Designing Textiles by Jo Brown

I recently launched my latest tea towel design, Lucky Cats. I thought I would share some of the original artwork and preparation that went into this design.
This is a design that I'd had on hold for a LOOOOOOOONNNNNNG time. I had originally intended to print it for myself via Spoonflower, and make a curtain out of it.

Inspiration: Lucky Cats. We have quite a few of them. Also real cats. We have two of those, and they are tuxedo cats (black -and white bibs and cuffs)
Colour scheme. I have a fabulous vintage blanket that I got at a carboot. It is black and red and turquoise, and I use it to cover our sofa. I have sort of styled our living room round those colours, so that's why I decided on the main colours of this design.

Original artwork.
I painted two rows of cats on a huge piece of card. I like elbow room. I kept coming back to it. I reworked it to look like our cats, but I didn't like it. It lay in my plan chest for a few years.
Eventually I came back to it last year, painted over a lot of it (the beauty of gouache is that you can do this - it is opaque, so if you are careful you can cover up multitudes.) I really got inspired when I started painting the pink and blue cats - the children's book illustrator influence in me.
Of course I painted too much. Too many cats. I knew the dimensions of the tea towel, but the artwork was twice the width, but not long enough. 
I scanned the whole artwork (not easy as it was huge, had to outsource this)

my hand painted artwork for Lucky Cats - you can see where I added in some card at the edge, and also the notes that I made myself

Design for Print.
I digitally cleaned up the artwork, (thank you Photoshop healing brush) repeated some cats at the top and bottom to make it fit the tea towel format. Still too wide.
 I couldn't decide which cats would make the cut- whichever way I divided it, one of my favourites wouldn't be seen. So I made two versions. I figured I'd decide which one I liked later for the reprint.
I also overlaid some hand written text on the image, so that the coins the cats are holding say Love You and Be Lucky etc, and added my website address to the bottom.
Then I sent the files to the printer.

The finished tea towel.
The Lucky Cats Tea towel(s) are in my shop now, alongside a Lucky Cats Cushion.
​Buy them here.
​Follow me on instagram to see more of my work in progress. @happytomato7

Jo Brown holding the finished artwork for Lucky Cats- The Teatowel!