Help completing sheridan style pattern

[jstern]

Hey,

I have the interior layout done for a sheridan style tooling pattern I'm working on, but am having trouble doing the exterior fill- mostly on the bottom left corner, where I have a lot of empty space I'm not sure how to fill up. I've lightly sketched in some thoughts for the other areas- mostly scrolls and some other vines. This is my first real large sheridan style pattern, so I'm stil trying to figure it out.

Any advice?

[chuck123wapati]

I haven't done a lot of Sheridan style, but I did read the book, lol. Found it on ebay about 6 months back. The book says start with your circles and lay them out, then add the flowers inside, they take up most of the circle. then add the leaves and stumps and such using the circles as reference for your flow of the pattern. What I see in  the book is very little negative space between the circles. Sheridan is a very busy looking type of pattern with everything close, touching and overlapping. So you need to enlarge your circles and flowers to fill up that negative space, then your problem will disappear.

If it were me, I would make my flowers larger, relocate them so they fill the area a bit more randomly, they are three rows all in a straight line so kind of boring layout. Cut some circles out of paper and use them to lay out your pattern first, move them around to get a good, interesting pattern, then go for the flowers, and then lay in your leaves and such.

Hope that helps a bit.

[Tim Schroeder]

Staggering the circles definitely helps. Make them as big as possible to limit the fill. 

[YinTx]

@Tim Schroeder,

Your art is fantastic.  Do you or have you ever considered selling patterns?

[Tim Schroeder]

Thanks @YinTx Never sold any but have given a few away. If anybody wanted something I already have I would be happy to share with them. If somebody needed a certain size pattern to fit something I would help them no problem. I would just be glad someone thought my pattern was good enough to use. I always have an issue somewhere in the pattern I don't like. I am getting ready to make my wife a new purse and I have redone the drawing a couple of times. Working on a wallet pattern as well for myself. They are finished but I need to go have them mirror imaged. You can see in some of those drawings I draw one side and then get a mirror image and put them together. On a tote bag or purse, anything with two opposite sides I will mirror image the whole pattern and one side is a mirror image of the other side. My 20 yr old printer can shrink and enlarge but no mirror image. 

I did notice just now I failed to mirror image the basket weave. The cats love these things. 

Edited Thursday at 12:19 PM by Tim Schroeder

[FrankHester]

Fantastic work!

[jstern]

Hey guys, 
I apologize for the delay on this, I had to shelve this project for a bit and do other stuff. I started a new pattern, taking into account all of the advice I was given. It's not finished yet, but I am more pleased with this one so far. Still have a bit more to fill in and clean up though.
 

[Tim Schroeder]

That’s looking good.

[maxdaddy]

Those are beautiful. Wow.

[YinTx]

16 hours ago, Tim Schroeder said:

I did notice just now I failed to mirror image the basket weave. The cats love these things. 

 

Something the artist only notices.  All the rest of the cats just appreciate the fine work!  If you printer is connected to your pc, and you can scan, often you can manipulate the scanned image.  Your artwork is great, I've seen lesser quality sold for good $$.  Don't be afraid to hang a shingle and put a price on it, a lot of us would be more than willing to spend some to save time.  I have things I've wanted to tool out, but get 10 hours into the drawing and then it sits for years and never gets tooled because I'm not happy with it.