Mid Century Modern Chairs Pattern
Mid Century Modern Chairs
The Original Design
This design was inspired when I bought three old chairs in a YMCA charity shop. I love how the angle of the back is the same as the legs, making a beautiful refined silhouette. Only days later I was knocked off my bicycle and my shoulder was smashed into 16 pieces. I didn’t know it at the time, but I had to wait a year for a titanium implant to fix it.
So, just out of hospital, on a heavy dose of morphine, I shot one of the wooden chairs on a table, taking shots about every thirty degrees. The original thought was to choose one of these shots to repeat for the wallpaper, but I liked the chair at all the different angles, so decided to combine all the shots together. I originally titled them as Danish Chairs, but they may possibly be Ercol or a similar company, as the mid-century modern chair design was very popular in the 1960s.
New Lockdown 2020-21 Version
This is the new lockdown version. I decided to re-originate everything, as I wasn’t keen on how the grain of the wood showed through all the colours. I decided to paint one of the chairs a Farrow & Ball teal colour called Oval Room Blue. I could then recolour all of the images later in Photoshop and Illustrator.
Taking the Photographs
The new version has a series of eight shots that make up the sequence. As before I kept the camera and lights the same, just rotated the chair to the appropriate angles.
Working On The Photographs in Illustrator
Once all the photos were taken I needed to convert them into individual illustrations. Tracing each of them in Illustrator restricting to around 6 colours. I then tidied up the paths to make them cleaner and removing the smaller paths. I then chose a limit of 4 colours that each image could use. Altering the highlights, midtones and low lights to keep to the four colours. Finally I converted the four colours to shades of the same colour. I could then alter each set of images by changing the main colour. Meaning that all the other shades would alter too.
Colouring the Elements
I have shown here both the original chair colour alongside others where I have recoloured the chairs in shades of grey. For the backgrounds I selected just 12 from my usual palette of 49+.
Buying My Designs
Products featuring my pattern designs are available to buy from my shops hosted by Spoonflower and Contrado. As well as fabrics by the metre, they can produce my designs in a range of home decor items including; tablecloths, bedding, cushions, wallpaper, cushions and wrapping paper / gift wrap.
