“Bohemian Wanderer” is my first assignment for Lilla Roger’s portfolio bootcamp. This is the first time I have joined her portfolio bootcamp and I have to admit I struggled a little hen I saw the assignment brief.

We were asked to go out and look for “patterns” around us, including manhole overs, tiles, fences, leaves, anything, and we have to use these pictures to create abstract patterns to use on a backpack.

I don’t do abstract illustrations at all so this assignment really pushed me out of my comfort zone. Now I live in central Edinburgh we have all kinds of things to see so I went around my neighbourhood looking for patterns and I also visited the Royal Botanic Gardens to look for patterns as well. In the end I decided to use things like snowdrops, a tiny flower shape sewing pattern from a cushion, patterns on a leaf, a leaf from my garden and from tiles from a charity store to help me create this work.

So I named this illustration/backpack/pattern collection “Bohemian Wanderer” because the colour and pattern has a bohemian style and fashion. Also because it involves “travel” I also used similar style patterns and the same colours to create a lot of things you might pack with you in your backpack when you travel. These include things like hand cream, a camera, a little zip bag for your change, a notebook, pen and socks. I love to bring these things with me when I travel and I guess probably many people will bring these things wit them when they travel?

Below are the backpack and other product illustrations I create and some of the patterns I designed for this project. I can’t wait to see what the next bootcamp assignment involves. So excited!