Inspiration from Nature: Stripes

My weaving goal this year is to learn more about design. That's a huge topic so I decided to qualify that goal by using nature for my design inspiration. I figure that gives me a lot of creative leeway as I explore color, texture, shapes, and patterns; and how to translate them into weaving.

To start, I chose stripes because stripes are basic and universal in the textile arts. I've been taking photographs of anything even vaguely stripe-like. What soon became obvious is that straight lines are rare in nature! Even so, I'm finding bands of color in sunrises and my landscape, which I'm counting as inspiration for stripes.

a few more

Maybe check out zebras both Plains with wide stripes and Grevy's narrow stripes with plain white belly, and wider striped neck.  They may be black and white in real life, but that isn't written in stone for a textile interpretation.  
The civet is another source of inspiration, grey and black - features stripes, spots, plain sections and black legs.
Looking forward to seeing your interpretations and inspiration sources.
Your photographs are a great start.

I JUST started weaving this past year. Love it. Hate it. But I do love it.  Is that normal?  Learning just how to work with the loom, a wooden frame I got on amazon early last year.  As well as different materials best for a beginner.  Have a new grandbaby that came last March & have been a bit busy with his cuteness overload. Getting back to a few hobbies I want to hone into more steady skillsets.  

I love how you are using Nature as inspiration, and even narrowing it down.  The pictures you posted are truly inspirational!  I look forward to any pics you may share with us.  --Tess

Jill, that's a great idea. I'm starting close to home with my photos, but there are so many other possibilities out there. You've got me thinking about regionally themed pieces, like a set of dishtowels inspired by different areas.

Tess Misch wrote:I JUST started weaving this past year. Love it. Hate it. But I do love it.  Is that normal?

Tess, LOL, yes! Very normal. Weaving offers so many creative possibilities, but the learning curve is endless as well.

Do feel free to post your projects and questions in some of our fiber arts forums. We have a lot of experienced weavers and fiber artists here. And maybe you'd be interested in taking a peek at Permies Textile PEP badge. I love the learning structure the badge offers, along with learning a variety of new skills.

Experiment #1.

Here's the photo I chose to experiment with, a sunset shot from my front yard.



The power lines kind of spoil the photo, but I could ignore them for this experiment.

Next I cropped a colorful stripy section of the photo to work with



Then in Gimp photo editor, I added a transparent layer on top of the image.



From there I used the "select" tool to make lengthwise boxes on the transparent layer, roughly the width of the color stripe on the photo.



Then it is was a matter of using the color picker to select a hue within the selection, and then using the fill tool to fill it in on the transparent layer.



Here's what I ended up with.



If I didn't know it was based on a sunset photo, I'd never have guessed. The width of the stripes was arbitrary, as was which color I selected with the color picker. I think it is about as random as I've ever done, and I wasn't even trying for random. For that matter, the colors seem anything but natural, don't they? But there they are, after sorting through a number of digital pixels.

Here's what it looks like when the stripes were repeated four times (2 across and 2 down).



And here's the pattern repeated 16 times (4 across and 4 down).



Repeating the original pic of stripes gives it a sense of balance, don't you think? And it creates a pattern.

Cropping a different section of the photo would give me different colors and a different set of stripes, as would using a different photo.

My previous methods of working with stripes was either evenly spaced, evenly balanced, or as a Fibonacci sequence. I'm pleased that this gives me another design option.  

Experiment #2.

Here's the photo I chose to play around with.



First, I cropped a small section of colors I liked.



From there, I followed the same procedure as experiment #1. Here are my stripes.



As a standalone design unit, I can't think of much to do with it, but my first idea was that the stripes have potential for a towel or throw rug, so I cropped the image more to a towel or throw rug shape.



Then I started experimenting by duplicating the image, flipping some of copies upside-down, and rearranging them.





I have to say that I really like these! I don't have enough shafts on my loom to weave either of the last two, but I could weave the units in a long strip, cut them apart, and sew them together in the above pattern. Either that or it would make a great pieced quilt project.

Leigh!  look what dropped into my in-box this a.m.
https://spinoffmagazine.com/spin-and-weave-a-sunset/
So, incomplete stripes, crammed warp for tree trunks, my fingers are itching to go.  😊

Jill, thank you! Makes me even more inspired. I hope you'll share what you do!

Experiment #4

For this one, I chose a photo with muted winter colors.



I started by adding guidelines, which helped me visualize the width and placement of the stripes.





Using the color picker, however, was pretty random, and I wasn't always satisfied that the solid color matched my impression from the original photo. So I enlarged it so I could see the individual pixels.



That really streamlined the process. Here's what I ended up with.



From there I made a copy, flipped it vertically and put the two together.



Another nice throw rug or hand towel!

Repeated it looks like a design for fabric.



The guidelines and magnified image worked really well.

Today, Mother Nature made use of stripes with many clous of gray alternating with white ... finally the sun came out and burned away the clouds.

We have a winter storm coming this weekend.

What a wonderful way to use mother natures stripes to design textiles.

Experiment #4

This experiment was prompted by a comment on my fiber blog, where I noted that the stripes I got from my photos were random until I made copies and put them together for a larger design. That larger design always had a pattern. Someone then challenged me to see if I could repeat those stripes in a random way.

Here's the image I started with, another sunrise.

Using the method I did for the other experiments, here are the stripes I ended up with

A set of random stripes from the original photo.

Then I made copies of the image in my photo editor, and tried to arrange them in a random way. Try as I might, everything I made had a pattern. I gave up. But after thinking about it for a while, I gave it another try and finally came up with this



I have to say, it was a lot of work to get a larger set of random stripes! But it was an interesting experiment and got me to thinking about how I'm envisioning permaculture weaving and what it means to take inspiration from nature. I don't have it all figured out yet, but I think it's going to be an interesting journey.