Kitchen Counter Group

SURFACE DESIGN

The Kitchen Counter collection was inspired by an earlier illustration I did for a cookbook spread. The cookbook was put out by Northern Ohio Illustrators Society (NOIS) as promotional piece to promote member artwork and to boost new membership. See the full story HERE.

For a long time I wanted to see this illustration converted to patterns. It took some work pulling all the layers together that created the textures, canister, utensils, etc., and some items were stuck together. The counter texture and stripes had to be put into repeat. This illustration was not originally created to be made into motifs. Thirty-plus years of Photoshop experience really pays off sometimes.

These patterns are mainly tosses and half drops using either groupings or individual pieces, some one-way and some two-way. Some patterns feature the original dark blue utensils and some have copper utensils that mimic the plant pot and the canister lids.

The ivy repeated throughout was an illustrator brush I created for the original illustration. That vine was made into a trailing pattern with five coordinating color combinations. Three backgrounds are used in the collection: the original stripe, the counter texture, and a counter texture in gold with flecks of copper. Additional values of the counter texture are provided along with the gold version.

We’ll be redoing our kitchen soon and I’m thinking about white with navy cabinets. I might just have one of these patterns with the navy blue utensils made into wallpaper, at least for one wall. Or maybe the utensil outlines.