What on earth is Apricity? I didn’t know until last week when I went to see what Spoonflower wanted for the next fabric pattern design challenge. It’s an antiquated term to refer to the warmth of the sun in the winter. Actually quite lovely, no? So, as I sat nursing my 9 month old baby girl on a freezing October day, I observed the glorious afternoon sun warming a grid of sun spots on my bed. That immediately brought a picture into my mind of my childhood cat, Eddy, zonked out in sunny spots. And that was my lightbulb moment for this week’s challenge…
Process
First, I sketched out my vision…
Then I worked from window to window and added snoozing kitties. I used reference images for the cats to get the shapes right, and then I simplified the shadows and shapes. I had to imagine the light from the windows and how it would cast shadows on the cats and the floor. Here’s an example:
I played around with a few things that didn’t make the final version. I imagined one cat was in a window with blinds, but I thought it was too distracting overall. I started drawing a few mice playing in the shadows while the cats slept, but I ran out of time, so maybe I’ll upload that in a future version. I experimented with a few color ways, but ultimately like this golden yellow on dark blue the best.
Voting
If you’d like to vote for designs in this challenge, click the link below! Voting runs from Thursday to Tuesday at noon.
