I’m very excited to introduce to you the Crete Collection – new coastal pattern designs:

Art and motifs

My goal with this collection was to capture the feeling of late summer in Crete – I spent a few months revisiting my time on the island through my photographs, travel journals, and sketchbooks.

Surrounded by this visual world, I created colour swatches, textures, and multiple art studies across sketchbooks and paper. You can read more about my process in the post: Art Rituals and Designing the Crete Collection.

Creating the pattern designs

To decide what to actually turn into a pattern, I basically sat there one day with all of my artwork and my notes about Crete, and wrote out a list of patterns with little thumbnail sketches. I then figured out what art was needed for each design. For most of the designs, I created even more art – watercolour swirls, ink sketches, and sheets of rough texture.

And yes it took me a couple of hours to scan everything into my computer, and even longer to take the artwork into Photoshop and clean up the motifs and background textures.

To turn my art and motifs into seamless pattern designs took me about 4 weeks (working 3-4 hours each day) – this is what hand-made art looks like, slow and considered.

My favourite designs

The hero of this collection for me is Elafonissi – I just love this design, I have included all those elements that most feel like Crete to me. This design has actually been the main inspiration for the original artwork that is currently underway as part of the Crete collection. This design would look amazing on a flowing fabric.

Now I know I shouldn’t have favourites, but the other stand out design for me is Rethymno – I created this in two colourways. This coastal pattern design turned out better than what I had in my head, and it just feels so fresh and summery.

I don’t often create blenders but I had so many little elements in my sketchbooks that I knew would work as more subtle designs as part of this collection. And once again my favourite blender is Minoan – in the blue colourway. I mixed sand with paint to get some roughness and aged patina for the background – and the blue and white combination is just beautiful.

Coastal patterns ready for licensing

All of these coastal pattern designs together just capture Crete for me – the heat, aqua water, white sand, holiday relaxation, and the colourful Venetian towns.

The full Crete pattern design collection is now available on my online portfolio. If you are a brand looking for fresh, Euro summer vibes for your next collection please contact me to see the full portfolio.