These are the newly created patterns for the interactive children's ipad book I am illustrating. My mother, Jamie Stevens, is writing it.
The app is an educational dress up game. The focus is the the Japanese holiday Tanabata. Though the real reason you'll want this is because you get to dress up two adorable kitties in yukata!
I was lagging a little on making these patterns. But on tuesday, we started renting CS6! The pattern maker in Illustrator is fantastic. What would normally take me hours of trial and error was doable in minutes.
The aim of these patterns was to do a combination of traditional japanese textiles, summer colors, and of course, cat themes.
The backstory behing each one (from left to right)
- The Bamboo- One of the key parts of the tanabata festival is to hang tanzaku (wishes on strips of paper) on bamboo.
- The Catnip- Please disregard that I am technically covering a yukata with drug propaganda. I felt pressured to do a pattern with flowers. It turned out looking a lot more Edwardian than Japanese, though.
- Neoclassical Cat- I believe the idea for this came from a chinese robe. I can't remember exactly.
- Tortoise Paw- Tortoise shells are a common motif with Japanese mon. But the shape became octagonal. Also, a paw print is encapsulated in the centers.
- Milky Way- The milky way is an incredibly important part of the Tanabata legend! If you want to know the story, you'll have to buy the app when it comes out. I originally tried making the milky way actually look like the milky way. But that was pretty boring as a pattern. So it has been reduced to a heavenly river.
- Speeding Mice- These were supposed to be decked out in traditional embroidery. Instead, they turned into a homage to Osamu Tezuka?
- Wind Chimes- These just ring summer. Terrible pun intended.
- Corner Stripes- Deep down, this is probably an homage to Vivienne Westwood. I wanted to create the illusion of dynamic angles and a perfect cut, which is really inappropriate for a yukata.
- Shrubbery-These are oddly vintage Japanese.
- Balls of Yarn- Circles of color are common in kimono. I made them cat friendly.
