I always dread it when someone asks where I got my inspiration. I know, I know, it sounds strange—I mean, the question should be easy, right? After all, I designed it! I was there when I put pencil to paper for that first sketch. Yet for some reason, it is SO hard for me to articulate. I guess it’s because I get my inspiration from…everywhere!
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| Intermix by Erin McMorris |
Perhaps I’m just embarrassed to admit that many times an idea just pops into my head as I’m watching cat videos. But typically, collections are a snapshot of what was happening in my life: what vacations I drew inspiration from, what trend was interesting to me in the design world, or even what colors I was missing in my own stash. My new collection, Intermix, is one of my favorites so far is drawn from all of the above. Here’s how it started…
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| Intermix by Erin McMorris |
I was hiking in the Arizona mountains with my sister, and while she was probably feigning interest in my work, I explained to her that cacti and succulents are a big print trend in both home dec and fashion. That got me thinking. While enjoying the scenic view of the crazy-shaped cacti, I thought about doing an eclectic scenic leafy print that is more in line with the Pacific Northwest, where I live. Using different brushes and textures as well as solid line work, I drew Britta, where I tried to show the textural qualities of the plants, and making it as packed as a landscape would be. And then to co-ordinate, I decided to show those textured leaves and plants in rows of potted plants. My latest obsession is ceramics, and I’ve been making a ton of vessels for my own plants, so I thought it would be nice to make it more personal and draw the pots as some of the shapes I’ve been throwing on the wheel.
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| Intermix by Erin McMorris |
Finn is a slight homage to the Memphis Milano Group whose graphic style has made a return as a print trend (yay...hello 80’s!!) and is yet another reference to a pattern I’ve painted on my ceramics. No collection would be complete with some sort of dotted pattern, and Quimby is a raindrop allover is covered by the gridded dot. I love blending structured and organic patterns. Helix is a pattern which started out as a doodle probably while watching an aforementioned cat video (see, I wasn’t joking!). Because my doodles looked like crazy colorful crystals, I started thinking of geology and the hard and soft of natural elements, and decided to make a blender print of Granite. Granite is a marble-type pattern that I drew by hand, which took forever while binge-watching the entire mini-series “Making of a Murderer”on Netflix. It’s weird how some prints become cemented with whatever podcast, or tv show I was listening to at the time. The show is very bleak and takes place in Wisconsin and got me thinking about icy, stark contrasts and winter landscapes as I was drawing tiny gray lines. So I used a lot of black and white and some icy or earthy colors with my usual aqua/pink (to make me happy again). I’m always going to try and make a collection look happy regardless of my viewing preferences and think the quilt that I designed looks like shears of a springtime mountain cliff.
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| Intermix by Erin McMorris |
Which sort of brings us full circle!
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| Intermix by Erin McMorris |
So you can see that answering the “where do you get your inspiration from” question isn’t necessarily going to result in an exotic answer. It might just come from items I come across in my everyday life, a bleak TV mini-series or even a baby goat video!
Erin McMorris
Spring.Love these prints!
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