This is a story of how some sleep-deprived creative work turned into my dream to see my art on eco-friendly swim leggings!

A few months ago I was desperate for some creative ‘me time’ but felt so tired from weeks of sleep deprivation (courtesy of my young daughter).

The thought of trying to do some watercolour illustration was too overwhelming, so I turned to paper collage. I’d only ever played with paper collage once before, and that was to create my Bird of Paradiso design.

This time I had no purpose apart from to have fun! Paper collage is really fun and very easy to set up.

My collage materials were some pieces of printer paper that I had painted with different acrylic paints. I also had some scraps of marbled paper that I made ages ago using food colouring and shaving foam.

My only other tools were a pair of scissors, a glue stick, and some A4 pieces of card I had found very cheaply at Reverse Garbage Brisbane. I also used some Posca paint pens to add details.

What I really love about paper collage is that I just cut shapes very spontaneously, and by using the same colour palette I ended up with some cool collage.

As the shapes looked quite good together, I decided to scan them and play around in Photoshop to see if they would make a nice pattern.

And voila, Hokey Pokey was created!

I tried a few different colour combinations which proved very popular when I shared them on Instagram.

The blue colour version caught the eye of Amy from the fabulous brand Olasol, which is all about sustainable and fun sun-safe outfits.

This pattern has now been turned into amazing ‘wear them how you will leggings’. These versatile leggings can even be worn swimming, which I’m incredibly excited about as one of my big goals for this year was to see my art on sustainable swim leggings – woo!

These leggings tick so many boxes:

• made from recycled ocean plastics and bottles
• sunsmart UPF50+
• huge range of lengths and sizes including for kids
• handmade on the Sunshine Coast
• a range of fun and bright prints!

These leggings are available now from Olasol – I can’t wait to go for a splash in mine!

colour design process leggings patterns surface pattern design swim leggings