Artist Andrea Butler shares a beautifully illustrated resource that shows how drawings can be used to develop a range of patterned papers and stitched textiles.

This project was shared with AccessArt as part of the 40 Artist Educator Project, funded by Arts Council England, aiming to highlight and celebrate artist-led teaching and facilitation.

Creating Decorative Designs From Birds: Mark Making, Texture and Pattern, by Andrea Butler

The work shown here was developed as part of a personal project I completed for my Embroidered Textiles degree. Birds and the idea of flight had been the starting point and I spent several sessions drawing bird exhibits at my local museum, which had a small taxidermy collection. I used this visual information to create a selection of patterned papers and these were interpreted in fabric and thread to provide me with textile designs to explore in the final artwork.

Some years later, a group of fashion students I was teaching were having difficulties understanding how to create decorative designs for clothing from drawings they had made on a museum visit. My bird drawings, papers and embroidered samples proved a useful teaching resource to illustrate one method of generating design ideas from initial research.

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