My newest design is called ‘The Reef’
This design was inspired by the view of coral reefs from the air – a myriad of turquoise shades and abstract shapes.
I’ve been lucky to fly over a few coral reefs and find the view so mesmerising – these are some of my photos I used as a reference:
I also wanted to include that feeling of hundreds of bubbles when you dive in to see the coral:
I went with the bright reef colours for my palette:
I decided to paint very abstract shapes:
I quite enjoyed painting these shapes and really loved the yellow centres.
After scanning them in though I realised the colours didn’t quite match my vision, so I used Photoshop to adjust the colours to a nice turquoise and blue and kept the bright yellow pop in the centre.
I love love LOVE using white dots on my artwork, and decided to add some interest (using the bubbles as inspiration) with white dots over some of the abstract shapes. I was really happy with how this turned out:
Finally I wanted a feeling of being underwater, so for the background I decided to use one of my ocean images which had a texture I quite liked. It took me awhile to adjust the image in Photoshop in order to get a seamless repeat but I eventually got there!
Here is ‘The Reef’ on my Spoonflower fabric and Redbubble mug:
And most exciting of all, my sister loved this design so much she had it printed on a new quilt cover by Spoonflower – how amazing does this look?
She says “I have a thing for bright, fun bedspreads which lift my mood, but have so much difficulty finding the right designs. Anna’s designs are all so enticing – the challenge was picking the right one! And I absolutely love it: the fabric is amazing quality and the Reef design is arresting and colorful. It makes me happy just looking at it!”
