I designed a wallpaper recently for the Spoonflower competition based on the theme of postcards. I began by thinking about what I wanted to use the theme to convey and settled on the idea of the “Grand Tour,” of the 18th and 19th century. I wanted the imagery to not only be composed of the sites that people might have visited but to also think about the stamps and postage and other marks that give evidence to the travel and further context to the imagery.
With that in mind, I sketched out two groups of imagery: the sites and the stamps. I rendered the sites in pen and Prismacolor markers, as if they were sketches from the sites. To create the stamp images, I looked at some real examples that I found on some auction sites to get me started on the range of portraits and ornamentation and complexity of the stamp imagery, but let my self get creative with it, rather working directly from those examples.
I then scanned all of this in to create the layout and added distressing in Photoshop using different brushes to make it all look a little worn.
a sketch of a waterfall
the sphinx
