficult to create yourself. In this class, we're going to unveil the mysteries of the very popular and complex pattern design of the toile de jouy. It has been a classic pattern style since the 18th century, and still used for printing fabric and all kinds of products and surfaces like wallpaper for example. In class, you'll learn the story behind this pattern, how it's composed, and what characterizes it. Also with some fun exercises, you will learn how to draw an 18th century designer. I'll show you my process of how to plan and design at wall, how to create the motifs and to assemble them into a repeat pattern. At the end of the class, you will have all the knowledge and tools to create a toile de jouy pattern of your own. I'm Barbel at Bear Bell Productions and I'm a pattern designer and illustration artist from Stockholm. If you are up for a challenge and learning something new, no, I mean old. No, I mean classic, of course, then enroll in this class called Classic Pattern Design, Make a Toile De Jouy Pattern.
2. Welcome & Overview: Hi, and welcome to class. I am Barbell from Barbell Productions, and I'm a pattern designer and illustration artist from Stockholm, Sweden. For as long as I can remember, I've had this love for the 18th century, everything, the arts, the music, the architecture and the clothes. If it wouldn't be considered slightly insane to walk around in one of those white whop Rocha code dresses, I probably would. I've always wanted to be able to create patterns like they did back then. One of my favorite patterns styles is the one that's often referred to as the Toile de Jouy. A while ago, I started to study how to create these pattern designs, especially the Toile de Jouy, to learn how to make them myself, and now that I got the hang of it, I thought it would be nice to share what I have learned, and so I created this glass. I really hope that you will enjoy making a Toile de Jouy pattern too as much as I have. This class is an intermediate to advanced class, so you should be acquainted with Adobe Illustrator a bit or similar programs. Although I'm going to be quite thoroughly and step-by-step go about it, so if you are a beginner, you will probably keep up to in those sections. It's also good if you have some knowledge about pattern design, and how pattern repeats are constructed. You should also have some experience in drawing and illustrating if you want to make a traditional style, Toile de Jouy pattern. But if you feel that this is not your strong side, don't worry because we're going a do a bunch of exercises to drill you how to do the Toile de Jouy, the 18th century style. You don't have to make a traditional Toile, you can make a contemporary one too as you will learn in this class. However, if you want to practice your drawing and how to create illustrations, you can check out one of my other Skillshare classes called artistic illustrations, where I teach how to create illustrations with details, body, and texture by drawing from objects or pictures. But in this class, we're going to learn about the classic pattern design that is often referred to as Toile de Jouy. This is what we will cover and what you will learn. We will go through the definition and history behind this classic design and I want to give you a deeper knowledge of the pattern style and its characteristics before we start making our own, You will learn how to create your own Toile pattern with exercises where we will study and practice drawing in the Toile style. As your student project, you will make a Toile repeat on your own. For your project and to create your own Toile pattern, you're going to need some material too, first of all, you're going to need some kind of paper to draw your motifs on and you can use sketching paper. I also recommend you to get a paper in a larger scale, like a three or any equivalent. You're also going to need pencils for sketching and erasers and for filling in the contours, you can either use a fine liner like a unipin, for example, like I use a lot. But for that more authentic look, you want to have a more flexible pen like a brush pen with a very thin or small nib, but you can also go really authentic and get an old-fashioned pen that you dip in ink. You're also going to need a scanner. I think you could probably use a camera or your smartphone, and finally, you need a computer and Adobe Illustrator. A good tool also that I highly recommend is Wacom tablet, it's really smooth to work with when you're drawing fine lines if you have to add some lines, perhaps do your motifs. So if you are ready now, let's get started.
3. The history behind the pattern: Toile de Jouy, literally means cloth from Jouy, and Jouy refers to a small town just outside of Paris called Jouvy en Josas. This place has one of the biggest and most famous producers of printed cottons during the 18th and 19th century. Because it was the location of the famous Manufactur Oberkampf. But there were other manufacturers to that also produced printed cottons and fabrics. A toile from Nantes was called toile de Nantes. Then there was toile de Orange and toile de Normande. But today Toile de Jouy has become the representative term or a name for this specific type of pattern. Before we start looking at the pattern, we need to start with the fabric itself. The printed cottons. Printed cottons were first introduced to France and Europe in the 16th century with import from India. During this time, India was the largest producer of cotton textiles in the world. They had developed sophisticated processes and techniques for printing and painting fabrics that resulted in cloth that have beautifully detailed and brightfully colorful patterns, and with colors that didn't fade. Cotton textiles were also much more lightweight and easy to wash, unlike the silks and wool that was most commonly used in Europe until then. You can understand that printed cottons became a wild success in France and the rest of the Europe. It was used for everything like clothing and wall coverings, curtains and bit clothes. It became so popular and in demand that the French government became very concerned about the impact it would have on the domestic French manufacturers of silk and wool and other cloth. In 1686, all cotton was banned in France. It was forbidden to import, to produce and even to use and wear, with the threat of being arrested and imprisoned or fined. Despite this ban, there were still a lot of people that were more concerned about fashion than the penalties. The popularity and demand for printed cottons continued. In 1759, the ban was lifted as it proved to be impossible to enforce anyway. Up till now, the knowledge of the Indian printing techniques and processes for creating these dye fast colors have still been unknown to the French manufacturers. But at the same time as the ban was lifted, a manuscript was published revealing all the steps involved. Now the French manufacturers had everything they needed to start satisfying the demand for printed cotton in France. This also marked a start for a new golden era for the French cotton manufacturers. Among them was the Manufactur Obercampf in Jouy. The Indian manufacturers had been using block printing that involves carving the motifs and patterns in relief on a piece of wooden block, applying color to it and then pressing it to the cloth repeatedly to create a seamless pattern. This was an old printing technique that had also been used in Europe since the 14th century, but it hadn't evolved much in Europe since then. But now, when the manufacturers in France required the new Indian techniques and processes using mordants to help fixate the colors to the cloth. The European manufacturers started to develop the techniques even further and use them in new ways. For example, plate printing and plate printing was a printing technique that had been developed in Ireland and used there and in England for a number of years already. But now it was introduced to France. Plate printing involves copper plates to which the pattern is engraved, and then the color is rubbed into the etchings and pressed to the cloth in a printing press. This technique made it possible to create the refined lines and details and even effects of light and shade. This influenced the development of a new type of pattern that showed figures and landscapes instead of those floral and geometrical patterns. Yes, that's right. Now we can see the development of the classic pattern designs that we today call the Toile de Jouy. The Manufactur Oberkampf was one of the first to start using plate printing in 1770. Maybe that's the reason why this type of pattern is often called Toile de Jouy. He now commissioned the best artists to design this type of new popular patterns. One of the most famous designers of these patterns and that was employed by Oberkampf was called Jean-Baptiste Fourier. He was probably the one who shaped this genre the most. In the next segment, we're going to look at some different 12 styles and what shaped and influenced the toile designers and their work.
4. Influences and styles: Welcome back. In this segment we're going to take a closer look of the different styles of this pattern and also what influenced the Toile de Jouy. Beside the technique of the copper plate printing, there were other things that also shaped the design of the 12 patterns and motifs. With the block printing patterns, the pattern designs were mostly including stylized florals and geometric motifs. But now they were able to print much more complex and narrative motifs and patterns using current trends and depicting major events like a royal visit or the first balloon flight. Other popular motifs were of idyllic, romantic and pastoral scenes. All of these motifs were influenced by the popular arts of this period, which was [inaudible] , of course. For most part of the eighteenth-century, the French agriculture prospered and the living standards of the countryside increased. This industry, was also the major source of the wealth of the country. The art during this period often celebrated their rural life and countryside landscape. This style is called bucolic, including pastoral and romantic and idyllic motifs. In the second half of this century, it became fashion among the aristocrats to return to nature. Influenced by philosophers like Rousseau and artists and to all designers picked up on this trend, of course, and produced designs that featured characters like the farmer and his wife, a shepherd and shepherdess, a gardener or milkmaid. Then came the French Revolution, and this style of bucolic motifs were abandoned and changed into a much more strict and neoclassical style, inspired by the Roman and Greek arts and celebrating the new values in society. The designers didn't just have to be good artists and know about the current trends and tastes, they also have to have knowledge of the printing process itself and what would work using a copper plate. They had to consider both the possibilities that came, like, the fine details and the ability to create light and shade. It also enabled larger scale pattern repeats compared to block printing. They also had to adapt a work-around the shortcomings of the technique. For example, plate printing was best used with monochrome colors and also they had to consider the edges of the plate. They developed this typical style of separate pastoral scenes, and then filled in the spaces with trailing foliage and other elements that would connect the scenes together and create this flowing pattern and also hide and draw the eyes away from the marks that the edges of the copper plates made. In the next segment, we're going to take a look at the typical motifs and characteristics that were often included in a traditional Toile de Jouy.
5. Characteristics: Let's take a look at some different to all patterns and what characterizes them. To all patterns are narrative and figurative which means that they told stories and they were centered around a specific event or topic or a theme. Here are some examples. Love was a very popular theme depicting couples courting or cuddling in the grass, rural life and the countryside. Hunting and traditional games and festivities. Archaeology and especially artifacts from the Ancient Egypt were very popular as motifs. In the era of enlightenment, people and animals and plants from exotic places like Africa and China was very frequently used as inspiration. Other themes could be drawn from well-known and popular fables or poems and other literature. When creating their designs that to all designers often used well-known paintings as their source materials and inspiration and they actually copied freely from them and used as parts of the motifs for the different scenes that made up the patterns. First they sketched their designs with pencil on paper filling in with pen and ink wash before turning them over to the engravers. There are some reoccurring components that I want to point out and that we later on can use as inspiration when we create our to all patterns. To depict the landscape or countryside, trees and foliage, grass and other shrubbery were important elements. See how the designer used lines, curves, and hatching to create the tree crowns with both single leaves and larger gatherings or how they created the effect of depth with white areas where the sun hits it altered with areas of shadow by using hatching and crosshatching techniques. The landscapes are often crown with fluffy clouds. Its body is also created with curves in different thickness and density and making the darker shaded areas using only lines. Another element is buildings. It could be a small cottage, a shed, a stone wall or a bridge, or something that seem to be very popular and considered romantic, the ruin. Not to forget people and animals. Last but not least, we have flowers, branches, leaves, birds, and insects. These smaller motifs were important for those fillers, the trailing foliage that was used to draw the eye from the edges of the repeat and also to connect the scenes. Flowers and foliage frequently used for roses, vines, preonis, pansies, and carnations just to mention a few. Now to the layout. I have been mentioning scenes depicting different events and landscapes and situations a few times already. Usually, the number of motifs or scenes were between four or six at least what I have noticed. They could be arranged tightly in a dense layout with hardly no spaces in between or loosely floating across the fabric. They could be arranged in a seemingly random and asymmetric order, or in a clear grid using diagonal trailing branches with flowers and leaves to separate them. Another aspect of the layout is how the pattern repeat was arranged which was always in a half drop, never aligned right next to each other. The final characteristic aspect I want to mention is color. The traditional tool had one color printed in relief on a white or off-white background. The most frequently used colors were either black, gray, brown, red, purple, or blue. Now it's time to get practical and in the coming five segments, we'll study these typical motifs and objects closer through some exercises so that you can practice and learn how to draw the designers of the 18th century.
6. Exercise 1 Roses: In the first exercise, we're going to learn how to draw 18th century styled flowers. For this, I have picked out a couple of images that I thought we would mimic and get inspired by. Here is the first one. You can either stop the video now and practice drawing this one by looking on your screen, or you can download the PDF called exercises that I have posted in the project section. First, very loosely sketch the outlines of the rose petals. You can either try to copy it as exact as you can or just use it as inspiration and make your own version of this rose. But the point of this exercise is for you to study how the artist has placed the petals and the inner parts where the pedals are still quite closed and gathered and overlapping a lot. Then the ones that has ballooned a bit more and sticking out on the sides. Practice and do several flowers. You can do the same one over and over again a few times, and see if you can capture the perspective, and the lines and the shapes that create the shape of those curved petals and also observe that some petals are bent at the edges. So try to study those details that make this rose so characteristic. Now we're going to fill in those lines with ink and for that you can choose between different types of pens. Here's an ordinary fine liner. It's good to have a really thin one and one a bit thicker. Here is a 0.2 and a 0.8. I recommend you that you try them out before you start and to get a feel for how they will look, the thickness of the lines they create, and to be able to choose the right one for your illustration. Here is another type of ink pen. It's a Kuretake Brush Pen, which is more dynamic than a fine liner. The tip is a bit softer, so you can create both thin and thick lines with the same nib and vary these, depending on how hard you press. Next, I want to show you a new favorite of mine, a Dip ink pen. With this one, you can create really authentic looking illustrations. They have a metal nib with the split tip that also creates a dynamic line depending on how hard you press. But they take some more work with all that dipping and so they are more time-consuming. That's something to consider when you have a lot of filling in to do. So pick your pen and let's get started to fill in the contours you have made with the pencil. Go slow and try to make as clean lines as you can. Imagine that your illustration is going to be turned over to a copper plate etcher and it has to be easy to transfer your lines to that plate. When we're done with the contours, it's time to make those shades and details that will give the rose the right etching characteristic. The trick is to draw lines with your pencil that follows the shapes and curves of the petals. Like this one here is convex. It's curved this way. So I'll make some lines that can guide me later. Also, mark with the pencil, the areas that are of the darkest and you can even mark areas that are light, neat dark and darkest. This will also be helpful when we create the texture and impression of light and shade with ink. Then practice and make some parallel lines, both straight and curved, and see if you can create them as even as possible because now it's time for some serious hatching. Make those even and parallel lines with the guidance of your pencil marks for the direction and where to start, and begin. By that, I mean that you only make these lines where there is some kind of shade and leave the light areas untouched. It's easier to create the impression of shading in steps. The first layer is sort of the medium shade, and then we go in with a pen again or even use one a bit thicker to add more lines for the darkest bits and areas. This way, we will accomplish that impression of shape, and volume, and texture in the flower. So practice this a few times to really get the hang of it and making even unclear lines. Here's another motif to practice with some more flowers and leaves, and you could even draw the doves. So like before, make the outlines of the flower, or the object that you're drawing. Don't worry about being exact, or getting every little pedal or detail exactly right. That's not what this exercise is about, but to get to know the style and techniques behind them. So choose some petals and details that you'll use, and start with a bigger shapes first, and then add more and more details. Then start filling the outlines in. For this one, I used the Kuretake pen, just to show you the difference in the result between this and the fine liner. Start with only the contours. When you have all your contours filled in, go back with your pencil and mark the shaded and darker areas, and the direction of the shapes. Next, create depth and texture with fine even lines. If you use a pen like this Kuretake, try out the different effects you can make with changing the pressure of the tip. Here is how it came out, a bit different look compared to the fine liner. For the leaves, I tried to make really thin lines in the first layer and then added some thicker lines around the edges to create the impression of a curved leaf, and leaving out lines where they are overlapping and where the light hits them. Did you enjoy this exercise? If you did, I have another one for you in the next segment.
7. Exercise 2 Clouds: In this exercise, we're going to practice how to draw 18th century styled clouds. This is how the typical to wall clouds looked, rounded and fluffy, and some stylized darker areas made with lines. They would make their borders and shapes of the clouds by using rounded lines for the illuminated more defined parts, and straight horizontal lines for the more hazy and not so defined thinner parts. These horizontal lines were also used to create shades and darker areas inside the clouds, and also for marking if a cloud was in front or behind another. Now make some clouds of your own, by first using pencils, marking the outlines as with the roses. Then mark the shaded areas. Then filling those in with fine liner or the ink pen of your choice, and start defining them with varying short and longer horizontal lines. A tip is that, when you have tried copying or mimicking these images that I provided, then go outside or take pictures of some clouds outside of your window and see if you can use that as inspiration and create your own to wall clouds. See if you can really capture the shape of the cloud. Where it's more hazy and not so defined, you use lines to define the contour of the clouds, and where it's illuminated, you will use more curved, small, cloudy lines. Then also find some shaded areas inside the cloud and mark that with those horizontal lines. Then when you feel ready, go to the next exercise.
8. Exercise 3 Trees & Foliage: The third exercise will be more of a challenge than the cloud exercise because we'll be making trees. For this, we'll practice by copying this tree or at least mimicking parts of it. First, let's draw the big shapes with the pencil, the tree trunk and some other major branches, then adding rough shapes for the foliage, and add more details, specific parts in the foliage, and define more branches and also erase. Some of that will be behind the chunks of foliage. Then add even more details. Drawing how you want the texture of the foliage to look. This motif has a tree with quite small, rounded leaves, but you can change it into other shapes if you want to. Now, that we have the outlines down in your pencil sketches we'll start filling them in with fine liner. Just make small marks and curves and hoops and just as you go, create a little varieties and irregularities in the shapes of the foliage. Some small branches or clusters are leaves sticking out, so that you will create a varied silhouette. When you feel that you have most of the foliage in place, start filling in the tree trunks and also the branches, and make sure that they are not crossing the foliage that is in front of the trees, so that the branches of the trees will appear to be inside the foliage. Then we're going to add some darker areas and shades into the tree's crown and foliage and the branches. One way to do this, is to mimic the illustration. To make these parallel lines were using hatching. You can make different impressions of the shades to a lighter shade, can have more space in between the lines and also have finer lines than a darker one. The tree trunk has a shaded side too. To create that rough texture of bark, use thicker lines in some places, alternating with thinner lines and even leaving areas untouched. Where the branches and trunk is closer to the foliage, they are darker. Just keep working on it and add more details and leaves as you see fit, but be careful not to over do it to clutter your illustration. This motif has a tree with quite small, rounded leaves, but you can change it into other shapes if you want to. Like, maple shape leaves would be something like this, and oak leaves something like this perhaps. I also have a second image that you can practice with just to try out different ways to make leaves, and shade, and branches and trunks. This is the illustration that I made based on that image. This tree has star-shaped leaves instead. I guess that could also be flowers. I started out making some clusters of these flowers and leaves, and then adding more layers behind them. That's actually a great trick to attack this task. Start with leaves and areas that are in front, and then add the layers behind. Another nice trick is to add small and faint details like this, just outside of the tree crown. Just little curved marks. That will appear to be part of the tree crown that is further in the back. One last piece of advice when it comes to illustrating trees. That is to try to keep the illustration as clear as you can. Just use enough lines and marks to create the shapes and layers of leaves that you need, because I often overdo my illustrations myself. Less is more here really. For the next exercise, we're going to practice drawing buildings of different kinds.
9. Exercise 4 Buildings: For this exercise, we're going to practice how to draw buildings or constructions. For this, I have picked out three images for you to look at and try to mimic. The first one is this bridge, and then we have two images of ruins because they were just very frequently used in a Rococo inspired Toile de Jouy pattern. I have already made the pencil sketches of all three, so let's take a closer look at them. For this bridge, I created some texture by just adding some lines to represent the stones and rocks. For this first ruin, by the way, from the same pattern as the bridge, I've made some rough lines to create the vault, and the pillars, and also lines for the shadows. But I excluded some details from the original drawing to simplify it a bit. For the third illustration, I've used the pillars and temple remains to the left, and then just made up the backdrop inspired by bits and pieces of the original. I'm going to start to fill in those contours with my fine liner right away. I'm starting off with a couple of defining shapes of the bridge and now adding the stones to frame the arch, which will be an important element to create that characteristic look. Then, I add some more details creating the impression that it's an old and rustic bridge. Finally, I'm adding some lines for the shadow underneath the bridge. Now over to the first ruin that perhaps could be a ruin of an old monastery or a church or something. I'm filling in the contours first using my pencil sketch as a guide. Then, making some representative marks for the tile stone over here, and the rough texture of the stones in the arch border and some more shadow. Then, I'll make these long lines to mimic the way that the artist has created the shadow inside the dome. Then, I'll add some final details in the ground and some shading lines and continue step-by-step, add more details to create texture and shade. For the last piece, the old temple or something, I'm going to start with the top of the pillars. For the pillars themselves, it could actually be great to use a ruler to create really straight lines. I'm guessing that the 18th century designers did that. There is a lot of details in the original and it is going to be almost impossible to copy that 100 percent. So just pick out the most important elements, and shapes, and lines and use those. Now, I'm going to improve the shades of the pillars, and I think I'll use that ruler now to create really perfect grid for the shadow on the side. Just trying to copy the way that artists did. Now you have some suggestions on how to draw stone constructions using lines and hatching to create that copper etching look that we want. In the next exercise, we're going to practice something quite difficult in my opinion, but that's also a lot of fun. I'll see you there.
10. Exercise 5 People: People can be really difficult to draw sometimes to get the right proportions and features. For our 12 day challenge lies in how to depict the characters with sparse mount of lines and dots, and also how to get the folds and wrinkles in the clothes to look realistic. Here's a little flower lady or something that I have made using this motif as an inspiration. This will also be one of the images for this exercise. The second image that we will use is not going to be of an illustration or drawing, but a Rococo painting. We're going to try to capture the essence of these two love birds, just like an 18th-century designer. But as with the ruins exercise, it's not going to be possible to mimic or copy every little detail from the painting or the illustration. We just have to find the most important features, the most characteristic lines and shapes to start building the drawing. When you have found the right to guiding lines with your pencil, start with the pen or fine liner and carefully fill in the features. Here, is the face. It's important to capture the right expression, and an advice is to use only small dots and lines for this, and get the outlines of the limbs, the position of the body right, and then you are well on your way. Here's a little flower basket, very important Rococo ingredient. This is also a great way to be able to add more details to a drawing without ruining a facial expression. The clothes are tricky. See if you can find a neat way to get the shadows of the wrinkles in the skirt to look real. I think I'll stop here and go with a less is more kind of love couple. Now on to the flower girl, starting with her face, just to get that one out of the way. Then the hat, that's easier and it has some flowers. The secret key to make something look Rococo is to add flowers, another trick for you. Here are some rough outlines of some characters. Now I'll work some more on them, go in and add more details for shades and light and create that body and shape to them. A great trick is to add some small areas where the shadow is completely black. That will make the illustrations come alive more. Add now some more texture to the little lady too. One of my biggest challenges is to get the clothes right, so I picked another motif so we can practice this some more. Also see how it can be done in a very effective way. Here's an illustration I've made trying to mimic this painting and illustration. Here we can see how the artist has translated their wrinkles in the skirt and the sleeves from the painting to the illustration. See how the wrinkles are made up with irregular black shapes, and then he's shaded the rest with narrow thin lines, leaving some areas untouched where the light hits. This is quite effective and striking, I think. For the sleeves, the same principle goes as with the skirt, but here the fabric is brighter, so the wrinkles are not made completely black but shaded using lines. When it comes to drawing people just keep practicing and trying and eventually, you'll find the techniques and ways to capture those important details. Now we've taken a deep dive into the traditional Rococo-inspired work. This is going to be useful when you start creating your own work. But before we go there, I want to inspire you further and give you some ideas on ways to create artwork. That's what the next section is about.
11. Contemporary Toile: As lovely and beautiful as the traditional tools are, an important factor is that they depicted motifs and stories that was a la mode then. The use of current trends of the time in the patterns, were one of the reasons why it became so popular. Today romance and nostalgia is just a genre, a taste that appeals to some people, but not all, far from it. Why not do as the 18th century fabric manufacturers and designers did, to embrace the current techniques and possibilities and trends and use them in a new way? What I mean is that you can use the style of the tool pattern to depict trends, happenings and events and other things that happens in today's society. With digital printing, anything is possible. We can also experiment with colors and color combinations that are trendy today. When it comes to finding themes and motifs for your tool pattern, there is just a massive pool of inspiration today, with Pinterest, museums, magazines and you can find things everywhere nowadays. Instead of creating an 18th century style tool, you can make a modern one choosing whatever theme that you find interesting or important or representative of today, as long as it's decorative and fills that purpose for the specific product. Next, it's time to start planning our own tool patterns. I'll meet you for that in the next segment.
12. Planning your Toile pattern: Welcome back, and now it's time to plan that wall patterns. This is the process that I have used. First of all, what kind of doll to you on do you create a traditional Rococo inspire one or contemporary? When you have decided that, do some brainstorming to get a bunch of ideas of different themes or stories or phenomena that you want to depict. It can be complex, using a whole story or event, or simpler by just depicting phenomena or objects from say, nature. Jot down all the ideas that comes to mind. Then when you have at least 15-20 ideas, circle the top five that you find most inspiring and at the same time as you do this, see if you can picture in your mind, what types of motifs that could be a part of the theme and help to tell the story. Here are some ideas to get you going and show you how I think. A theme could be garden life, and items used when working in the garden could be part of the motifs. This could be made both Rococo or contemporary style. Another theme could be picked from a TV show, like the Game of Thrones. That will be a great one I think, depicting the different families and their family weapons and other attributes like buildings, castles, and landmarks. Another theme could be a place where you have traveled. Another theme could be surrounding a story or a fable. For example, you could depict the whole story of Hansel and Gretel, or Snow White, or it could be Frost speaking of contemporary trends. But then you would have to do with your own style and not use the Disney characters. Another very contemporary theme could be commuting and then the motifs would be elements like roads, bridges, cars, and trains, it could be quite decorative I think. Before you decide on the theme, also consider what type of product you want this pattern to be suitable for. Is it going to be printed on fabric and used for clothes or home decor like upholstery or bedding, wallpaper, home textiles, etc. Because the theme has to be decorative and purposeful for the product in mind. Then when you have given this a thought and decided what surface and type of product, you decide for one theme that you are going to use in your pattern. My theme is going to be about one of my favorite places I have been to. A couple of years ago, me and my husband went to Scotland for a week driving through the country and need I say that we saw some beautiful landscape, a lot of ruins and old buildings. So my theme is going to be Scotland and the impression it made on me. I'll use motifs that shows part of that journey and things that are representing the landscape and country to me. I'm imagining that this pattern would be for wallpaper and also home textiles like bedspread, throw pill, napkins, upholstery. We'll see how it will work for those products. Next, it's time to list some motifs within this theme, or imagine the different scenes that you want to create. Again, jot down a bunch of objects and happenings or places that could be a part of, as I said, the scenes in the pattern. Like I did for this towel that I made a while ago, I wanted to create a pattern that circled around the theme of winter magic, which was the theme for a pattern collection I was working on. It was all about things I did or saw during my childhood that made winter so magic like fresh snow glistening on branches and trees and houses, sightings of majestic animals, ice skating. So I thought about some scenes that would convey these impressions and feelings of magic. I listed over 20 suggestions and then narrowed them down to about five. So do that as well, right down a list of motifs or a composed scenes that will help and support conveying your theme and narrow them down to 4-6 motifs, and also describe the scenes and what they will include and depict in a couple of sentences. Try to envision what you want it to look like. Here is my list of scenes. The first one, the foggy view from the beach of Loch Lomond, trees hanging out over the water with roots and small rocks at their feet and you can only just sense the land on the other side. A few birds might be flying low over the water surface. The second one, the rolling Munros and glens of Glen Coe, a piece of calm landscape, clouds in the sky. The third scene, an old ruin by a lake. The fourth scene, an old stone bridge above a typical Scottish Creek flowing over the rocks with a fence on the side of the bridge and some trees and bushes and perhaps a boy or a man trying to catch a fish. The fifth scene I have listed old buildings and closest in Edinburgh, sandstone houses would nooks and crannies, cobble stone people in 18th century clothing. For fillers, I will create some flower motifs and other plants included thistles, heather, oakleaves, acorns, and branches. Now onto gathering source materials. As the 18th century, 12 designers we're going to also turn to the arts. If you've decided to do a traditional Rococo style towel see what different paintings from this area that you can find that contains elements from the theme and motifs you have chosen. Begin with Google and Pinterest and see what you can find. You can also visit a library or a bookstore and see what they have on these subjects. Visit museums and if it's allowed, take pictures of paintings and details that inspires you and that you can use in your motifs. If your theme is surrounding nature, go outside and take pictures of trees and clouds and bushes or visit a flower shop and ask if you can take pictures of roses, carnations and other flowers that you need. If you live nearby any picturesque, landmark or in a beautiful landscape, take pictures and just use that as your resource. The same goes for contemporary pattern. Find your source materials in all kinds of different places. Let's go ahead and gather some materials and images and meet up once that's done. Now that we have a bunch of images to inspire us and helped to create our motifs, we're going to create an inspiration board. To do that, open Adobe Illustrator and a new document. I prefer working with a large art work for this as we're going to need a lot of space to map out our different motifs. So I'm choosing an A_3 sized art board. Then pull all those images that you have gathered from different sources or created yourself into the document. Also include the scene descriptions, just put it to the side like this, or something, and then see if you can group your images into the different scenes, because that's going to make it easier for you when you start composing your different scenes. The last part of the planning is to create a color palette. You can do that in many different ways. Just by pulling colors you like from the Color Guide, for example or if you have any favorite colors you want to use. For this one, I'll used inspiration board and the images I've gathered and see if I can find some nice colors there. So make a rectangle with the Rectangle tool and select it and pull it to the side and then press the Option Key to copy it once. Then press Command D to copy it a few times more, like 10 is about enough. Then let's start pulling colors using the eye dropper tool. Just look around and see what you can find like this purple or magenta color I like. I'm going to pick this one and I need some other light blue or dark gray and I also need brown and a yellow, it's fun to have two. I want to have some green, both a dark one and one that's a bit brighter and some Burgundy or dark red. If you feel like some of the colors are too saturated, you can go ahead and just play around with them a little bit and see if you can find a hue that's a bit more mute. To see what you can find then play around with it. Okay good. So now I think I have a nice set of colors that I can use for my really F pattern later on. But I also need at least one or preferably two neutral and off-white colors for the background. So you have a coupled to choose between. See if you can find a couple off-white colors too. Now it's time to get practical again and start creating our motifs and scene. So I'll see you in the next segment for that.
13. Creating the motifs: Now pick one of the scenes that you have listed, and look at the pictures on your inspiration board and the description of this scene, at natural eye to develop this some more by creating a mental illustration of all the motifs and the scene in your head, and Imagine what it would look like, where you will put what, and all the things that the scene will be including and the composition of the whole scene. Try to see all the details that you want to have in there. Then it's just time to start sketching and for this, I prefer a larger sized sketching paper or just ordinary printing paper. But since we're going to scan our motifs or scenes later on, make sure that you have a scanner that will fit the paper that you are sketching on. Otherwise you're going to have to scan them piece by piece and then put them together afterwards, and that's definitely doable, but it's a bit more of a hustle. If you have a smaller scanner just use a smaller paper as well. You can draw the parts of the scenes like the different motifs within it separately if you want to and later put them together, or you can draw the whole scene in one illustration and that's what I am going to do. I have discovered that sketching within a diamond shaped area on the paper will make it a lot easier to put the scenes together later on. Because if you fill the whole paper, the scene will be rectangles shaped and it's not going to create a good flow for the whole pattern. Try to make the different scenes in different shapes though, stay within this diamond shaped more or less, but you can vary this in some ways, making it more flat or narrow, just try to vary the different shapes of the scenes. We're going to be able to edit and add and remove things from each illustration from each scene later on. But for now start out with this diamond shaped and see how you can fill this. Try to avoid going all the way out to the edges and make this rectangle shaped scene. Just start sketching out your different motifs and the components that you want to include, like I want a tree over here and we have that little creek coming over here, and I'm just going to continue and mark out the different motifs and sketch out my scene. You go ahead and do the same, pick your motif and start sketching out your scene. Roughly mark the different motifs and components that you want to include, and then go further and further into the details until you feel that you have a good sketch that will help as guidelines when we start working with the ink. My sketch is coming along and I've made some trees, and creek, and crossing stone bridge, and a little guy over here fishing, and some other details like a fence then the tree line. Just continue with your scene, add more and more details and mark where you want it to be darker and shade it too. That will help you and guide you when you start creating that shading, and volume, and texture, with your fine later. I'm just going to absolutely final details, I'm trying to create some sort of backdrop over here. Then it's time for fineliner. I have jumped ahead to the finished illustration for this scene and as you see I've filled in the lines and shapes with a fine liner, and then added volume, and shading, and texture by using both hatching and crosshatching, and just making little marks and lines to create the impression of grass and water and stone. When you do this, remember not to overdo it, Imagine that this illustration will be turned over to a copper plate acture, and your work needs to be able to translate to the metal too. Now that you have finished your first scene, you can just go ahead and do the same thing with the rest of your planned scenes. Go back to your inspiration board and look at the images and see what elements you want to use and what you can draw from. When you're finished with all your scenes, also go ahead and draw your fillers and fill them in with fineliners too. Now I have all my motifs and fillers ready and I have to admit it that my scenes came out a little bit too complex perhaps a bit more than I have in vision. I have this one, the old bridge and the little creek, and the I have beautiful landscape of Glencoe, and this is actually my husband, I used an image of him looking out at the Glencoe, and then I dressed him in a kilt than a bonnet. Then I have an old ruined by a lake, and this is [inaudible] with a misty background of the mountains and some trees hanging out, and the roots, and some birds, all the things that I had planned, I actually included in this scene. Here is that town scene that I also had planned and somewhere in Edinburgh, and this one might not actually fit in with a pattern because it has a completely different setting and impression as the other ones that are landscape and nature, but we'll see it. I'm going to try and see if it will be a good compliment maybe to the other scenes, and so I needed some smaller motifs or scenes as well, so I got inspired by one of the images that I took from my journey in Scotland. Here is also one with their sheep and it's little lamb. This is also more of a filter or a small scene that I might be great to squeeze in between the others because the other ones are quite big. I also made some fillers, so here are some branches with oak leaves and acorns and of course Scotland needs its frizzles, so this is also a filler and we'll see if I can use them all or it will just have to be some of them. Now it's time to scan all of these illustrations.
14. Digitalizing your motifs: Welcome back, and now it's time to digitalize our scenes, our motifs. Go ahead and open your scanner. My interfaces in Swedish so bear with me. Of course you have to put one of your illustrations on the flatbed and your illustration appears. For the settings, we can keep black and white, that's fine for this because we don't have any colors to scan. The resolution I would set to at least 300 DPI. I think this is quite enough. The illustrations have a lot of details so this document when we import them into Illustrator, is going to be huge and save it to whatever folder you want to. This one, I will name Loch Lomond and then which one it is? JPEG is fine and you don't have to do any manual settings. Just go ahead and mark the area you want to scan, pulling your marker like that and press scan. That's really all you have to do when you scan each motif. Go ahead and do that, scan all your motifs and I will do the same and we'll meet up in a couple of minutes. Welcome back after all that scanning and now it's time to vectorize our illustrations, our scenes. Let's get started and open up Illustrator and create a new document. You can choose either size for your art board but I think a bigger size is probably quite suitable. For this first document that we're going to use we're going to make preparations for our motif. It's not going to be the document where we build our actual pattern so you don't even have to name it or anything. I'm going to set it to pixels anyway. One arc board is fine and horizontal layout is and CMYK color is okay. Great. Here is our document. Next step is to import your scans into Illustrator. Open up your folder where you saved all your scans, select them all and then just pull them like this into your art board or your Illustrator document. They're quite big and I'm going to rotate them at least to get them horizontal under the right alignment. I'm just going to move them a little bit. Deselect them and now we're going to start vectorizing each motif. I'm pulling the first one inside my art board and now we're going to use the live trace tool. It's this one if you don't know it already. Let's click it and this box comes up. We can just use the presets, like standard preset and we need to have black and white. We don't need color and then for this value here, let's just keep 128 and let's see what that will give us. Just click trace and let's see what happens. You might get a message box that will say that this tracing is going to take a long time and blah, blah, blah but just click "Okay." This is quite okay and as you see, when you vectorize your illustrations, the lines get much more dense so all the thin lines are getting a little bit thicker. I'm going to play around a little bit what this value here and see if I can create something that is not as much dense but still keeps all the details. See here, I want to have that grid-like. So I think this one is actually quite okay but let's see what happens if I take it up to a 150. My details became a little bit clearer but it also became darker in some places. Let's see if I can find a middle way, like a 136. I think that's better. I'm going to use a 136 for this particular illustration. We're going to do the same thing with all our illustrations and some of them might need another value. You just have to play around and see what's the most optimal value for each illustration. I'm going to keep this one. After you're satisfied with your trace, go to object and expand. Fad, they're in Swedish, and click "Okay." Now you have your illustration, it's vectorized. But what we do have is we have both black and white colors in this one and I want to remove all the whites because in a Talal you want the background to shine through. Double-click on the illustration because the illustration is now grouped. After expanded, it becomes grouped. I have to click on it twice and now I'm in isolation mode, two layers up. Now I can do what I want with every little line in this one. I'm going to select somewhere here in the white and then go to Mark, Same and Filing. Now I have selected every space in this illustration that is white and now I can just go ahead and delete it there. To get out of isolation mode, just double-click somewhere outside of the illustration. Now it's still grouped so all the little bits and pieces are together. What you can do, because all of these illustrations are so complex and so detailed, they become really heavy. One thing to reduce the weight of each illustration is to reduce the number of anchor points in this one. You want to keep the details as much as you can so it might not be possible to reduce the size of the illustration without damaging the motif but we can try and see what happens. But for this one, start with hiding your edges so that you won't see the blue edges and marks when the illustration is selected. For me on my Swedish interface and keyboard, I have to press "Option Command H" and I think for an English-one it might be just "Command H", but you have to check that out. My illustration is still selected but you can't see the marks, just the outline square. Now go to "Object" again and go down to something called Path and Simplify and this box comes up. You want to check in this box for preview so you can see what the results will be. Now the value here is 250 percent so I have reduced it by 50 percent and then it becomes really skewed like this. Yeah, it looks really cool but it's not really visually authentic looking image at this point so we have to make the simplification less. I'm going to take it all the way to just 99 percent and see what happens. Now that illustration looks like the original but as you can see, I have reduced the number of anchor points a lot and that's going to be valuable when we start working with our illustrations and putting them together in a pattern because the document won't be as sluggish. It will probably be a little bit sluggish anyway, depending on what kind of power machine of a computer you how. But let's see if I can reduce it further by going down to 98 percent and see what it looks like. Will my demonstration still look okay? I think it does, but I see that the grid here has diminished. I'm going to go back to 99 and see. A little bit better. What happens if I go back to a 100. Yeah, that's not much of a difference. I think I'm just going to go to 99 percent and then I have at least reduced it by 30,000 points or something like that. Just click "Okay" when you are done. Good. Now we have a prepared illustration and scene for our pattern and I'm just going to put it to the side and pick the next one. I'm going to do the fillers lost so I'm just going to put that to the side and I can take this stag. I'm going to zoom in for a bit and my edges are still hidden. Then I can bring them back again by pressing "Option Command H". I'm going to just show you this one just to see if I can demonstrate how the different values will be for each illustration. I'm going to trace this one and see what happens. I'm keeping a 128 for this one. I think this one looks good as it is so I'm just going to keep that. Now I just have to do the same thing with this one. Double-click twice and now I'm into isolation mode because it was grouped twice. I don't know why it does that but it does that automatically when you use the live trace tool. I'm clicking on this white area. Go to Mark, Same, Filling and then I can just go ahead and press "Delete layer". Now I have my clean illustration and I'm going to double-click outside of the illustration and now I'm back into my art board. I'm going to see if I can reduce even this one too. I'm going to select it and press "Option Command H" to hide my edges because it's going to be easier for me to see when I produce. Go to object, path, simplify and it's already preset for 99 percent from my previous illustration. 99 percent looks good. Let's see if I can take it down further. It's going to be better for my document, and that's fine too. I think I'm just going to go with that one. So that was that. Now I'm going to go ahead and do this with all my illustrations. You just have to check the value and see what each illustration will look better at what value and when you are done, we're going to do some editing for each illustration too. Maybe there are some flaws that we want to adjust and maybe build each motif a little bit too. Go ahead and trace all your motifs and see you back here in a moment.
15. Editing: Now it's time for some editing, because you might have made some mistakes, or maybe you like me over did it, but I always do. Maybe you want to take away some elements, or maybe you want to straight in line. I'm going to look through all my illustrations. I'm gonna start with this one. Now I can just take a look at it and see if there are some things that I can polish. Think that, perhaps, all these little marks are not necessary at this point; so I'm going to double-click to get into that isolation mode where all my lines and elements in this illustration are separate, so mean a lot and see what you can find and take away all the bits and pieces that you don't want. Okay, so that's not something I'm going to do while you are watching. One thing I also told you to do is to create a motif that's within this diamond shaped box; so I've managed to do that quite good for this one; but it's still a bit collected. You might want to have some more drawn-outs elements inside of the scene, inside the motif. We can do that by cheating a little bit. Let's see. I can show you what I mean. Let's say, I want to extend this one. I want to make it longer; so I'm just going to select to this one here, copy and paste, and it ended up here. Let's see if I can grab it, there. Now, I can just add it to this part here and then I can reflect it. I can also scale it. Now, I can do whatever I want with it. If I group it also, I can double-click on it and get into isolation mode. Now, I can start removing the lines that I don't want to include in this extra piece. Pick away the stuff that's collides with the underneath motif or something like that. I think I'm just going to do that; so I extended the mountains in the back. Double-click to go back. Now, it's a part of your motif and its grouped already with it. This is something that you can do with a lot of elements. Like these stones here, I can copy this and just paste it to wherever I wanted and just improve the motif in any way I want. Perhaps, these trees can be something I can reuse; so what I'll do is, I'll create a copy by pulling it to the side and press Option, put it into isolation mode; and now I can just remove everything besides the tree that I want. I'll just choose the Eraser tool instead. I'm just go ahead and erase the stuff that I don't want; but this is how you can add to your motifs, to your scenes and build them even after you have drawn them and inked them. The composition and the placement of the motifs next to each other is also something that we're going to work on when we start assembling our motives into a pattern; but before we go there, take a look at all your motifs and polish them by using the Eraser tool, taking away things that you don't like, or if something is missing. For example, I have on this tag here, I think that I need to do something over here. I need to connect the neck like this. I just used the blob brush tool and made an additional line. I think that's going to make it look better. Also just polish it and see if there are some bits and pieces that you can just remove. You go ahead and do what you feel is best for your motif. When you have done your motifs, jump over to the next segment and we'll start assembling into a pattern.
16. Creating the repeat - part one: It's time to finally assemble our scenes into the Toile pattern repeat and here are my finished motifs that I have cleaned up and polished a little bit. I have made some adjustments to extend them in order to create some different shapes of my Toile scenes because that's going to make it easier to create a better flow in the pattern. I have also brought over some clouds that I have made earlier because I think they will be a great complimentary filler motif for the pattern and I'm not really sure that I will have some use for these ones here. They are pretty and everything but I think that they are just so different looking than the rest of my motifs and might just look odd together. Okay. Let's start and we'll begin with creating a new document in where we will create the pattern repeat. I'm going to choose a large sized art board, so I'll pick A-3 and we have to use pixels and a horizontal layout is fine. C-M-Y-K. I'm going to name my document right away -Scotland Toile - but that's for sure is going to change later on. Okay. Click 'Create.' Here is our new document. Now, go back to your working document where you will have all your motifs and select them all and press 'Command Copy' to copy them and go back to your new document and paste them by pressing 'Command V.' Now I will scale them down to make them more manageable to a quarter of the size, approximately. Now just move them over to the side and arrange them so that you have an easy overview of all your motifs when you start creating the pattern. As I mentioned before, a Toile pattern is most often created with a half drop repeat, so I will show you a couple of different ways to lay out your motifs. I'm going to start by showing you a loosely layouted pattern where there is a little bit more space between the different scenes. We're going to start with creating the repeat box boundaries, so to speak. Go to the 'rectangle tool' now and just click anywhere on your art board. We're going to do like 800 for width and 400 for height. Now I need to have a lighter background, so I'm going to pick one of these light grays. Don't worry about the colors for now. This is just for the layout so we're going to do some nice coloring later on and we also have to make sure that this one is in the far back. Now let's start placing our motifs. You want it to look seemingly random and not too symmetrical in a Toile, you don't reuse the motifs, not beyond that half drop that I mentioned. You don't use the same motif in the sense that you copy it, and may be reflect it, and scale it and use it over again. You just use it once in the same repeat. I'll have this one, like that. I'm just roughly placing them and then I want to arrange them a bit more loosely so that they are not too close to each other and we will see how this will work later on. Okay. Remember my box was 800 by 400, and now let's copy this one to make sure that it ends up in the exact same spot in this corner, so I'm right-clicking and select Transform and then move. Now we want to move this motif horizontally. We're just going to enter 0. We're not going to move it any pixel to the left or to the right. But vertically, we want to move it the same length as the box, the background box and that was 400 pixels, and then press 'Copy.' Here I have the mountains, the Glencoe motif, perfectly copied down to here, so these are the first two corners of my repeat. Now I want to select all the motifs that are overlapping this edge of the background box, so right-click, transform and move. Now I want to move it on the width of the background rectangle, horizontally, I want to move it 800 pixels, but vertically, I don't want to move it at all because I want it to be perfectly aligned with the left hand side, so here I'm going to enter 0 and then copy. Okay. Good. So now I have my four corners of the repeat box. Now I want to create the first part of the half drop and to do that, I'm going to select at least these motifs over here. This one, I don't need at this point. I want to move it half the way to the side and half the way down, that is going to create the half drop. So right-click, transform, and move. The width now is going to be 400 pixels, so half the width, and we're going to do half the height, and that is now going to be 200 pixels and copy. Now we have the first part of the half drop but I want to also fill this space here because that's going to make it easier for me to see how the pattern is coming along. Now I'm going to move it straight up, not to the side at all, so 0 pixels and upwards, I want to move it the whole height of the box, and that was 400 pixels. But now when I'm going to move it up instead of down, I have to enter a minus before the value and then press 'Copy.' Here I have, sort of, the first notion of the pattern and I can also move these around if the flow isn't right. But first I'll try to bring in some of the other motifs that I haven't used yet. It's nice to have different motifs in a variety of sizes that will also add to that flow. Imagine that you now have created a cluster of motifs that will be repeated throughout the pattern at the half drop. These motifs over here is that cluster and they are going to be repeated over and over again. This new motif also has to be repeated over here, for example. What I'll do is move this one, half the width which was 400 and since I want to move it up, it has to be minus and half the height, which is 200 and then copy and it will be perfectly placed. Let's see what else I can put in there. I really like this one, so I'm going to use this. Then I need to copy that one up to here. If you want to move a motif within this repeat box, you select all motifs that are the same and move them at the same time. Okay. Now it's time to test the pattern. First, I'm going to erase the motifs that are outside of the box, select the background rectangle and copy it by pressing 'Command C,' and then paste it and place it behind this rectangle by pressing 'Command B.' Then you will copy it to the back. Now the back rectangle is selected. Here, there is no stroke, and now you just need to make sure that it has no fill. Now select everything that touches the rectangle. I see that this one doesn't, but it's fine. It's not going to be any problem. When everything is selected, you pull it to your swatches panel and now let's create a new rectangle that we will fill with our pattern. Great. Now, if you spot areas that you feel are just too eye-catching and maybe disturbing the flow of the pattern, you go back to your art board and move them around a little bit, or you can scale some of the motifs, make them larger or smaller, or you can reflect it. But if you do a change to one of the motifs, you have to do the exact same to the others. I think the easiest way to do this and to make sure that everything is perfectly copied is to just begin with one of the motifs and then erase the rest of them and copy them back in place again. This was an example of a loosely layouted Toile pattern.
17. Creating the repeat - part two: Now I have cleared my art board again and arranged my motifs to the side, ready for a new version of a layout and this time, I'll show you a more tightly layout to our pattern. For this, I think I'm going to create a smaller repeat box background. I'll select the rectangle tool again. Last time, I had 800 for width and I think I'm going to go with 500 for width and for height, 300. Put it in the way back, and now I'll start to arrange my motifs again, but this time is going to be in a much more tightly fitted layout. Now see if you can fit the motifs together more of like a puzzle. I think I need to enlarge my box as well, it's going to be a bit too small. I'll select the box and up here I can see the width and the height. Let's bring it up to 310 instead, that's going to give me a bit more space for placing my motifs. All right. What else? I'll use this one over here, I think that's a great fit together. I'll scale him down a bit because it's good when the motifs, when the scenes have different, both shapes and size. So something like that. Now, I want to copy this one to the bottom left corner, just in the same manner as I did before. So now I can see that they are overlapping a bit over here. So something like that. Now to get a feel for the space I have left to move around with when I bring in more motifs, I'll copy this one to the right-hand border too. Now, I have my four repeat corners and let's create the first part of the half drop. Now I can see that these two are overlapping a bit too much, I think. I can either move or re-scale them, or both. I think I'm going to start with this one and just moving further into this motif. I will go in and erase some of these lines that are overlapping later on. Now, I need to move this one too, but I'll just erase it and copy this one in place. I moved it to the left and up. Now I want to bring up my motif cluster here and I will erase these ones too here I don't need those. Now I have to fill in those holes and I think I'm going to use my ruin by the lake. Now I just observed that I need to copy this one down to here. You really have to keep things in order and very methodically place every motif in all places where it should be copied. Did I miss anything else? No, I don't think so. Now, I have this hole here and for that, I think it will be great to use this stone wall if I just scale it down a bit. This will also give me not just different shapes of my motifs that I can also merge together, but also different sizes and that is the key to create a good harmony and flow into the pattern. Now let's copy these two. What I would also do for this pattern is to fill in the remaining holes using fillers and for that, I think the clouds are going to be perfect. For example, this one here I want to fill in a bit, and perhaps this one here. Now you can see that it's overlapping over here. The easiest way to adjust that is to double-click on the cloud. So now you have it an oscillation mode and all the bits and pieces of this cloud is now separate. Now I can grab the pieces that are overlapping and either just erase them or move them. Here I'll use the razor and then exit the isolation mode by double-clicking on the white area. That will be good, I think. I have now manipulated a couple of the motifs. As they are represented in several places, I now have to erase the motifs that are not adjusted. Let's see. I adjusted this one and this one and also this one. So these ones, I have to move into all the rest of the places. Now I'll select all of these and copy them into place. Now that's fixed again and I still have some adjustments to make like I think I need to move my motifs around a little bit perhaps and add some more fillers. You can spend some time with your layout, adjust it here and there to make sure that you feel you have a great overall harmony in your pattern. I'm going to go ahead and do that, and then I will show you another type of layout. Here is my third layout and this is more of a geometrical pattern in the way that it's layouted in a kind of grid. First, I created some garlands with my fizzles that I had drawn and just I use the two motifs that I had made and copied them and reuse them to make two garlands like this, and then I turn them into this square and made sure that they would fit together if I repeated them. They could fit together like this because then it's easier to have them repeated over the repeat box. I started placing them into a grid like this and making sure that all the things that were overlapping on this side and this side was copied and reflected in the same way on this side and this side. After I had the grid, I popped in my different motifs in a specific pattern and order that I wanted that I like to make a variation. I have like 1, 2, 3 different motifs in this direction and then I had three more motifs over here in the next section, like 1, 2, 3 and then I repeated them over and over in a third drop. Not really a half drop, but just to create some variation. Here is the result of the pattern, which I really like too. This is a rough pattern that I made with this type of layout. In a finished pattern design, I will probably make sure that the grid was perfect, and symmetrical. But this is just to show you another type of layout. Now you have three different layout versions to choose between. Next, we're going to give our patterns some color.
18. Color: In this segment, we're going to color our Toile. Let's start with bringing in the colors from our inspiration boards and copy them, and paste them into your Toile document. Now, I want to clean up the colors that I'm not going to use. These standard color swatches and patterns I don't want. Here are my three pattern swatches. Now I want to create a new color palette with my selected colors. Click on the Icon with that little folder, name it, and I'll just name mine Scotland and they will appear in my color swatch panel. Now, I can go ahead and delete these. One way to color your pattern is to, let's start with the background rectangle, so select that one and just choose one of the off-whites, and it can test both, see which one you'd like better. I think this one looks a bit more vintage. If you feel that it's too bright, you can just double-click here and adjust it a little bit, if you want it to be lighter. Select one of them motifs, which is black as they all are, and then go to select, same and fill in, and now I see that my clouds are actually in another color, so I have to go in and select them separately. Let's begin with choosing a color for the motifs now. I think I'm going to start off with this dark bluish-gray, and then I'll do the same with my clouds. Here, I have quite traditionally colored Toile de Jouy pattern, and I'm going to create a new pattern swatch with these ones. Now, let's use the Recolor tool to play around with the colors. I'll just create a new rectangle and fill it with my colored pattern. Now, go up to the Recolor tool and this box comes up, select the color group, and it randomly picks two colors within this color group and now, we can play around with it as much as we want, by clicking this one here and just see what comes up. Here's one with dark green, and this would definitely be a good color for Toile wallpaper, and this purple one is also quite fun. Here, I would just want to switch these two around. When you find color combinations that you like, you click Okay, and it will automatically be saved in your swatches panel, though now it's asking me if I wanted to save the changes to the color group Scotland, but I don't want to do that, so I'm just going to click No. Now, I have a magenta color Toile de Jouy. The way to color your Toile de Jouy and it's a bit more modern, and that is to have a colored background. Now, I have my motifs in that dark blue-gray, but now I want to change them into black again. Then I want to choose another color for my background, a more vivid color. I think I'm going to try this one. Now, we're going to use the off-white color to create a complimentary background behind all the lines of the motifs, to make the motifs more visible and pop from the background. One way we could do this is to go to object and path and create a border, but since our motifs are so complex and so detailed, it's going to be so slow. It's actually better to do this by hand, but it's going to be easier on the document and not make it so heavy. I have grouped all the motifs within one cluster and I think I got them all. Now, I'm going to go into isolation mode with them, and then I'll use the Blob Brush tool. Now, for every motif, I have to make an off-white area behind all the lines. We could make it very roughly and just draw just outside of the motifs like this and have everything filled in with white. That's not going to take as much time, but if you wanted to look as good as possible, you probably want to put some effort into this and be a little bit more detailed. Make sure you have an off-white color. I'm going to zoom in a bit more, and I'm just going to start and let you see what I'm doing, and then just jump ahead to the finished result. Now, I'm just creating this background behind all the lines. Here is what it looks like when I have painted beneath the outlines of each motif. The next step now is to copy it into all of the other places and into that half drop to make it appear everywhere in repeat box. Here is what it looks like eventually. I'm still into isolation mode and when I go back, this is what it looks like. Now, I have to bring my black motifs to the front, and to do that, I'll use the White Arrow tool and select something that is a black, and then go to Select and Same and Fill, and I'll go to object and put them on the top of everything. This is the result of a three-colored Toile, where we have the motifs still in [inaudible] and a colored background instead of just an off-white. Then the off-white is layered just beneath the contours of every motif. Now, you can go ahead and play with the background color, and see which one you like the most. Now, I have turned my black motifs into a gray shade instead. I also feel that the off-white background are a bit similar to this yellow one in brightness. I think I'm going to see if I can make this one a bit darker and create a better contrast between them too. Now, I can just go ahead and create a new color swatch for this one, and let's see what it looks like. Here is the finished pattern.
19. End note: We're coming to the end of this class and I hope you have really enjoyed learning more about Toile de Jouy patterns as I did. Now, I also hope that you have some knowledge and skills and know how to draw like an 18th century designer so that you can create your own Toile de Jouy patterns. I'm really, really curious about what you will create and what you will come up with. Your assignment now is to create a Toile de Jouy pattern yourself, and then, post it in the project section in this class. This is all I have to share this time. I hope you have really enjoyed this class. If you did, please give me a thumbs up or a review. I would really, really appreciate it, and also give me a comment in the discussion section if you have any question or even a request for a coming class, perhaps. If you want to check out more of my patterns and illustrations, you can go to my website and blog at bearbell dot se or follow me at bearbellproductions on Instagram. Bye, and until next time.
Bärbel Dressler, Pattern designer & history nerd
