'Rossetti' Trousers

I've had the picture that I've used for this, sat in my OneNote notebook for a while now, not knowing what I wanted to use it for. The picture is an ink drawing that I found on the Tate Gallery's website. It is by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and is titled Taurello's First Sight of Fortune.

The picture has five subjects (and the dog) but for this pair of trousers I have cut out three of the subjects, partly because they wouldn't have fit on the trousers and partly because that would have been a lot more sketching. So, the trousers only feature Taurello and the lady removing her glove. I have done my best to copy their faces accurately, but as I am not Rossetti, the faces are far from a perfect replica. The landscape behind is also not copied very faithfully, and is more or less completely invented in places to fill out the space.

For the picture I've drawn on the trousers I used Microsoft's FreshPaint programme because it gave more of a hand drawn feel than Serif Drawplus, the programme I normally use.

The trousers themselves are wide-legged and made of a parchment coloured linen. The image would be printed on them. The trousers would fasten by a zip at the side. The belt panel of the trousers has a bow and arrow motif embroidered on it, taken from the bow and arrow in the original picture.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Art' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Trousers Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Calligraphy' Swimwear

I wasn't sure what to call this - I felt a bikini implied something slightly more skimpy than this, but I didn't think it was a tankini either. In the end I just decided on swimwear. It is inspired by a piece of calligraphy by a calligrapher called Renate Fuhrmann which was done using wood tar on a black background. The letters look a sort of golden colour against it. The words were in German, but translate as something like 'I will be who I am.' I used some of the letters from the German words for this design. The top half uses half of an 'I' and a 'C' and the bottom half uses a 'W' The design is intended to be made out of a lightweight wetsuit neoprene, with the letters appliqued on. The top half would fasten with a zip at the back.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Art' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Swimsuit Design and Image © Bronzedale Designs

'Devon Moths' Waistcoat

I can't make up my mind about this design, I'm not sure whether I like it or not. I've walked away from the computer and come back to it a few times to try and see if I can decide, but I still can't, so in the end I decided to post it anyway, because I haven't got another design that I can post instead this week.

The inspiration behind it is from a leaflet I got a little while back for 'Devon Moths.' Small, very detailed sculptures of moths, made from fallen trees. They were such an unusual idea that they really caught my eye and so I decided to do a design based around them.

This design uses the colours of one of the moths and also loosely uses the moth's shape in the shapes of the coloured areas on the waistcoat. The waistcoat has a black collar and is fastened with a row of black covered buttons. There is embroidery in a rust colour, following the shapes of the orange areas.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Art' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special-occasion-wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Waistcoat Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Stained Glass' Swimsuit

After several disastrous attempts to design a bra inspired by stained glass I gave up and tried a swimsuit instead, and for some unknown reason that idea seemed to work when the bra so clearly hadn't. I have no idea why, but the bra I tried to design several times really did look awful. I have the sketches to prove it.

Anyway, here is the more successful swimsuit. The style is taken from a lovely 1930s swimsuit that I saw in a book a couple of years ago, but that one was yellow. This design has the top and bottom connected by a brown plastic ring which matches the edging on the swimming costume. The bottom half of the swimming costume is a little less revealing than the average modern day swimming costume, which, I personally think is quite nice.

The design is inspired by stained glass, and the piece that I was using as inspiration was pretty much impossible to do justice to. It is a triptych designed by Joaquim Mir called El Gorg Blau, and it is unbelievably stunning, with glass almost every colour of the rainbow. As such I've just taken some of the colours and shapes and used them in this design with deep brown lines outlining each shape in the way that stained glass is outlined. This is the result.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs Inspired by Art' project. For more designs check back here next week or visit my special occasion wear blog at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk 

Swimsuit Design and Image © Bronzedale Designs

'Hare Sculpture' Jumper

Following on slightly from last week and the theme of willow, the inspiration behind this jumper was a sculpture of a hare made from willow and wire by the artist Julieann Worrall Hood. The sculpture that this design is taken from is one of twelve willow hare sculptures, and the picture of them all together looks really amazing.

This jumper uses the leaping hare motif on the front. The hare on the front would be made out of wool, placed so as to make the shape of the hare and then zig-zag stitched over top of to keep it in place. Alternately, a simpler approach to creating it would be to embroider the hare on.

Detail of the hare

The rest of the jumper is a relatively simple. The jumper is navy to contrast with the rust colour of the hare. Ribbing is used around neckline and the hem. The cuffs are quite long and are also ribbed.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs inspired by Art' project. For more designs, check back here next week or visit my other blog, Bronzedale Bridal Designs at www.bronzedalebridaldesigns.blogspot.co.uk/

Jumper Design and Images © Bronzedale Designs

'Venetian Carnival Mask' Bolero

A quick google search of venetian carnival masks convinced me that this idea had enough scope for a design. In fact, there was enough to inspire an entire collection of designs, but as that has probably been done before, I decided to limit myself to one. It's worth google searching though, because there are so many beautiful and interesting designs. The huge range of different masks made it incredibly hard to decide what direction to take this design. In the end I based this bolero around a mask that was similar to the one in the sketch below. (Or at least reasonably similar, there's been a bit of artistic license in this sketch.)

This design features braiding around the main part of the bolero, with gold embroidery in swirling patterns all over. Originally I had this design in gold, so that it matched the mask it was based on a lot more. I tried this design in six different colours, (I have a whole OneNote page filled up with this design in different colours) but in the end narrowed it down to these two. Black with red braiding, and a very dark green with bronze braiding.

I hope you liked this design, it is part of my 'Designs inspired by Art' project. For more designs, check back here next week.

Bolero image and design and Venetian Carnival Mask Sketch Image © Bronzedale Designs

'Aschenputtel' Trousers

Arthur Rackham is probably one of my favourite artists. If you've never heard of him, he was an illustrator, born in 1867 and lots of his illustrations were for fairy stories or children's books. He did illustrations for Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, Alice in Wonderland and a Christmas Carol.

I drew this design after finding an Arthur Rackham illustration that I'd never seen before called Aschenputtel at the Ball. After a bit of research it turns out that Aschenputtel is a German variation of Cinderella and that the illustration was created for a book of fairy tales written by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1909.

Close up of the detail on the trousers

The design takes the detail on part of Aschenputtel's dress and uses the pattern on the trousers. The waist of the trousers has several folds of fabric gathered to a point, and copies the style of the off shoulder dress that Aschenputtel is wearing.

I wear these sort of trousers a lot as they are really comfy. The waist and ankles are elasticated, and they would be made of a light cotton. The design is quite simple, but it took me a surprising amount of time to draw them because of the intricate pattern on them.

Thank you for taking the time to look at this design. It is part of my 'Designs inspired by Art' Project. For my next design check back here next week.  

Trousers images and design © Bronzedale Designs